Many people around the world are angry that Pope Ratzinger, the new leader of the Catholic Church, has declared that non-Christians are an inferior class of human being.
Now, I’m a non-Christian, so you might think that I’m angry too. I’m not.
You see, I do not belong to an organization that has fostered genocide in the name of God, collaborated with the Nazis, tortured and murdered millions of people for daring to disagree with church edicts, threatened scientists with death for telling the truth, imprisoned generations of women for not meeting the demands of its leadership, just last year organized a foreign intervention in an American election, and facilitated the sexual manipulation of thousands of little children in the United States alone.
So it is that when a man who does not just belong to such an organization, but leads that organization, a man who himself served as a soldier under Adolph Hitler, says that I am morally inferior to him because I choose not to join his religion, I am not concerned. Such a man can have no authority over me.
I think that Pope Ratzinger is wrong, but that doesn’t make me angry, because it’s okay with me if people call me an inferior human being. That’s their right, and it doesn’t bother me much — so long as those people do not try to impose their supremicist opinions on me.
So, I’m not angry at Pope Ratzinger’s comments. I’m angry that politicians like George W. Bush and Senator Bill Frist are trying to give religious supremacists the assistance of the United States government, and use taxpayer’s money to support acts of discrimination by religious supremacists.
Pope Ratzinger has no power over me. George W. Bush and Bill Frist have too much power over me. I place my anger, and the weight of my resistance, at the source of the direct threat.
Well said, Peregrin. I mostly agree. As long as they keep their beliefs off my body, out of my schools (I pay taxes to help the schools, they don’t–therefore they’re MINE) and out of my court system, they won’t be hurting any of my “inferior” feelings. But I do get angry. Because me, being a non-religious “heathen”, I would never judge someone based on their beliefs alone.
And why is it that in this PC generation where we have to walk on eggshells when referring to a person of color and lower our voices when referring to a homosexual for fear of unintentionally offending someone’s heritage or sexual orientation, the non-religious are expected to just take this kind of abuse?
And how is this kind of treatment going to attract people like me to convert? Not that if they were polite and nice to people of different religions I would even consider converting, but I would at least respect them. Somewhat.
Didn’t Ratzinger desert from the Nazis after he was drafted? How does that gibe with the rest of the story?
Well, we don’t have to walk on eggshells. However, there’s something to be said for not giving the Pope over us by treating him as someone special. To us, he’s not someone special. He’s not our leader, and I think there’s some power in just ingoring what he says.
Now then, when American Catholic extremists try to take over the government mechanisms for their sake, and when Republicans worm their way toward theocracy, I say we fight them tooth and nail. But that’s a practical fight and not just the Pope being an arrogant bigot as an individual.
I wasn’t aware of the desertion. I was aware of Ratzinger’s claim that he never fired a shot, but just went along with the service – just going along with service to the Nazis doesn’t impress me as a very moral positon, even if what he claims is true.
Have you got a good source on the desertion claim? I’d be happy to revise upon seeing a source. I’ll take a look around for one myself as well.
Here’s what I found: Ratzinger was enrolled as a member of Hitler Youth. He claims to have tried to recind his membership, but it’s not clear that there’s any evidence that he made this attempt. He remained a Nazi soldier from 1943 to 1944, erecting defenses against Allied invaders, and also as a Nazi guard within Germany. He claims to have deserted in 1944, and was held in an Allied prisoner of war camp. Odd, that. How could he have been held in an Allied prisoner of war camp if he had deserted. In any case, I’ll leave the bit about Nazi service in – it points out that Ratzinger has at least a questionable moral past, and isn’t really in a place to heap judgment on people for being inferior just for not joining up with the right religion.
At the time Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth, membership in Hitler Youth was mandatory (New York Times, April 20).
The interesting thing is that most of the higher-ups in Nazi Germany came from a catholic background and incorperated the indoctrination methods of that body into their own programs. The Cluniac idea, Give me the boy and in seven years I’ll give you the man. So, they got you from the start, and no, there was no exception. Even your parents jobs depended on how you did. And, if you were NOT a member, avoided membership, (some did, many regretted it, I’ve met some)you were a non-person. Morally inferior. In fact, not even considered human. And ANYTHING could be done to you by the “good”, or perhaps read indoctrinated. How much DID he absorb from his early days, I wonder.
