Is That Legal?

Perhaps the Pope should not have gone to Auschwitz at all; then you would not have been (for the umpteenth time) disappointed.

[ELM: Yes, Kevin P., if these are the words that the man has to offer at Auschwitz, it would have been better for him not to go.]

My suspicion is that the Pope is responding to the practical observation that the Germans are not for very much longer going to accept the idea of unlimited communal guilt for things their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents did before they were born.

There is no people in history who haven't committed atrocities if you go back far enough in their history. At some point they have to put it behind them. That point may not be where you or I would put it, but I suspect the process is governed by the "laws" of sociology, not what anyone wants.

"Reality is not what you want it to be. It is what it is and you must bend to its power or live a lie." --Miyamoto Musashi

Ratzinger got a rainbow at his speech - what happened when you typed this?

Important stuff. Thanks for thinking this through & putting this together

It seems you're really reaching here. Just one example:

The second part of Ratzinger's claim – that the annihilation of the Jews was really just a roundabout assault on Christianity – is shocking

"Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone -- to those men, who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world. By destroying Israel, they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful."

Moreover, the Nazi's did, in fact, intend to replace all religion with a divine devotion to the State, the Volk, and the Fuhrer. Whether the Pope is correct in his assertion that this was the ultimate reason for the Nazi's oppression of Jews is debatable (and certainly incorrect if offered as an a priori reason), but it does not appear to me that your characterization is a fair one.

When the Pope's remarks are viewed the scope of his opening paragraph, you interpretation becomes even more implausible IMHO:

To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible -- and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence -- a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?

I think you are being too hard on the Pope. Of course his point of view will be different than JPII - one was the victim, one was a part of the perpetrating country. The impression I got was that his message was to all that stood by and did nothing. Hitler's anti-Semitic message was known to the US long before we entered WWII, and what did we do? The Church knew, what did it do? The call that I heard in the speech is that when we see violence and killing, we need to face our fear and stand up.

I'd just add that by implying that the Pope misjudged the evil of the Nazis by using the phrase "false promise", is to get bogged down in semantics, rather than to see it as a refutation of a discredited ideology.

Nazism rose out of what can be called Christendom, so to say that its goal was to replace the taproot of Christianity with the rule of the powerful is not untrue.

You did realize that Benedict XVI was simply restating the thesis of Robert Wistrich's book, "Hitler's Apocalypse"?

So, write us an outline of what he could have said that you would deem appropriate and sufficient.

I read the Pope's remarks as trying to clarify what an affront to the Christian religion the Holocaust was, in Christian terms. This necessitates a Christian-centric view of, well everything, but so what? This is a Christian talking to other Christians. They have as much right to struggle with what the Holocaust means in terms of their religion as we Jews do.

As to the "false" promises of the Nazis, I assume that the Pope's point is that they are inherently false, that men cannot be successful in trying to be gods. This not only matters, but matters deeply.

You accuse the Pope of "degrading" Jews when he merely points out our role and meaning in a Christian world view. What is it to even imply that the leader of the Catholic Church might have a different view of the Nazis if only they had been successful?

If as he says, reconciliation is a goal, (and I have little cause to doubt this) then perhaps he's thinking it will be easier to obtain reconciliation with the German people when he's not concentrating on whipping them, again, with the sins of their fathers.

At what point does the punishment become enough? At that point when reconciliation is the goal.

Too many people forget that Hitler was one man armed only with a telephone.

The "falseness" of the promise is not that they didn't achieve greatness, as you think. What is false is that you can achieve any sort of greatness through terror and murder.

As for the rest: sigh. That's all I have to say to you. JPII was an adult when he resisted. Ratzinger was a child. Do you really think you would have done different or better? I doubt any of us, as children, would have put up much of a resistance.

I am really tired of the anti German hatred people have. I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of constant calls for grovelling at other's feat for forgiveness that will never be given. I'm tired of articles like this that seek to twist words around by anyone that is German to make them seem as anything other than they are.

All this to-do about "for" and "with" reminds me of Clinton's grand attempt at defining "is". I suppose, if one read (heard) the speech while flying on crystal meth (Nazi meth as it were), one might come up with all these weird notions.

The only way a person could read the Pope's address and conclude that it was disrespectful, degrading, and absolving of Nazi crimes, is if that person has zero knowledge of the theological perspective of the Pope. Not surprisingly, Muller is exactly the sort of person who wouldn't get it. He is, in this instance, entirely clueless. And I think that if Muller's ignorance here doesn't explain this rant of his, then it can only be explained by a larger territorial protection of the Holocaust and a denoucement of any Christian attempt at commenting on it.

I think Ratzinger, who was a boy during this time, is better positioned to determine if his neighbors were intimidated by the Nazis. Muller has zero knowledge of this and so his anger on this point is really a mask for his true dispute.

The "false promises" refer little to Nazi political programs, and more to never-ending false promise of man attempting to make himself as God. The Nazis, among other things, were attempting to do this by exercising their will to power. Ratzinger was not suggesting that if the Nazis' politics were TRUE, he'd be fine with them. He was commenting on something entirely different - the Nazis' theological attempt to re-make mankind in their image, instead of man as an image of God. This analysis RIGHTLY views the Holocaust from a theological perspective (and only a close-minded person would dismiss such a perspective). Muller must think that this entire sort of analysis is inappropriate. Well, perhaps to a secularist, but not to the Pope. And not to most people, who don't merely view the Holocaust as a massive crime, but something else approaching the demonic.

The rest of Muller's rant is mere hyperbole.

Good grief, and completely unembarrassed with this (to the contrary), you suggest Goldhagen's "Willing Executioners" as corrective? Your strong-arm pulpiteering is rather less than ungenerous and unkind, it's positively silly and invested with a perversely reductionist and myopic agenda.

You still have time though, to add a few more iconic images and reference points; maybe overlay an image of Ratzinger with one of Hitler, subtlety was abandoned from the outset, so no sense in holding back. And no, am not an overly sensitive Catholic, am not Catholic at all, this is about an analysis of Ratzinger's homily or speech or whatever is was billed as, without the preordained bombast and propagandistic contortions and iconography.

I believe Eric is reminding us of this: as the Holocaust clouds formed, where was the Pope as a moral leader then? And where is he now?

In both cases, looking out for No. 1.

False Promises....

Just as any and all promises based on earthly solutions. My kingdom is not of this world, the true promise lies beyond.

The equivocation on genocide is undeniable.

And when will a Pope pay its FIRST due respects to the Ukrainian Holocaust of 1921, 1932, and 1947.

www.lietuvos.net/ istorija/communism/

David,

The Pope was a teenager, for Pete's sake. If Eric is trying to remind us of that, then it only makes him look more ridiculous.

There was the "ring of criminals" who "rose to power," and there was "our people" – the German "people," that is – whom the ring of criminals "used and abused."

How is this not an accurate and concise statement of the reality? That many Germans willingly aided the Nazis or came to share in the Nazi vision doesn't change the reality that the Nazi regime was designed to concentrate power in the hands of a small number of men who had no intention of sharing that power with those outside their "ring".

