Pope "Just Following Orders" Benedict: Portrait of a Passive Nazi

[BurtWorm]

To forgive is divine.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pope-Ratzinger-Profile.html


Many blame Ratzinger for decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counseling pregnant teens on their options and blocking German Catholics from sharing communion with their Lutheran brethren at a joint gathering in 2003.

Ratzinger has clashed with prominent theologians at home, most notably the liberal Hans Kueng, who helped him get a teaching post at the University of Tuebingen in the 1960s. The cardinal later publicly criticized Kueng, whose license to teach theology was revoked by the Vatican in 1979.

He has also sparred openly in articles with fellow German Cardinal Walter Kasper, a moderate who has urged less centralized church governance and is considered a dark horse papal candidate.

''He has hurt many people and far overstepped his boundaries in Germany,'' said Christian Wiesner, spokesman for the pro-reform Wir Sind Kirche, or We Are Church movement.

[WilliamPitt]

1. I suppose this will get buried

but this guy was forced to join the Nazis at age 14. It wasn't voluntary. Not much was back then.

There are ten thousand other things wrong with this guy. Maybe flogging the Nazi thing isn't appropriate.

[BurtWorm]

2. He was 14? I thought he was younger.

I think his behavior as an adult suggests a pretty rigid adherence to his own compass. Perhaps he developed this rigidity in his post-adolescence.

[yvr girl]

5. He was younger when the war started

I think 14 was the age when you became (automatically) a part of the youth wing.

[TahitiNut]

3. "flogging ... isn't appropriate"??

Not according to Opus Deists who practice "discipline". Ratzinger/BenedictXVI supports corporal mortification and 'discpline' (whipping oneself with a knotted whip).

[FreedomAngel82]

4. That's just wrong

Who does this guy think he is? God? He's not the one to make judgements on who gets communion and who doesn't. That's why I'm not apart of a church like that because I'm the one who's to make the decision and God.