My friend Ethan said it best: Holy Shizzit, they elected Hitler Youth Cardinal Ratzinger to be Grand Inquisitor Pope Benedict XVI!
I guess I was naive thinking that this was an opportunity for the catholic church to begin to contemplate the implications of the 20th century. I can’t say I’m too disappointed – this will surely hasten The Vatican’s swirling ride down the toilet of history. Good riddance.
Oh come now… he wasn’t just in the Hitler Youth. He also guarded a BMW plant that used slave labour from Dachau (a point I just added to his Wikipedia entry).
And I honestly don’t care if they held a gun to his head for “compulsory” Hitler Youth service. The fact is that the Catholic Church has selected a former nazi to be their pope – one of the most symbolic figureheads in the world.
I think the message is loud and clear.
Don’t you think if this guy was a Nazi, that the last Pope, a Pole who suffered in a German labor camp, might have had some qualms about making him his right hand man?
Just a thought.
The Nazi stuff devalues your point tremendously. There is plenty to discuss about him without being ridiculous.
Don’t even get me started on his nasty comments against Buddhism…