Questions to those judging the Pope when he was 14:

[SouthernDem2004]

Ok, we do not know if he did anything other then join the Nazis like everyone else was forced to do. So he was a 14 year old that did what he was told and did not want his family killed etc. I guess at 14 most people judging the Pope here were very mature at 14.

That being said, He was 14 years old. That would make him a minor by our standards. Are you people now saying that minors should be treated as adults? Should he have been imprisioned for the rest of his life. I guess a 14 year old can not change over 50 years or so. Should 14 year olds face the same sentencing as adults now? Should the age of majority be changed to 13? Sounds ridiculous now doesn't it. Do some people hold people they do not like to different standards? Lol, no need to answer that one.

[yvr girl]

1. Here, here

To accuse someone of being a Nazi because he was automatically enrolled in an organization when he was a teenager is harsh beyond belief. And let's not forget that he lived in a totalitarian state in the midst of war.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Here's my opinion

You can take it if you like. I don't care if he has a Nazi past since we don't know the whole story. What I do care about is if he still practices those polices. I don't care that Senator Byrd was apart of the KKK because he has proven he's changed. I don't know much about this new Pope. If he proves he has changed and doesn't still practice the Nazi polices then all is well and he's moved on.

[Lone Pawn]

9. He declared that the Jewish faith is worthless

save as part of the Catholic faith in 1989, declared that Jews as well as all non-Catholics are hellbound in 2000, and called John Paul 2's visiting a synagogue "sinful."

Draw your own conclusions.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. But he seved until well after the legal age of 18

Therefore, your questions are mostly moot unless you'd also then confirm that all those people locked in our prisons since their youth should get another chance after aging a few decades.

See how that logic works?

[LibInternationalist]

12. apparently he didn't continue to serve

as he was born in 1927 and deserted in 1945 (slightly after turning 18, if my math is correct)

[WillowTree]

21. VE Day...

....was less than a month after his 18th birthday. How do you figure that "he served well after the legal age of 18"?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

23. Ok..but he was still 18..old enough to get him a life sentence here

[Sean Reynolds]

3. Clearly DU is NOT taking the liberal stance here....

That of course being that people make mistakes. If you have a beef with Ratzinger, so be it. But don't wrap that beef around something he did when he was a young kid.

[sniffa]

4. i agree whoLeheartedLy

i aLso forgive george w. bush for aLL of his shortcomings, and past indiscretions. i mean, he's onLy the Leader of the united states.

[lala_rawraw]

19. good, you guys are better men than we are (or women)...

I for one think that even at 16, 17, 18, 19... people can start to take responsibility for their actions. In case you are still unsure, hate seems to be his motto with regard to gays, and other "less desirables" still and he is 78. Can he take responsibility yet?

Sorry, as Jew I am outraged ... You have the Nazi financiers leading the US and a Nazi sympathizer leading Catholics (oh, and Catholics were also rounded up and killed along with the Jews). All of you should be outraged, damn it!

[BOSSHOG]

6. I'm with ya SD2004

I'm Catholic (a very shaky Catholic) but I think we should give the guy at least one Mass as Pope and let him start tossing about some Papal Declarations before we judge his as Pope.

When I was 14, I was controlled by those incredible urges in my loins and not some maniac with a lil mustache.

[Lone Pawn]

7. He continued to serve with the Nazis well after 18.

He was 14 in 1941 when he agreed to join the Hitler Youth, rather than resist as John Paul 2 did.

In 1945 he was still serving with the Nazi army.

[Hav]

15. And of course everybody served voluntarily in the army...

And didn't he desert 1944?
And didn't he leave the Hitler Youth at 16 or so?

[WilliamPitt]

17. Know anyone who was drafted to serve in Vietnam?

What do you suppose the victims of that war think of US soldiers?

Are you prepared to denounce everyone drafted into Vietnam in the same terms used by Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian victims?

Should all those draftees have left for Canada or died fighting the American government?

Or is getting drafted different in America circa 1968 at age 19 different than getting drafted by nazi Germany in 1941 at age 14?

[BurtWorm]

22. I would like to know what Ratzinger has to say about his youth.

What did he think of Adolf? What DOES he think of Adolf?

[CO Liberal]

30. I Found The Following on Google...

...by searching on {Ratzinger + "Hitler Youth"}. Underlining emphasis is mine.

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.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html

* * * * *

So, we have a deserter in The Vatican - just like we have a deserter in the White House.....

