All Heil the new Fuehrer, err, Pope.....

[LisaM]

I for one am not going to buy the argument that he was compelled to join the Hitler youth. This is a future POPE for God's sake. He should have the nerve to stand up to evil and wrong, even from an early age. This is the kind of thing that, later, distinguishes future Popes, nicht wahr?

[Lone Pawn]

1. I don't think he's a Nazi.

I just think he's a worm.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3513067

[Walt Starr]

2. Popenfuehrer Joratz I

New name for him.

[Cuban_Liberal]

3. So, you know what it's like to be 14 in Nazi Germany?

I'd like to hear more about your adolescent moral courage in Hitler's Germany.

[LisaM]

5. Certainly not. No, I don't know.

However, some people did object; some people did not jump on the bandwagon, some people were not part of the Hitler youth. My point (which is apparently unoriginal) is that one would think that a future POPE would have distinguished himself in this sort of situation.

[Hobarticus]

9. John Paul worked with the guy for years, he had no problem with him

Sorry, but I'd trust JP's judgement over some keyboard warrior's moral outrage regarding what some teenage boy did sixty years ago.

[Lone Pawn]

6. Follow link in reply 1 for my reply to that annoying meme.

[tx_dem41]

4. Sheesh....at least come up with something original.

I mean, if you're going to play this little game, at least play it well.

[ArkDem]

7. I guess you aren't a fan of Saint Paul either?

[WilliamPitt]

8. This shit is getting so tired

Dislike the man. I do. Go ahead.

But do you have ANY IDEA how insulting it is for Catholics to see the Pope called 'Fuehrer'?

Do you even care?

No, you probably don't. But it's pretty fucking sick.

[LisaM]

10. I AM a Catholic

and I'm tired of the direction the Church is taking. I have not gone to church since they attacked Kerry.

[WilliamPitt]

13. So am I

and I agree with the bad direction etc.

But for the LOVE OF GOD, can you refrain from refering to the leader of my religion (and yours) under the name of a man who sent millions and millions and MILLIONS of people to their deaths in gas chambers and shooting galleries?

This is not an earth-shattering request, Lisa. Think.

[LisaM]

14. Look, I'm pretty bitter about the last election

and what I perceive to be intervention by the Catholic church in it. And I am also repulsed by the existence of Opus Dei and the refusal of the Vatican to shut it down. So, my remark was not really in jest.

A lot of people refer to Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Gropenfuehrer. Do you similarly stick up for Californians and complain that people call their governor a "fuehrer"?

I'm just tired of having my religion being systematically stolen from me.

[WilliamPitt]

15. Look

If you cannot see the simple 2+2 aspect of my request, I don't know what to say.

You're trying to draw a comparison between a governor of a state and a religious leader of a billion people? You refuse to see how calling him Fuehrer is insulting?

I'm sorry, then. We're all bitter, so that does not make you special. I hope your bitterness does not overwhelm you and turn you into something less than who you are.

[LisaM]

17. Alas it probably already has....

but I do respect your point, believe me. I was listening to Phil Ochs music last night, and I always start the next day full of angst when I do that!

Let's just see how he turns out. Maybe he will be like Justice Souter and take a hard turn to the middle.

[Bridget Burke]

20. Phil Ochs was a suicidal loser with a nasal voice....

He had some interesting political ideas but this old folkie never really cared for him.

You need to find some new music. The 60's ended long ago.

[LisaM]

22. Whoa!

I like him, but I do end up depressed the day after I listen to him. However, his music is new to me. I was given a CD as a present a few months ago, and have only heard the songs for the first time recently. I especially like the one about Mississippi. He was slightly before my time. I like his voice - but then I also like Dylan and Springsteen and Woody Guthrie and the Carter family ---- if you want to get into singers with nasally voices.

[Bridget Burke]

25. I like the other artists you mention....

But none of them hanged themselves. I feel for Phil's pain, but suicidal artists are guaranteed to bring you down.

[LisaM]

29. So it's the suicidal tendencies that get you down?

Not the nasal voice?

[The Magistrate]

31. Mr. Ochs, Ma'am

Was a great favorite of mine in younger days. He did some beautiful and haunting things: searching his work out will well repay the effort....

"People who aren't depressed aren't paying attention."

"The thought of suicide gets one through many a bitter night."

[LisaM]

34. Oh, I love the CD

I listen to it frequently, but I do end up starting the next day on a down note.

[Hobarticus]

11. How many are even Catholics? eom

[fishnfla]

43. good question eom

[MadHound]

12. Speaking as a seriously lapsed Catholic

I find it even more insulting that this man, who in his own small way aided and abetted one of the most brutal regimes in history, actually was elected Pope. That he is unrepentant about it, that he chose to participate in it, and that he was elected to follow a man who actively resisted the Nazis is pretty fucking sick.

I'm not going to call the man names, but damn, his record speaks for him.

[Mondon]

46. BS

An 18yo conscriptee in 1944-45 was no more responsible for the horrors of Nazism than an 18 yo Vietnam draftee was for the policies of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in that sorry mess.

[VelmaD]

16. Remind me again of the name...

of the rule that says "the first one to compare their oponent to Hitler...loses".

[WilliamPitt]

19. Godwin's Law

[VelmaD]

23. Thanks...I definitely think it applies here

As much as I find the new pope's service during WWII distasteful, the Hilter comparison is too cheap a shot and makes us look like raving loonies. And it takes the focus off of the whacked out right-wing nutty things he has said and done as an adult.

[Walt Starr]

27. Godwin's law does not apply here

Calling a person who is or was actually a Nazi a Nazi is fair game and not covered under Godwin's law. Lik,e it or not, Joratz was a Nazi by virtue of having been a member of the HJ.