That’s right…you don’t attack Christians, I forgot.
If you have no knowledge about what it was like in Germany during the Nazi reign, don’t act like you do PW. Nazi’s discriminated against Catholics also. To question his morality based on the fact that EVERYONE child was enrolled in the nazi youth movement and all were required to join the military is absurb. Also, there would be no way to officially recind your membership other to denounce it, which is probably what he did.
Oh come ON,Hoosier! I will stipulate that the Nazis persecuted individual Catholics, but I find it hard to believe that they went after the whole church, in view of the fact that Pius XII (aka Eugenio Pacelli, formerly the prelate to Munich) was an unabashed Germanophile, whose Vatican staff was entirely German, even during the Third Reich years, managed to collect the Kirchensteuer, a little tax that is collected from German taxes that amounts to millions when delivered to the VATICAN right up to the end of the war…And how do we account for the escape route for those Nazis who escaped capture at the end of the war via the “Monastery Route”, an escape route through Europe conceived and supported by the Vatican, even to the point of providing VATICAN PASSPORTS to the escapees and transportation to predominately Catholic countries such as Argentina? As I said, I will support the contention that individual Catholic clegrymen did oppose the Nazis. Indeed, I honor them. But please don’t bulls–t me or anyone else about the hierarchy’s involvement with the Nazis. We will call you on it.
Indeed, Mike. The evidence for Catholic collaboration with the Nazis is immense.
Oh yah, H.T. so if none of us know about the Nazi regime cause we weren’t there, then none of us should talk about it, including you, so we should just have a don’t talk about Nazis rule! No one ever talk about Nazis again – yah, that will make things better!
Hoosier being first generation German and a closet catholic, what else can we expect from you? Hoosier, just a question for you. Have you ever seen Schindler’s List? There’s one example of someone who risked it all to do what was right. There are plenty of other storys like it. It’s because of people’s lack of having a spine (i.e. courage and conviction)that the Nazi’s were able to do what they did. Just like now – spineless people like you are allowing Bush to do the same things. The Vatican propped up Hitler just like the religious right in this country is propping up Bush.
What I find more troubling about Ratzinger than his Nazi past , is that he has been very instrumental in the cover up of sexual abuse within the priesthood. From a letter he wrote in 2001, he still encouraged the secrecy and cover up, wherein pedophilia priests are shipped from parish to parish to do damage to unsuspecting parishoners.
Ambriel,
Just have to step in on behalf of the majority of Germans who eventually came under Nazi power;
- Their country had been scapegoated for an entire war and put in enormous debt (which had them digging up their dead to take the wedding rings for gold)
- The French frequently invaded parts of Germany, believing that they were lying about not having any money
- They went into hyperinflation when Wall Street crashed, making their money WORTHLESS
- Their shops emptied out, and people were resorting to eating dead horses off the street.
- When the Nazis DID bully their way into power more and more, also heavily laying on the propaganda (which included playing along with the common belief that the Jews had benefitted from what the rest of them suffered from, probably not helped by the way that the Jewish had silver and quite a few had nice houses), people were pretty desperate and not highly educated on the not so nice things the Nazis were doing
- When Hitler got appointed Chancellor, he DID improve Germany’s image; many visitors around the time thought it looked well recovered, and although he cheated by taking women and Jews off the statistics; unemployment did sink to zero
It was not a “lack of spine” that stopped many people from speaking out, even though fear played a large part of it no doubt fear for their family also did (whole families around the time would just “disappear” after speaking against Hitler), and people got in the habit of just blocking it out (let’s remember that most of the concentration camps weren’t in Germany, so many Germans wouldn’t actually have to witness any of that).
“Schindler’s List” tells of a man who starts off “helping” only through greed, for want of cheap labour, and it’s only once the level of the massacre starts to dawn on him that he slowly gets in the habit of being a help.
Germans really didn’t have as much, especially once dehumanisation, the agency effect, conformity, obedience to authority, and other psychological processes get thrown in (try looking up Zimbardo’s Prison Study for an example of how that can work with perfectly normal people over a short period of time).
This taken into account, I’d still be wary of a former-Nazi pope, especially if he starts talking about certain people being “inferior”.
Personally, I’d feel better if he’d had some sort of psychological check up beforehand to make sure he isn’t suffering from anything he went through as a Nazi.