Just as with the Soviet Union, the fact that the majority of people willingly cooperated with the regime doesn't change the despotic nature of the regime. In both cases the regime viewed both supporters and populace as tools to achieve its own ends without any real regard for those tools. That those "tools" were willing tools doesn't change this, it only makes it even more tragic.

Note too the touch of anger and disappointment that lingers in Ratzinger's account of the Nazis' rise to power.

If I had watched my entire nation thrown down into madness, despotism, and fire by a group of lying bastards I suspect I'd be pretty angry and disappointed too.

When thinking and writing about the Nazis (or any similar regime) we must try to remember that there was a time when their evil was not obvious to everyone. A time when many people in Germany and throughout the world were seduced by their promises and apparent strength and either did not see or deliberately overlooked the darkness.

There was a time when this "ring of criminals" was just that: a small number of men without power. That was the time to recognize and oppose them. And the most reliable way to recognize present and future equivalents is to look not for their distinctive traits, but the traits they share with all such groups: contempt for human individuals, contempt for conscience, and contempt for the rule of law. I think the Pope is right to call attention to this.

David Swift wrote:

...as the Holocaust clouds formed, where was the Pope as a moral leader then?

He was 11 years old when Kristalnacht happened. Do you expect him to have made some prominent, memorable, documented stand against the Nazis at that age?

Like Eric, you seem a little too eager to find fault at the expense of other more reasonable (to say nothing of charitable) interpretations.

I agree with Sydney Carton above.

I think the Pope may have spoken inartfully at times to the Jewish ear - but the Jewish ear listens for very different things than the devout Catholic ear. This difference is especially huge when it's a secular Jew listening to a decidedly unsecular Pope.

For the Pope, the crime was first a crime against God - the crime against the Jews and other holocaust victims would not have been possible --- would not have been CONCEIVEABLE --- had the crimes against God not already been well underway by the time the first window was broken on Kristallnacht.

The first crime was inhumility and pride - the crime that led to Satan's fall. The notion that some of us can be Supermen, and that others of God's creation can be viewed as anything less than fully human, is the original crime. And this is compounded by the fact that in Nazi Germany it became a state ideology (though this does not explain the vast assistance the Nazis got in carrying out their crimes from Ukranians, Poles, Croatians, and to a lesser but still shameful degree, from the French).

The devout Catholic sees the holocaust as a crime against God. This in no way makes it less of a crime against man. But it explains it better. And serves to convict those who embrace false and murderous ideologies today, such as statism, communism, radical jihadism, etc.

Maybe the Pope should have crafted some things differently, knowing that Jews would be listening intently to what he would say.

But, really, Jews don't need a lecture from Auschwitz. It's the world's Gentiles that need to more fully absorb the lessons. And the Pope is the leader of the world's Catholics.

I think the Pope was playing strategery, but Muller only grasps the rhetoric at the tactical level.

ELM: Jason, what was the "strategery" behind the "ring of criminals" claims?

Hey, no need to whip the Germans of today.

Why didn't the Pope acknowledge his role?

"I was a German youth of the time. I was part of the Hitler youth (willingly?, unwillingly?). I bear in part the guilt for this. It will haunt me the rest of my days."

As to the rest - the Pope is Catholic, what do you expect.

Excellent analysis of Benedict's disturbing perspective on the Nazis and their relationship to Germans.

That said, the Pope states that anti-Semitic genocide was an attack on God Himself, and your response is: Was an effort to eliminate Judaism from the world not a complete crime in itself? Wow.

It's always a dialogue des sourds, as the French say, a dialogue of the deaf -- between Catholic and Jewish spokesman. The Church cannot afford to tell the truth, namely that it was 1700 years of Catholic anti-judaism and not 10 years of Nazi anti-semitism that was the source of Auschwitz. Nor can the Church admit that its Jesus is not the really historical Jesus, one who was not divine, did not abandon the Jews, and did not found the Church. Jewish spokesman claim they want this but know they will never get is. Thus the dialogue of the deaf.

What struck me about the Pope's comments regarding the German people's ultimate culpability was that it sounded somewhat like the words of a distraught mother whose son had been lost to some kind of fanatical religious cult.

Most of us would, if a close relative were caught in that situation, would instinctively blame and lash out in anger against the leaders of the cult who seduced, and falsely promised, and "filled his head with all these strange ideas" - and to a certain extent that is true. Ultimately, however, each of us has our own personal responsibility to resist such seduction and stand on our own two feet against those forces of evil.

But again, it's very difficult for a mother who loves her son and can see him doing no wrong to admit that he may, indeed, be somewhat at fault in the whole situation.

I agree with Muller's statement that:

"overwhelming numbers of ordinary Germans...pulled triggers, typed lists, ordered supplies, 'aryanized' property, guarded trains, drove trucks, medicated 'defectives,' built buildings, extracted fillings, collected taxes, broke windows, stitched clothing, tallied numbers, scheduled shipments, and did the thousands and thousands of other tasks that that built the Nazi machine of oppression and kept it running..."

...but would not consider it an overwhelming number in the sense that every German that lived between 1930-1945 did all those things. Certainly not. Hitler and his people directed the evil, and some of the people were eager to do the tasks required, but just as the young son in the cult was not wholly culpable, so were not the entire German people. Only a percentage. And it seems wrong to condemn the entire population (and their descendants) for the faults of a few.

It is shocking that this German Pope does not appear to see Nazism as the consequence of a moral catastrophe among ordinary Germans of the post-WWI period.

You leave me of two minds, but only one opinion. Namely, that you seriously misunderstand what Ratzinger was trying to do. The hardest part of adjusting the Church's view of the Holocaust and Jews as a people, comes from the residual feelings of anti-semitism among Catholics. Nowhere is this more troubling than in Poland. Because of this, successive Popes have tried manfully to get all Poles to see the essential common humanity and traditions of Jews and Catholics. Ratzinger is NOT claiming the Holocaust for Catholics: he is trying to expand Polish imagination to cover the idea that Jews are just like them. Therefore, the death of Jews is just like the death of Catholic Poles.

As for your comments about Germans and German, you need to re-read the text. Rather than make an accusatiuon (which I do not intend) I would merely suggest that you read the paragrapphs immediately before and after the ones from which you quote.

I hope you revise your views. Much as I sympathize with your feelings, you need to recognize that so does Ratzinger. Regards, JC-M

I agree with the author. It is almost unbelievable, that at such late date the Pope can view the crimes of the germans as a result of a quarrel between the church and the state. It is not, in my opinion, of great import, that he was a member of the -ugend, or that he "only" expresses his class interest. Compare him with the polish pope (and the pols are not any better, than the germans). How much more humanity! And the fact that the current pope does not see himself a leader in morality - is a huge change!

I don't understand why you think the Pope was offensively "reposition[ing] Christianity as the victim." Do you feel the same way about the Martin Niemoller quote ending with "Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me"? Was Niemoller repositioning himself as the victim? It is routine for Christian theologians discussing the Holocaust to say that an attack on the Jews (or on any other minority group) is an attack on all of us. It is language specifically designed to counter the traditional idea that Jews are an "Other" not deserving the usual protections of civil society, and IMHO it has been an important part of efforts to drive anti-Semitism out of protestant Christianity.

