Benedict the XVI

[southpaw]

The new pope Joseph Ratzinger will be known as Benedict XVI. He is the first German pope in over 1000 years. If anything he will be a more staunch defender of orthodox catholicism that his predecessor.

[The Ancient Enemy]

1000 years is a long time to wait for your guy to get elected. Kinda like how we feel with Bush winning in 04.

[CRrm250]

Hey alot of people are happy Bush won.

[Pale Rider]

More so than not.

[The Ancient Enemy]

Did I say "America" or "we"?

[El-Moldo]

New pope Josef Ratzinger turned 17 years old in April 1944, 2 months before the Normandy Invasion. (Even though the Russians had already won the war according to some), what was his life like in Germany at that time? Did he evade military service? Did he fight for the Nazis? Did he agree with the policies of Germany at that time? Was he a concientious objector? Was he one of the young and feeble that defended Germany til the end? Does anybody know?

[El-Moldo]

I'm serious here. In 1944, at age 17, he did not know he was going to be the Pope one day. Just asking about his backround during a very turbulant time in world history. No one said he was a Nazi. But obviously he had some kind of feelings back then. Maybe his Dad got him in the Air Force reserve, who knows?

[LionPride]

There was an article on yahoo yesterday about this, but I can't find it today. There is a discrepancy on what I read yesterday to what I'm pasting below. Yesterday I read that his days in the Hitler Youth was compulsory, what I'm pasting below says it was compulsory after he joined. At age 14 he was allowed out to study to become a priest. He was "drafted" into the army at age 17.

Here's a brief history of the new Pope's YOUTH.

The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.

In 1937 Ratzinger’s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. “Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,” concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot — adding that his gun was not even loaded — because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

“Resistance was truly impossible,” Georg Ratzinger said. “Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy.”

[El-Moldo]

That's all I wanted to know. Thanks.

[Lemmy]

Just like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, the election was rigged. Al Gore won the election for Pope.