[dhinojosa]

8. Given the information I have, he never renounced his involvement.

That's bad.

[VelmaD]

10. Here's the thing...

show me where he has ever talked about his experience and how it affected him personally and where he showed real remorse. I don't know if he ever has or not but no one has pointed to any link yet.

[smoogatz]

11. It just looks bad.

Especially given the Church's accomodation of/capitulation to the fascists, the nazis and the concentration camps before and during WWII.

[Larkspur]

13. Ratzinger is a moral coward

Franz Jaegerstatter was a married man with children when he refused to server in the German military. He could easily have used the "I have family responsibilites" defense and joined the German army, but he did not. He equated serving in the German military with serving Nazism. He was hanged for refusing to serve in the military.

See his story here http://www.c3.hu/~bocs/jager-a.htm

Note: The Catholic Church in Germany and Austria did not come to his aide. They were accomplices with Hitler.

Ratzinger and his ilk were sheep following the herd to damnation. His enthusiasm at purging the Church of liberal thinking is enough evidence that fasism is Ratzingers true religion.

[CO Liberal]

14. And Are YOU Saying....

...that he should get a ffree pas simply because he was elected Pope???

That's like the moronic talk show hose here in Southern Colorado who feels that Bush's deserting the National Guard 30 years ago is a non-issue because of his later "service to the nation".

It's one aspect of the new Pope's life that cannot be swept under the rug, as many DU-ers want us all to do.

[BOSSHOG]

26. Now that's rich

"bush's service to the nation???" Only from the mind of a chowder head. Charles Manson hasn't massacred anybody in more than 30 years. Turn him loose.

I don't want to sweep anything under the rug, but I can't undo the vote. I'd rather the judging of the Pope be based on Papal declarations and actions of his from this moment forward. If I could change the vote I would, but I just don't have that kind of hog power. I will keep a keen eye and ear out. I'm a Catholic who's just about one papal doctrine away from being an x-Catholic.

[cindyw]

16. While I perfectly understand that boys were drafted in Germany in 40's,

I still think that it is a sad day when we go from John Paul of Poland, a man who understands oppression...to Benedict who was a Nazi and was raised that authoritarianism is the way to go. Now granted he was a child, but question that a man who has not suffered, can not understand the suffering. John Paul saw the effects of hard line fascism. He saw how war devastated the people and how poverty takes away dignity. How can this mann who was raised a Nazi, really empathize with the poor, the persecuted or women for that matter.

[Endangered Specie]

18. He served until he was 17 years old, when he deserted in 1944:

(a capital crime btw)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cardinal_Ratzinger

[blm]

20. Except today he believes in authoritarian, fascist rule as an adult.

He does NOT believe in the charitable catholicism I grew up with in the 60s and 70s.

[arcos]

24. I don't care about his nazi past, but I do care about his fascist present

You don't care about a fundamentalist Opus Dei member being the leader of over a billion people?

[TahitiNut]

25. He condemned 'liberation theology'. Show where he has condemned fascism.

Let's see his written record that condemns fascism and everything it promulgates. I don't much care how the twig was bent except insofar as that might be the way it grew. Show me where he takes any well-defined positions contrary to "Gott Mit Uns" belt-buckles. I've looked for it and can only find autocratic and rabid dogmatism. He harps on obedience and discards conscience. He regards suffering as a "good thing." :puke:

[fishwax]

27. He's not applying for a student loan or trying to get a job at megalomart

he's taking over the reigns of the world's largest church. I don't really see your analogy as applicable. Nobody is saying he should be tried for war crimes. FWIW, I agree that very few would have been mature and brave enough to make a different choice in the same situation, but there were some who did. Plenty of people inside and outside of the church are quite saddened and/or angered to see him elected pope, and it's perfectly natural for them to react to this fact in that context.

[LdyGuique]

28. As far as I'm concerned, the ONLY people who should be

evaluating the new Pope are Catholics, lapsed or otherwise. The rest of us should just butt out and listen to the inner voice that tells us just how suppressed and oppressed the German population was during Hitler's time . . .especially during the 40s. I don't expect ANY kid to make draconian alternative choices when all they they've heard is a single viewpoint, and that during a time of war.

[SouthernDem2004]

29. I am a atheist Catholic myself.

[Dave Sund]

31. Wait, has he ever apologized?

[calico1]

32. Good point! n/a