Note too that the Pope said that the Holocaust was an attack on God. This, too, sounded like calculated language to me. It is designed to turn the traditional "Murderers of God" argument on its head, to say no, it isn't the Jews who should be blamed for killing God, it is the anti-Semites who should be treated as deicides.

I share your dislike of his "gang of criminals" comment, which did inappropriately minimize the guilt of Germans. But otherwise, I thought Benedict gave the right statement to the right audience -- instead of talking to the Western media and secular academics, he's talking to Catholic anti-Semites, to specifically tell them that you can't be an anti-Semite without being anti-Christian and anti-God. The Pope has a special responsibility to speak to the Kurt Waldheims and Mel Gibson's dads of the world. And yes, I think he could do a lot better, but, I think it is a step in the right direction.

Eric,
Your unwillingness to engage the content of the pope's speech while simultaneously attempting a PC takedown sadly illustrates which side of the spectrum has mostly closely internalized the tactics and mindset of fascism.

Of course Benedict approaches the Holocaust from the perspective of a non-Jewish German. He is one, and he is the leader of a non-Jewish church. Unlike you, however, Benedict is willing to grant the individual, non-racist humanity of each and every Jew and non-Jew alike. Benedict is merely approaching morality from a human, personal perspective.

Go ahead, insist that all non-Jews accept some kind of "group guilt" for the Holocaust. That is the tactic of group victimology and racist categorization that the Nazis perfected and that the multi-cultural Left has now subsumed.
Christianity states that the sins of the father are not revisted on the son--but under your ideology, the sins of the German father are only magnified with time, and prostrate self-flagellation for the crimes of others is the only acceptable response.

Disgusting.

You have failed to make yourself clear. This "Goldhagen says so, but on the other hand..." ambiguity, and this "no respectable scholar sees..." business are obfuscations that you are hiding behind. What, if anything, are you hiding? What do "respectable scholars" see? Either there is something uniquely bad about the character of the German people that facilited the rise to power of a government with the features we call "Nazi," or there isn't. If that is what you think, you've only hinted at it; you haven't shown the guts to say it. If that is not what you think, you have done a disservice by planting an idea that you would disavow yourself, if required to be clear. And if Germans have innate, undesirable attributes, then you make room for others who would assign other bad attributes to other groups. If the Pope has been no help, then neither have you.

I agree with much of what you say. I'm willing to cut him some slack, however, as to the "false" promise. I'm guessing that he meant "false" in a broader sense of any such promise being a snare and a delusion -- that is, these promises were morally false in the sense of lacking any possible Christian or moral justification, not false in the sense of being inaccurate predictions. Perhaps "false" in the broader Bill & Ted sense of "bogus." I simply don't believe that he'd stand up in front of an audience and say that the trouble with the Nazis is that they failed in their aims; it doesn't fit the tenor of the rest of his remarks. To my mind, they were myopic and parochial, and they drew an undue separation between Hitler and some idealized vision of the German people, but they were not pro-Nazi.

I can't defend the "ring of criminals" claims on the basis of strategery. Unless you're talking about an awfully big and loose "ring of criminals," so big that it was able to take over the identity of an entire nation.

I think it's a human defense to try to separate one's own national identity from the crimes perpetrated by one's forefathers, and I understand it on those grounds. But I am generally in agreement with the "willing executioners" way of looking at things, personally - and believe in the cupability of the entire German people at that time.

But NOT with the culpability of the German people who weren't even born yet. (Yet the Austrians still elected Kurt Waldheim, and still beat up Turkish immigrants. I had a German friend who looked somewhat Semitic, and as a high school girl in the 1980s she was still teased, assaulted, and burned with cigarettes in school because of her Jewish appearance. so it's still not quite that simple, and the black mark has not been entirely wrung out).

At any rate, I think that question is less interesting and fruitful to pursue than whether the Pope minimized or marginalized the horrors of the Holocaust by focusing not on the temporal realm, but upon the spiritual crimes that gave rise to an ethical system so deformed, twisted, and blackened that it made the Holocaust concievable to begin with.

I mean, if it's not the Pope's job to focus on the spiritual rather than the temporal, then whose job is it?

do the germans have to roll around in guilt for ever? please people, get a life and get on with it. there are people being murdered for nothing all around the world AT THIS MOMENT. why don't you worry about that!

blackminorca,

I know that JP2 spoke on events during the 30's in Ukraine. Also beatified over 20 Ukrainian martyrs in 2001.

I completely disagree with your analysis. You seem to forget that you are reading a translation of the Pope's remarks rather than the original; nevertheless, you draw very nuanced conclusions based upon particular words (e.g. his use of the word "false").

I'm neither Catholic nor German, but I think you are not being very fair-minded. Your inserting Nazi photos also strikes me as propagandistic.

Also, Ratzinger was essentially a child when the Nazi's took power; did you expect him to rally against the wishes of his parents, putting them in danger? Maybe you were you a political activist when you were that age...

Your very narrow viewpoint is buffeted only by misrepresentations about Ratzinger's statements. Your post is a very good example of a straw man argument.

Of course the little "ring of criminals" history is wrong. But probably no more false than the myth that most of the French actively or passively resisted the Nazis. Or that most Japanese didn't really agree with the militarists, or that Austria was "the first victim" of the Nazis.

Ratzinger's comments are a good example of saying how bad things were by pretending our ancestors really didn't participate in them.

We falsify history to say, "This was really bad. Fortunately, most people weren't part of it. And of those who were, most of them were forced." If we admit how many were involved, we have two choices. We can say, "There were an awful lot of schmucks back then." Or we can say, "Hey, since so many people were part of it, it really couldn't be so bad." If you don't want to say either, you really have to lie.

About the "false promises:"

There's a line in the Renewal of Baptismal Promises that goes like this:

Do you reject Satan?

I do.

And all his works?

I do.

And all his empty promises?

I do.

Presumably the one renewing the vows is not, in vowing to reject Satan's empty promises, reserving the right to accept the promises that Satan is capable of fulfilling.

I can't imagine that Benedict penned that line without the "empty promises" of Satan in mind.

And about "Christianity as the real victim:" Benedict undoubtedly has a, shall we say, supernatural view of the evils of the Holocaust as well as a natural one. You can't tell me he doesn't see Satan's hand in it. And, for the sake of argument, if Satan has a hand in it, then obliterating Jews is (for Satan) primarily a terrible, earthly means to an end that has consequences beyond the earth and is larger than human wars and genocides.

What does Eric Muller expect? You don't get to be Pope by being a Philo-Semite. "Esau hates Jacob"-- whether consciously or unconsciously. This is an immutable law just like the law of gravity.