We’ll know we have a problem if the Vatican Guard starts goose-stepping…
[Edit] “…Germans around that time really didn’t have as much of a choice as we make out, especially…”
And I figured that was more than enough to make my point that Nazi Germany would’ve very difficult for the Germans to avoid alone, but I do have more examples to throw in if you’d like…
I am much less concerned about what someone did in their teens than what that someone is doing NOW.
Hare Trinity, I’m very aware of the psychological processes that were in play, which is a huge reason I responded to Hoosier the way I did. It’s the whole paternalistic/authority thing. Granted you are right about Schindler, but like I said there were many others, but that was one I thought that Hoosier might be familiar with.
The anti-Semitic actions which transpired in Germany during Hitler’s Nazi reign were by no means considered to be a new phenomenon. Catholicism is largely to blame for Europes history of anti-semitism. Many jews perished during the inquisitions. Prior to the rise of the Nazi party, Pope Pius IX (1846 – 1878) restored all of the previous restrictions against the Jews within the Vatican state. Pope John Paul II beatified Pius IX; this is the last step before sainthood. All Jews under Papal control were confined to Rome’s ghetto – the last one in Europe until the Nazi era. The term “antisemitism” is first used in 1873 in a pamphlet by Wilhelm Marr called “Jewry’s Victory over Teutonism.” Anti-Semitic parties won sixteen seats in the German Reichstag in 1893.
Anti-semitism was definiately a part of not only German culture, but much of Europe prior to WWI. Prior to the war, the British promised to create a Jewish state. Instead they served their own Arab-linked interests as millions died in the Holocaust. So you can’t really blame it on the depression in Germany.
In my last paragraph I meant to say “Anti-semitism was definiately a part of not only German culture, but much of Europe prior to WWII.”
Also, again why doesn’t any one seem to be concerned with the Pope’s stance on sexual abuse?
Oh dear, the poor Nazis. Spare me.
Look, it would have taken a lot of courage and moral fiber to resist from within Nazi Germany. You would have had to be a really outstanding, exceptional person.
Like someone worthy to be Pope.
I agree with the idea that the person becoming a pope should have idealy been one of the people who stood against the Nazis, but most of them died.
And I am concerned that the new pope doesn’t seem too concerned about stopping sexual abuse, but the old one didn’t do much either, so… It seems to be becoming a trend with them.
Maybe he was picked for no reason other than his age?
I mean, 78; someone said last night that they just enjoy picking out new popes and didn’t want to have to wait too long to do it again. At least that would explain it better than “he used to be a Nazi but we think he’s better now, ignoing his statements about “inferior” people, and we can easily ignore his turning a blind eye to sexual abuse”.
It’s more than just not being concerned with sexual abuse. Pope Benedict the Sixteenth actually campaigned to continue keeping the sexual abuse secret. He colluded with the molesting priests. That’s over the line.
Ah, right.
…
That’s awful.
Wait, I’ve re-found the answer! Of course!!!
http://www.muchosucko.com/modules/My_eGallery/gallery/Men/papa.jpg
I was stationed in Germany before my first tour in Viet Nam, and as a German speaker, I was able to converse with quite a few folks. This was ’66 – ’67, and I asked a person I knew why people didn’t resist these things that the Nazi’s were coming up with. He said, look at your own country. You have laws which define how you will wage war, who may declare it, and you have freedoms. Look what’s happening in your own country in spite of all these things. He had a point. There were resistance groups, the “White Rose” group comes to mind. Pretty sad what happened to them. Also, there is a published diary called “I Will Bear Wtness.” Read that, watch the news and read the paper, and you get quite a scare. It isn’t the midnight knocks at the door, it’s the public’s willingness to accept loss of liberty, demonisation of “the other”.
The “White Rose”, that’s the one I was trying to think of earlier!
Student resistance started by a brother and sister, wasn’t it? A shame they got caught…
And definitely a lot of the people around the time seem very scared of the fact that it wasn’t just the uniformed Nazis spying on them; it was the secret police, their friends, their neighbours, and even their own children…
And most Americans don’t know that the United States Air Force has started a domestic espionage program that uses military personnel and recruits citizens to spy on the legal activities of their American neighbors, and make reports on them to the military.
WOW, HareTrinity is a complete idiot, I.’ve never heard such stupidity before,
its amazing