Is That Legal?

Well, He would have been 13 in 1940, 8 in 1935. Is it too much to think ask to give compassion for someone who was a boy, who would not be held legally responsible for many actions? How is he to know whether what he is doing is moral in the grand scheme of things. And while anything nazi is of course abhorrent, we ask our children to join football teams, and boy scouts, and young republicans clubs which teach dirty tricks during elections.



How are we to say we've done anything but muddle through massive assaults on democracy, and be so judgemental about Germans?



I guess is all, it's one thing to accuse a 25 or 35 year old of complicit behavior, and another to charge a 15 year old.



Not that it means that his participation in this group didn't influence later actions, but calling 'nazi' seems like a copout argument.

I would imagine that the Catholic Church selected their pope based on his ability to lead the church, not on things that happened sixty years ago.

Benedict literally WROTE the book on ANTI-ANTI-SEMITISM!

He believes/has wrritten/has said(in taped interviews) that Jews have a LIVING COVENANT with God.

He was FORCED to join the Hitler youth and the leftwafe. I mean luftwafe.

i will be posting links to Benedict's PRO-Jewish stuff later.

If the Church were going to select a Nazi-era German as pope, would it have been too much to hope that the Church would select a man who fought the evil of Nazism in some way, rather than a man who just muddled through it (as most Germans did), who now can't quite seem to remember what actually happened (as most Germans of that generation say they can't), and who maintains that resistance was impossible (as most Germans of that generation do)?

Considering that most of those who resisted ended up in concentration camps and/or dead, if he had done as you think he should have, he'd probably not be around to be consecrated as Pope. Given the climate of fear and reprisal instilled by the Gestapo, who recieved most of their tips and intel from ordinary Germans, I think you are asking a bit much of a 14 year old.

Would you want to be judged by your actions as a 14 year old? I know I wouldn't.

I am an Orthodox Christian, and the last German who held the see of Rome was the year after we and the western church went our separate ways, some 941 years ago. On some issues, we are still in agreement. One such viewpoint (and a matter of doctrine) is that the Church exists in a fallen world where all are imperfect, save Christ. As Father Thomas Hopko, an Orthodox theologian remarked upon receiving some converts into the Church, (I paraphrase from memory) "Welcome to the ark of salvation, try not to mind the smell of the other sheep."

What matters is whether Benedict XVI has tried to live an exemplary life, allowing Christ to act through his ministry as a priest/bishop/cardinal and now Pope of the Western Church, not to just zero in on one segment of his life. As the old saw goes, JPII is a very hard act to follow. Imagine how the Apostles felt having to follow up on Jesus's ministry. In a very real sense, this is what each Pope, Patriarch, Bishop, Priest, Deacon and every order of Clergy down to the lowest level is called to.

A hard act indeed.