The "false promises" refer little to Nazi political programs, and more to never-ending false promise of man attempting to make himself as God. The Nazis, among other things, were attempting to do this by exercising their will to power. Ratzinger was not suggesting that if the Nazis' politics were TRUE, he'd be fine with them. He was commenting on something entirely different - the Nazis' theological attempt to re-make mankind in their image, instead of man as an image of God. This analysis RIGHTLY views the Holocaust from a theological perspective (and only a close-minded person would dismiss such a perspective). Muller must think that this entire sort of analysis is inappropriate. Well, perhaps to a secularist, but not to the Pope. And not to most people, who don't merely view the Holocaust as a massive crime, but something else approaching the demonic.

Ahh so the bigger problem wasn't murdering millions of people, it was the theological error of the Nazis. I see. How close minded of me to think a religious difference with the Nazis might take second place to mass murder.

Raised Catholic and of some German heritage, I take some comfort from the fact that it was Lutheran areas from which Hitler grew elctoral strength rather than Catholic. Jews who were passive in response to Hitler say that 'he said no worse than Luther.' Why is there evil? Socrates response was that people don't know any better. I think we all understand that there may be fault in believing something 'false.' Among the 'false promises' may be that of the Concordat worked out with Pius XII in which for a grant of papal authoritty in Church matters, the Christian (largely Catholic) Democratic party opposed to Hitler was dissolved. In testing how he could help, Pius XII relayed requests to Lord Halifax, foreign minister of Britain, from the top of the German general staff after the conquest of Poland asking for a pause in British war aims so that the German generals could take down Hitler without facing immediate external threat. This 'couldn't be promised without consultation with the French' which was not practicable. The Catholic nun may illustrate the existential problem emotionally for the Pope as she illustrates that there was no way out, even though she was out of the religion. The statement is awkward in that it may imply that her death was salvific, which though unlikely intended, obscures the existential point.

What Michael Benson said.

Muller provides us with a hysterical screed that conflates Anti-Catholicism and blood guilt. The concept of group guilt or blood guilt is a common one, not just with Eric Muller, but with many other groups. The Palestinians believe in it as do the Jihadis that brought us 9/11. It also seem to occupy prominent places in the Academy, most notably by such as Ward Churchill of “little Eichmans” fame. And now, Eric Muller.

So young Josef Ratzinger came of age in the one time, and the one place - postwar Germany - that it was least possible to ignore the enormity of the Holocaust. And against that backdrop, he decided that the best thing to do was dedicate himself to the Catholic church. I have no doubt that the Holocaust has a very personal meaning to him, and one that strongly contributed to his understanding of God and the church.

So flash forward to the present, where the chain of events triggered by that decision has led to a situation where, according to church doctrine, Ratzinger has been personally selected by God as the best available tool to spread the word and inspire the world towards Catholicism.

So,

1) The Pope's job is to help the world understand the purpose of life - namely, to come to a Catholic understanding of and relationship with the divine.
2) Within the church, this duty is considered to be the most important, most noble, most moral thing a human could possibly do.
3) The Pope was slated to speak about the Holocaust.
4) The Holocaust was significant in shaping the Pope's understanding of precisely how and why Catholicism is the ultimate answer.

In this context I'm not at all surprised that the Pope used the opportunity to share his thoughts on how the Holocaust shows us that Catholicism is the answer. Within the moral dynamic of the church, it would be a pretty great failing to pass up the opportunity.

You seem to be criticizing him for focusing on Catholicism and ignoring the "big picture", but for Catholics, and especially the friggin' pope, the spread of (their mediated take on) God's word IS the big picture, the master narrative to which all the twists and turns of mortal history, the Holocaust included, are mere subplots.

So essentially, you're criticizing the Pope for acting as if the kingdom of heaven is more important than the temporal kingdom of man. As an avowed secularist, I agree that you've got the prioritization down better than he does, but if this is the heart of your complaint, you don't really have beef with this speech, or this pope, you have beef with the very institution of Catholicism, or maybe even religion itself.

I don't see anything wrong with the Pope's comments. He condemns the evil, and as a Christian leader relates it to the overarching battle between God and man's evil that Christians see played out in history. No one doubts from these comments that the acts were wrong and sinful.

I also agree with Michael Benson. Please stop the sarcasm. It is inappropriate in this context and beneath you. Yes, the "theological error" of the Nazi's is bigger than the mass murder of a few million people... BUT ONLY because that was the same "theological error" made by Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and many other tyrants through human history that led to the slaughter of many more millions of innocents. If we are to learn from history, we must understand it. If you look to the Middle East, it would appear that we are about to repeat that "theological error". I for one would like to avoid it.

Well, yeah, it WAS dangerous to oppose the Nazis. Nevertheless, 50 million Europeans did so, and 13 million Americans put on uniforms to help.

How many resisters were German Christians? About a dozen.

The Germans loved Hitler as long as they thought he was delivering on those false promises. Only when they couldn't steal any more wine, women and coal did they start to think they had been 'deceived.'

That's for each German to deal with. A pope, whether German or not, has to deal with the Roman Catholic Church's enthusiastic participation -- continuing long after 1945 and in fact not yet ended -- in the Holocaust with its pet murderers, a tradition going back more than 300 years, the Croats.

John Paul II, of soon to be sainted memory, never had the morals or guts to condemn that. The church was fully complicit in the Nazi murders. A lot of Germans, not including Ratzinger, have made more or less sincere attempts to deal with these crimes. Of the Catholic hierarchy, almost none, then or since.

The problem with Ratzinger is not that he's German, it's that he's Catholic.

At Auschwitz the Pope said "Where was God in those days? Why was He silent? How could He permit this endless slaughter,this triumph of evil?"I find this statement most revealing.I would expect that Pope Benedict XVI, The Vicar of Christ,should have rather said "Where was Jesus Christ in those days? Why was He silent? How could He permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?" I leave it to the imagination of each reader to speculate on the meaning of this subtle difference in phrasing. I wonder if the God he was referring to was the "Old Testament" God of Israel.If that was the case, then the answer to the questions is obvious isn't it? I refer, of course, to the old Doctrine of Supercession.

Unfair at best my friend ... If one is to apply the same level of interpretation to your piece we to would find a disingenuibe human being ... Take a deep breadth and give your fellow man the benefit of doubt ... I am sure no one can be as pure as you.

"... you have beef with the very institution of Catholicism, or maybe even religion itself."

Or the ideological religionists of the 20th century and of today, who managed to turn a blind eye in southern Sudan and Rwanda, for example?

Back to the original post though, and more seriously, one of the convenient things, and one only, about this type of pervasively presumptuous analytic is the ratcheting effect it tends to have upon subsequent discussion and commentary. (E.g., various cheap shots and miscomprehensions manifested herein.) So let's call some bluffs and look at it from other viable and critical perspectives:

Searching the internet, on the term "holocaust," results in 69.5 million hits. Searching on the terms "holodomor," "ukrainian holocaust," and "ukrainian genocide" combined totals less than 69.5 thousand hits. A ratio of 1,000 : 1. Why is that? What's going on here? Both the holocaust and the holodomor resulted in virtually equivalent numbers - yet a thousand-to-one ratio. Apparently, something other than moral concerns are involved.

Or, same search except localized at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum site. This is a site devoted to the holocaust, yet also avows a concern for contemporary and future instances of mass murder. More than 69,000 hits on the term "holocaust," as might be expected, but a sum total of merely three (3) hits on the terms "holodomor," "ukrainian holocaust" and "ukrainian genocide" combined. Three. Total. Yet during that Stalinist and communist inspired genocide six-million perished using the most common estimates, virtually equivalent to the numbers associated with the holocaust.

Or similarly do a news search: on "holocaust" we get 7,960 hits. On "holodomor," "ukrainian holocaust" and "ukrainian genocide" combined: two (2) hits total. Again, an imbalance might be expected (though why?), to some degree, but an imbalance reflecting better than a thousand-to-one ratio? Bare minimum, it has to be noted, something other than a genuine moral concern is being evidenced in all this. Some agendas, beyond more substantively moral agendas per se, are reflected in these imbalances.

Or, same search localized at this site, at Is That Legal? For the term "holocaust" we get 114 hits; while for the terms "holodomor," "ukrainian holocaust" and "ukrainian genocide" combined: nada, nil, zil, nihilo - zero. Yet six-million perished. Clearly, according to the same reductionist logic employed herein, a moral "disaster" is on evidence at this site - no other conclusion can be drawn.

The focus being attempted here, via perspective, is genuine, real-world moral vision and gravitas, shorn of politics and posturing and of ego-centric and ethno-centric interests.

Another vantage still. Forgetting the past for a moment and reviewing far more recent history and contemporary tragedies, specifically, Kosovo, Rwanda, southern Sudan and more recently Darfur in western Sudan. What precisely are you doing, or have you done, in terms of personal commitments and sacrifice, to mitigate or bring a halt to these episodes?

Does the number zero or some proximation thereof - once again - enter the discussion at this point?

Or, the subject of revisionist history and the holodomor in the Ukraine, aka Stalin's Ukrainian genocide, what commitments in terms of correcting those historical errors and omissions?

To clarify: I meant to call the Pope of the era (Pius XII) self-serving, not Ratzinger as a youth.

Nothing short on candor is demanded in the face of reality; such florid tippy-toeing from respected authorities do the world ill, then as now. Papal misdirection is a profound problem and I admire Eric for revealing this instance.

I agree that we should not hold the young Ratzinger liable for the path of his youth. (And grant me the same, please.)

Above all, I am grateful that many here insist that we cease the grudges of our fathers. We know the madness otherwise.

"Ratzinger is out at the self-absolving fringes of his generation on the question of German responsibility for the crimes of the Third Reich."

I fear you are right. In the Church he has spoken of the Inquisition and the Galileo case and even his own activity as a sort of modern inquisitor in terms that bring to mind the words: defensiveness, denial, airbrushing, spin.

His visit to Auschwitz threw cruel light on the limits of his mind and heart.

At the opening of his Auschwitz speech on Sunday, Josef Ratzinger said that "[i]n a place like this, words fail."

Oh, if he had only stopped there, he'd be considered a genius: no, he went on to say:

Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.

This is the true theme of his remarks. He's blaming God; he's saying that God, for his or her own reasons, ignored or tolerated this, that it was part of an ineffable plan to ... well, it's ineffable; we don't know. But it's good sermon fodder and we're not giving it up.

You know, I have no problem with him presenting his own theological view of the Holocaust: it's his prerogative as a member of the human race to believe what he wants to believe about ineffable things. But the socio-historical stuff stinks.

A very nice post, and greatly appreciated. The comments are fascinating -- you're clearly on the radar of some spectacularly unpleasant people.

Germans did not elect Nazis into power because of them wanting to kill non-aryans but because Hitler promised (and delivered at first) a generous welfare state. German news magazine "Der Spiegel" calls it a "feel-good dictatorship". The mass killings of Jews was a covert operation well hidden before the German public. Going to war also was never on the agenda before the last free elections. So Ratzinger is right: Germans were held hostage by a gang of criminals (albeit a big gang consisting of tens of thousands thugs, but never ever anywhere near the majority of the Electorate).

"The comments are fascinating -- you're clearly on the radar of some spectacularly unpleasant people."

Instapundit links tend to have this effect here.

So who among us today is righteous? Who among us sit (sat) back idly as millions were destroyed in Cambodia, Kurdish Iraq, Darfur? Who is screaming for justice for the unborn?

The truth is that the vast majority of people are "good Germans." Most of us place creature comfort and a false sense of security above the moral imperative to not offend God.

Let's stop rehashing what was and work on what is. Let's stop wallowing in victim status and stand up to evils obvious and subtle.

Before our very eyes, we have a worldwide Jihadist movement that is every bit as menacing as the Nazis ever were, yet most of those with the power to print/broadcast outrage, don't. We will not see and we will pay a price.

Any serious historical study of catholicism would reveal endless examples of denial and politically expedient accountability. To examine the remarks of the pontiff and expect anything that didn't cast the church in a place of central prominence or the papacy as unblemished is absurd. The truth is irrelevant to the Vatican.

The Nazi era of perscution and intolerence lasted about two decades... Christianity has a 2000 year history of diligent and enduring intolerence, and yes, violence against non-christians, especially Jews.
"The Nazi`s did not invent a new villain; they took over the 2000 year old Christian tradition of the Jews as villains. The roots of the death camps must be sought in the mystic structure of Christainity; myths concerning the demonological role of the Jews have been operative in Christianity for centuries." -Theologian Richard Ruberstein
One also wonders why the Catholic Church never saw fit to excommunicate the head of all that "evil." Hitler considered himself a Catholic to the end. Perhaps if he had written a book critical of the church that would have gotten him kicked out.
As for me personally, I can`t take serious the words of a man that believes in virgin birth.

TO Berta; I am certainly far from pure; but I am also not the Pope so your implied comparison is ludicrous. Make no mistake: Each and every word spoken publicly be the Pope is examined ,re-examined and gone over with a fine -tooth comb for errors or possible misinterpretations. If I interpreted the Pontiff's words the way I did you can be sure that my interpretation was considered and weighed by The Church and allowed to stand as delivered.

TO CHRIS BRAY---From a spectacularly unpleasant person: You are correct. Let's forgive and forget and all live happily ever after.Let's make a deal: I'll forget about the Holocaust when you forget about the Crucifixion. Waddya say, Chris?

To Cuddihy: "Christianity states that the sins of the father are NOT revisited on the son." So please tell me how does Chritianity explain the death of Christian infants and young children under the age of responsibility? If you answer that it is the result of Original Sin, is that then not a case of re-visiting the sin of Adam and Eve on their children?

For me the most revealing thing about the Pope's speech at Auschwitz is that he stated he can't figure out where God was during those years. He's supposed to be God's representative on earth, and just can't figure it out if maybe God was absent, not listening, maybe taking a coffee break during those times. Maybe God doesn't even exist at all. Who knows?? Not this pope, nope.

I wonder if the God he was referring to was the "Old Testament" God of Israel.

Uh...Just Wondering? You can stop wondering. See, the thing is, the pontiff believes that Jesus Christ is God. (Me too.)

Anyway, some translations have it as "Lord," and "Lord," referring to Jesus, is all over the New Testament.

Besides that, you might recall one of Jesus' last prayers -- and I believe the Holy Father was praying in your referenced statement, by the way -- before dying, quoting from the Psalms: "My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?"

I hope this is helpful.

Dear Kelly Clark: Helpful indeed! You claim,(and you include The Pope in your claim) that Jesus IS God. So I ask you: When Jesus, in His dying moments prayed " My God, My God, Why has't Thou forsaken Me?" to Whom was He praying? To Himself? Also when Jesus, The Son ,died, Did God, The Father, also die? If "yes" How could He pray to a dead (or dying) God?; if "no", how could God the Father be alive when God the Son was dead if they are one and the same?

I won't comment on the Pope's speech itself, but on the things he did not say.
He did not speak up against the ultra-catholic politicians of today's Poland, who openly rage against Jews, Sinti and Roma, gays and women's rights. Who try to abolish existing legislation on gender equality and who, through the voice of "Radio Marija" (yes, the name refers to the Virgin)preach Antisemitism openly and who are embraced by one of the fastest growing and most violent neo-nazi movements in all of Europe.

In my opinion this is where he, as the supposed leader of these people, who preach hatred again in the name of God, failed completely.

And btw: I am German

Of all comments, I like Neal R's best:

"Who among us sit (sat) back idly as millions were destroyed in Cambodia, Kurdish Iraq, Darfur? ... The truth is that the vast majority of people are "good Germans." Most of us place creature comfort and a false sense of security above the moral imperative to not offend God."

If anybody in this blog really means what he says - whether or not he thinks the pope was right or should have gone further - there's still ample chance in our world to prove it.

Bithead: If as he says, reconciliation is a goal, (and I have little cause to doubt this) then perhaps he's thinking it will be easier to obtain reconciliation with the German people when he's not concentrating on whipping them, again, with the sins of their fathers.

Have you forgotten already that Ratzinger would not have been "whipping them with the sins of their fathers"? He too is German: he too was complicit in the Nazi Holocaust. He could have made a very powerful speech about how, as a 14-year-old boy, like many others, he went along with what was required of him - he did not, as a handful of courageous Germans did, stand up against evil. There was nothing special in Ratzinger's failure to resist evil: it was only what any German would have done, and many Germans did. And what people do today.

Richard Dean,
That wasn't my comment.
--Neal R.

Why do Jews feel a particular need to be treated as a special case. We don't hear much about the guilt of the Europeans and North Americans regarding slavery, the slave trade and the decimation/displacement of entire generations of Africans. No apologies; no compensation nothing. Yet we are all supposed to be in perpetual guilt about the murder of 6 million Jews committed by the Nazis. I am all for remembrance, but why restrict it to the suffering of Jews alone.

ELM: I agree.

"I agree." Eric Muller

Will that be a passive or an active agreement? If the latter, you might begin with Kaganovich, a committed secular/atheist Jew who held great power in the Soviet Union in direct association with Stalin.

"Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich: chief mass murderer for Stalin, ordered the deaths of millions and the wholesale destruction of Christian monuments and churches, including the great Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Standing amid the rubble of the cathedral, Kaganovich proclaimed, 'Mother Russia is cast down. We have ripped away her skirts.'" (N.Y. Times, Sept. 26, 1995)

Michael B,

Tim made the case that in a balanced moral and historical discourse, Jewish victims ought to hold no greater sway than other victims. With that I agreed.

You respond by asking about the case of Kaganovich, not a victim at all but a perpetrator, and you took pains to note that he was a Jew.

Your comment is a non sequitur; your focus should have been on whether we pay equal attention to Stalin's victims. Instead you asked me whether I'm willing to condemn a perpetrator who happened to be Jewish.

Am I to chalk Kaganovich up alongside the legions of other evil Jews who have sought to destroy Christianity? (Oh, wait, there are no such legions.)

If not, then what is the significance of the fact that Kaganovich was a Jew?

A lovely little burst of classic antisemitism, Michael.

Your Freudian slip is showing.

A year ago, it disturbed me that Josef Ratzinger and his family had managed only an ordinary moral response to the challenge of Nazism, rather than the exemplary response that one might have hoped for in a future pope.

I know. Those darned future popes never seem to rise to our expectations of holiness. They always seem to be... well... flawed, earthy and even human.

God uses cracked pots. He even used a cracked pot who became our first pope. Namely St. Peter. St. Peter denied our Lord three times. However, he was given a commission "feed my lambs". And he declared his live for his Lord thrice, being forgiven for his past misdeeds. (Jn. 21:15)

He went on to lead the Church, and end up martyred hanging upside down because he didn't deserve to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord and Savior.

The neat thing about being Catholic is that you can repent of anything, including sins of omission. Being driven by fear to not renounce the Nazis strongly enough is forgivable, just like denying our Lord.

They are the distressingly self-deceptive words of a man who continues to indulge a fantasy that a great and noble German Volk was hoodwinked by a small group of bad men and then forced into atrocity at the point of a gun.

Oh, yes. You, many years after the fact, can know the hearts of the entire nation of Germany. We are hearing from a man who lived it.

If you think he's a liar, please just come right out and say it. If you have credible information to the contrary, please provide it, otherwise this whole missive is simply to slander a good and holy man and is a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor". You do still follow the ten commandments, don't you?

Tony: "The neat thing about being Catholic is that you can repent of anything, including sins of omission."

It's not just "neat," Tony. It's really convenient too!

You also mock me -- mind you, in a way that He would approve of! -- with these words:

"Oh, yes. You, many years after the fact, can know the hearts of the entire nation of Germany. We are hearing from a man who lived it."

I do, however, claim to know the heart of my grandfather, who was fired from his teaching job in Karlsruhe, Germany, by a non-coerced boss in 1935, for being a Jew, and who was seized and delivered to Buchenwald in November 1938 by lots of non-coerced people, while other non-coerced neighbors stood and watched.

And I think I know the heart of his brother, my great uncle for whom I am named, whose store in a small town in Bavaria was "aryanized" (that is, expropriated) to a non-coerced non-Jew in early 1939. I can't be sure that I know his heart, though, because I never met him; he was murdered by non-coerced Germans in eastern Poland after being marched to his deportation (on trains conducted and guarded by non-coerced Germans) from Wuerzburg, Germany, through a public park on a Saturday morning in 1942 while hundreds of non-coerced non-Jewish Germans, out for a Saturday morning stroll, watched.

So now you're hearing about people who lived it and even died it, Tony.

However devout a Catholic you are, do you really wish to defend the pope's characterization of the Germans as an innocent people bullied by a gang of criminals? When no respectable scholar maintains such a thing?

Why?

Eric Muller,

Absolutely pathetic of you to spew that charge, that label, in my direction. A vicious and classless and viciously intended smear pulled out when backed into a corner. If you're going to address a serious and tragic and historic subject in the manner you've chosen to address it, then you need to expect a more serious confrontation when the historical facts and contexts warrant such. Not everyone is simply going to render obeisance to your view of things. Your smear is, entirely, unwarranted. Grow up.

No Eric, there is no anti-Semitism on evidence, simply a historical fact. This is a set of threads, in large part, devoted to the presumption, the arrogation, of imputing guilt across large masses or populations. You've drawn on Goldhagen, essentially emulated him and drawn on him more directly, in order to do precisely that. The target being Germans, in general, and Christians, in general historical terms. If I were to apply your type of logik, I'd also assume a "Freudian" reveal of your even more generalized anti-Catholic and anti-Christian contempt and bigotries and vilifications.

Too, in asking whether it would be a passive or an active agreement, I was echoing your more recent reference to John Leo's commentary, specifically entitled "Pope's Passive Rhetoric". Thus the passive vs. active distinction. In bringing up Kaganovich, who was in fact a secular/atheist Jew and right hand man of Stalin, I'm doing no worse than your smear of the Pope's putatively "disastrous speech," together with the not so subtle suggestion of a highly generalized imputation of guilt (about which more later in the other thread). If you're going to use such tactics, you need to be ready for the same tactics to be used against you. But in point of fact it's not merely a tactic, it also points to a relevant and substantial historic fact. I already noted the crass imbalances and neglect, earlier in this thread, when comparing the holocaust with the holodomor. Here, at your site, you haven't commented on the holodomor, the Ukrainian genocide, at all ("nada, nil, zil, nihilo") and the imbalance around the web and at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum site reflected an imbalance of a thousand-to-one ratio. Thus, in bringing up Kaganovich, I was not simply using a similar tactic, similar to what you were employing, I was additionally bringing up a viable and potential starting point for research vis-a-vis the holodomor.

Finally, being labeled an anti-Semite - or a racist, a [fill in the blank] - by someone like yourself who, as such, resorts to lowest common denominator, debased and in fact vicious ad hominem attacks because he has no other way out - means nothing. You're not G-d, you don't hold the trump card, your ready use of a baseless and contemptible smear not withstanding. Again, if you're going to deal with a serious subject in the manner you've chosen to deal with it, then grow up and be ready to face some of the same tactics you're deploying. And be ready to face some broader historical truths as well.

You owe me an apology, a huge one, not that I have any expectations given your ready and even eager use of that smear.

ELM: And your reason for pointing out that Stalin's henchman was a Jew in a conversation about the importance of acknowledging the victims of all genocides is ... uh ... wait, I must have missed it.

ELM: On further reflection, I note that you now say this: "Thus, in bringing up Kaganovich, I was not simply using a similar tactic, similar to what you were employing, I was additionally bringing up a viable and potential starting point for research vis-a-vis the holodomor." And in that research, you are arguing that it's relevant that Kaganovich was a Jew. Because ... uh ... let's see ... because the Jews are responsible for the genocide of Ukrainians? Is that it?

ELM: Final thought. Even if I were of a mind to do so, which I'm not, I don't apologize to people who don't identify themselves.

"uh ... wait, I must have missed it."

You resort to glib all too readily and frequently? Read - and comprehend - and don't put words in my mouth.

Also, the following,

This particular speech of Benedict's, probably all of two to three thousand words, is not intended to supercede or eclipse other references to Auschwitz or the shoah in general; it adumbrates and adds to what he and John Paul II have previously said, it doesn't supercede it as some type of final and definitive statement which stands alone, by itself. It's a single speech, a brief one at that, you're placing far too much singular weight upon it.

Too, in referencing the "gang of criminals," that too is a historic fact; he wasn't saying that to suggest that the central "gang" comprised the only ones who were guilty. He was suggesting the more central cabal was certainly where the larger share of guilt lies, but again, he wasn't eclipsing all other types of guilt. You even took the Stein reference out of context.

And btw, if, using your "logic," Benedict personifies the holocaust in Maximilian Kolbe and Gertrude Stein, then does the fact that John Paul II failed to personify it at all in his 60th anniversay commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau indicate to you that JPII simply views it, the Shoah, in an entirely abstract manner? Kolbe and Stein were real life victims, not figments of someone's imaginings. The Pope is Catholic, and christian. And this speech is one speech only.

ELM: Once more:

A commenter said: we should remember the sufferings of victims of all genocides, not just the Jews.

I said: I agree.

You then said: Do you really agree? What do you have to say about the Jew Kaganovich, who murdered millions for Stalin?

I pointed out that the fact that Kaganovich was Jewish had nothing to do with the commenter's arguments (with which I agreed) that all victims of genocide deserve equal memory, and that Jewish victims deserve no special treatment. That comment, and my agreement with it, were your point of entry into the discussion. And you chose to enter the discussion by noting on the utter irrelevance that Kaganovich was Jewish.

Since then, lots of words: but no explanation of why it was relevant that one of Stalin's henchmen was Jewish.

Once more:

I suggested you read - and comprehend - and refrain from putting words in my mouth. You're using this set of threads not simply to suggest Benedict's speech was "disastrous" (itself a silly claim) but also to arrogate and impute, as is so often the case with these discussions, a highly generalized form of guilt across masses of populations. In noting Kaganovich was a secular/atheist Jew, that is precisely what I'm noting, the singular historical fact. I.e., think of it in this context, following your quote: "... but no explanation of why it was relevant that one of Stalin's henchmen was Jewish." Indeed, and no explanation from you as to why it is so hyper-relevant in Germany, during the period of the Third Reich, that so much of the population was christian, given that the central "gang" was decidedly not christian, was even anti-christian, though it certainly took place in what can rightly be referred to as Christendom.

(I suspect this is something which you believe should simply be taken for granted - and in a specific or qualified sense, I do take it for granted - but I don't accept that premise in the sweeping sense you appear to take for granted, which in practical terms results in the presumption to additionally brow-beat and assign guilt in a grossly indiscriminate manner. Hence Kaganovich vis-a-vis the holodomor, the Ukrainian genocide. And be careful before you respond glibly again, I'm highly informed in terms of both the holocaust and the general social/political and ideological milieu of that period, don't assume I'm stupid or uninformed or naive.)

Finally, while I have further identified myself a couple of times in the past, on the web, why would I do so to someone who so readily resorts to a smear, and a vicious one at that? The notion, on the web, that you need someone's full name (SSN, other bona fides?!?!) before you apologize, no matter how warranted the apology, is at best rather odd. And note, I'm sticking to the subject, if in a highly pointed and acerbic manner - therein echoing some of your own motifs and tactics - I'm not tossing smears around. Too, this subject has wider, and a more contemporary, application, since it echos a ubiquitous anti-religious, anti-christian, anti-Catholic refrain in contemporary society with direct and less direct social/political and legislative implications. This salient fact is not being addressed in this and adjacent threads, but it's very much present, indirectly or by implication, as a kind of adumbrated presence nonetheless and that too is why I take an interest in this subject, both for its own sake and for other, more current or contemporary contexts.

For now, good day. I'll post at least once more, later, in the "John Leo" thread.

Michael B,

You said to Eric, "If you're going to use such tactics, you need to be ready for the same tactics to be used against you."

If you think someone is using unfair, personal arguments against you, I don't think you should imitate that person.

One: When you reply to personal attack with fact and logic, you come across as more likely to be right.

Two: Jesus said not to--at least the first 490 times.

I am posting this for Kelly Clark, who is having technical trouble posting:

Dear Kelly Clark: Helpful indeed! You claim,(and you include The Pope in your claim) that Jesus IS God. So I ask you: When Jesus, in His dying moments prayed " My God, My God, Why has't Thou forsaken Me?" to Whom was He praying? To Himself? Also when Jesus, The Son ,died, Did God, The Father, also die? If "yes" How could He pray to a dead (or dying) God?; if "no", how could God the Father be alive when God the Son was dead if they are one and the same?

Yikes, Still Wondering! (I'll try posting this again...last time I did I got the software runaround.)

Anyway, my apologies for assuming you knew anything about Christian doctrine and the Trinity. If you're interested, just google the words "Apostles Creed" without the quotes for some basic edification.

Again, I hope this is helpful.

Roger,

Your advice would be welcome, and heeded, if this were simply a personal spat, or even primarily a personal spat, it is not, it is something else entirely. Hence your advice is misapplied and unwelcome. I didn't indicate I was returning similar "personal" (your word, not mine) insults or tactics, instead I indicated the tactic applied to the social/political and historical subject matter. While I don't wish to be unmindful of your sincerity, if you're going to give advice to someone when they don't ask for it, you should minimally make a better effort to understand what they are indicating in the first place. Too, what is most incongruous, I'm the one who was slandered, yet you're presuming to give me advice to attenuate my comments.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Michael B,

I'm not sure what in my advice is unwanted, and to be unheeded. To avoid personal attack? To use fact and logic? To listen to Jesus?

It seems that the young Josef Ratzinger VOLUNTARILY joined the Hitler-Jugend, something for which he has never apologized.

Today's Irish TImes:

Madam, - In a preview of the Pope's visit to Poland, Derek Scally wrote: "It would be a highly symbolic visit for the Pope whose childhood in Nazi Germany came under scrutiny after his accession last year, in particular his brief time in the Hitler Youth when membership was compulsory" (The Irish Times, May 25th). This is quite incorrect.

Membership of the Hitler Youth was emphatically not compulsory. I went to the trouble last year of checking this important fact with the German Embassy.

Moreover before he became Pope, the then Cardinal Ratzinger indicated that his reason for joining the Hitler Youth was in order to obtain study privileges which would be useful for him during his period of priestly training.

He has in fact been quoted in an authoritative interview as saying: "Keeping out of the Hitler Youth was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the Hitler Youth. Thank goodness there was a very understanding mathematics professor. He himself was a Nazi, but an honest man."

Moreover one of the Ratzingers' neighbours in Traunstein, Elizabeth Lohner, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, says: "It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others. The Ratzingers were young and made a different choice".

I note that your Editorial of Friday, May 26th continues the idea that young Ratzinger was a passive victim in all this by describing him "as a German who was enrolled in the Hitler Youth". I think it important to confront the facts, however awkward they may be. This is especially true in the case of Pope Benedict XVI who has the presided over the issuing of venomous statements attacking gay people. They are described as: evil, disordered and a virus (the latter thanks to the Spanish Hierarchy).

In the light of the Pope's visit to Auschwitz, where many homosexual people were imprisoned, tortured, used for medical experiments on and done to death, and in the light of the memoir of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolph Hoess, who expressed astonishment at the fact that even in the camps gay people found relationships and committed themselves to each other to such an extent that when one of the pair was murdered the other invariably pined away and died, it is not acceptable to massage history in order to exonerate the Pope from a background which he certainly should explain. - Yours, etc,

Senator DAVID NORRIS, Seanad Éireann, Duboin 2.

This is like the Theatre of the Absurd. First I'm viciously slandered, and that accomplished via an unembarrassed misrepresentation of what this thread's subject matter self-evidently is - a focus upon perpetrators and those who are guilty as well as the victims - and now this continued silliness. Lovely stuff.

ELM: Nice try, Michael B. You challenged a comment of mine in which I agreed with another commenter's assertion that all genocide victims -- and not just Jewish ones -- should be equally remembered and valued. The way you challenged me was not to take me to task for failing to have sufficient sympathy for Ukrainians, but to point out to me that an associate of Stalin's who ordered the killing of Ukranians was born a Jew. The perpetrator's natal Jewishness was irrelevant to the discussion, but was obviously relevant to you, or else you wouldn't have focused on it.

Wrong, and a further distortion. The very subject of this thread comprises an attention paid to both who the perpetrators were, thus who is to be assigned guilt, as well as the victims (indeed, far more the former than the latter). I was (and obviously) focusing upon the former, and doing so to demonstrate that if guilt is going to be assigned so indiscriminately and while paying so little heed - indeed positively chosing to ignore a variety of historical contexts and realities - then that Pandora's Box is not so easily contained.

Re: Since then, lots of words: but no explanation of why it was relevant that one of Stalin's henchmen was Jewish.

It has been my experience, from trolling around FR and other rightie sites, that this is the excuse used by Russian nationalists (along with noting that Stalin was a Georgian) to deflect blame for the Holodomor and other Soviet atrocities away from the Russian people and nation. "We weren't really in control" they claim. "It was those nasty Georgians/Jews/etc. who did all this. They made us do this. We are really victims, too."

i.e. It wasn't the noble German/Russian people who committed these atrocities, it was those horrible Nazis/Soviets.

I was directed to your blog from a posting
by Jesus's General (patriotboy.blogspot.com).
Thank you for your very lucid essay. Although
the American media, always obsequious to
established religion, has done the Vatican's
bidding in whitewashing Ratzinger's past,
facts such as his voluntarily joining
the Hitler youth, his confused account of
his whereabouts, and his having "deserted"
the army only when there was no army to speak of,
need to be remembered.

So Michael B. hates the Jewish race and not the religion? That's what I got out of that screed on Kaganovich: secular Jews are genocidal maniacs. And had Stalin not murdered the Kulaks, would not Hitler have? Stalin was in the orthodox seminary, so what's your theological point? Try building a thesis. We fought a cold war for decades against Russia and the credibility of the American left was destroyed its (non)response to the Kulak genocide.
The Nazi belt buckles said "Gott Mit Uns." The scapegoating of the Jews and other groups did not spring from the ether. The American right today is in a similar position: they have named their enemies (guess who this time?), they have the funds and support, and now it is a matter of time before they make their move. One party government is not enough for right wing extremists.
The point is wingnut victimhood syndrome. Those still living, in the majority, in positions of power, are claiming to be oppressed by those who were victimized, murdered, displaced, and oppressed, with the kind of "who, me?" feigned innocence that seeks to avoid responsibility and accountability for evil.

No, Michael B. does no such thing, in fact very much to the contrary and could probably dig up any number of threads to substantiate that fact. But you'd need to read and comprehend what was actually stated and then apply some rational thought as well. That you instead engage merely in additional contumely reflects upon yourself, not I.

It's an interesting insight. All I know is one sentence hangs in the air for me, when Ratzinger said, "How could God let this happen?" in reference to the mass murders.

Maybe it's me, but is this not a pedestrian form of deviating blame? God's to blame now, is He? Why is man unavailable to accept consequences for his actions? Just wondering.