[Hobarticus]

32. Ratzinger was NEVER in the Nazi party...

Never, ever, ever. To make that connection is ignorant and incorrect.

My friend's father was conscripted into the Volksturm at age 12, and fought on the eastern front. He later became a colonel in the Canadian Army.

I think the Candaian Army is probably a better judge of character than you.

[LisaM]

35. I never said he was in the Nazi party, for one thing

and I don't doubt the character of your friend's father. My cousin's father fought in Germany in WWII also, and he was not a Nazi either - he was a POW and ended up going to Yale. I would say that Yale is a better judge of character than I but unfortunately, they admit the Bush family one after another so I can't really go there.

I only meant that sometimes people do object, sometimes people do make a fuss, when they are looking at the face of evil, and this future Pope was apparently NOT one of those people. You might think he would have been.

[Walt Starr]

36. Hmmmm, Hitlerjungend weren't Nazis, eh?

Yep, they sure weren't:

[LisaM]

37. Well, it's a narrow distinction

but was it the same as officially joining the party?

[Walt Starr]

38. IMO, yes

Plenty of German youths resisted. Courage worthy of a person destined to be the religious leader of over 1 billion people DEMANDS such courage.

[michael_1166]

44. Sorry, but....

the face of the U.S. army doesn't look much different these days.

[CentralEuropeanDude]

18. is that really necessary?

i came to DU, because i think it is a place of sanity in a (media) world of propaganda, name calling and manipulation. reading things like "All Heil the new Fuehrer, err, Pope....." on DU hurts. sorry.

how should it improve the situation?

[michael_1166]

45. Yes, exactly...

why can some people here never resist calling someone a Nazi just because he was born in Germany around that time? Is framing someone that way who's an easy target really that much fun?

I'm from Germany, I don't like the new Pope, I'd have preferred a black pope. But Ratzinger is an ultra-conservative, not a Nazi. Please stay fair.

Michael

[LisaM]

21. LOL, my posts usually sink like a stone

I was actually repeating what my father said to me in an email yesterday. I didn't mean to offend anyone - I am a Catholic, I don't like this choice of Pope (if you do, go to FR - they love him over there) and I think it could signal some troubling times. And, as a woman, I find it a particularly dejecting choice. I won't apologize for calling him a fuehrer, but I do respect that it's prickled some nerves and for that I AM sorry.

[CentralEuropeanDude]

24. yeah, troubling times...

you have a point, thank you!

[Stryguy]

26. Don't be sorry

There's tons of us that completely agree with you.

It's not like we're saying the guy should be tried for war crimes and shot. We're just saying "come on, are you serious". Like there wasn't some other choice that would be _SO_ much more appropriate.

You don't fight on the evil side of the most notorious war in world history and expect a free ride cause you were only 14.

[LisaM]

28. Well I don't like when ex or lapsed Catholics criticize the church

but last year did me in.

[Kellanved]

30. Please

We've been through this.
Kids automatically joined the Hitler Youth; it was not like there was any option in the matter; not attending the meetings was about the only thing one could do about it. It is quite fitting for a stead-holder of Paul.

Out of curiosity: Were you as distressed, when Günther Grass won the literature Nobel Price?
Do you read Habermas' theories?

[LisaM]

33. Well it's not an exact parallel

If you win a prize, it doesn't mean that you are the spiritual leader of a billion people.

And I naturally understand that teens and children were compelled to be in the Hitler youth. I DO understand that. My comment was only that this is where someone like a future Pope might stand out. Many saints were dissidents and persecuted in their own times - even as teens. This Pope, however, seems to be sort of a company guy - read the link someone put up in an earlier post - he is a front runner, from that account.

[Kellanved]

39. I never claimed that he has an easy past

But I wonder whatever or not the debate about his past is helping. At the moment all these stupid Nazi discussions do one thing more than anything else: they are stopping productive, grown-up discussions.

We will have to deal with his policies, we won't get that accomplished by continuing this childish circular babbling about a past shared by all Germans his age.

[LisaM]

40. Or not.....see Walt Starr's post above n/t

[Kellanved]

41. argh - here we go again

:eyes:

[LisaM]

42. For all of you who are bothered by the title of this thread

Let me first state: I never expected it to get an iota of attention, as my posts rarely do (I think I've started two threads EVER that got more than a few replies.) Let me also state that for years, as a PRACTICING Catholic, I stuck up for the church through thick and thin until last fall when (IMO) they interfered in the U.S. elections and helped us lose the chance to have a Catholic president. At that point (after calling my church to complain) I stopped going and have not been back. I still consider myself a Catholic, but I cannot bond with the Church's current leadership, and I am also horrified that they allow Opus Dei to not only exist, but apparently influence Church policy.

Now they elect a Pope who is either going to continue these disagreeable policies or initiate worse ones! What am I supposed to do, stand by? I am not one of those, btw, who objected to the Hitler ad submitted in the moveon.org ad contest, nor am I one who backs away from comparisons between the NeoCons and Fascist values. I view this papacy as frightening.

P.S. - I am also not a disrupter. I usually lurk, and generally post in the lounge or in threads about music or books.

[Mondon]

47. To equate the Church with the Nazi regime, which your title does

is simply outrageous. Outrageous. Your former Catholicism is irrelevant. The fact that you find his policies, in your words, "disagreeable," is irrelevant. You just called the spiritual leader of a billion people the equivalent of one of the most evil murderers in world history. And you don't expect it to get a lot of attention???

Wow.

[donheld]

48. Honey you don't have to buy it

The truth is free of charge. He was a future pope, not a future teller. This was a child not a God.

[Mondon]

49. It is clear to me that this sort of attitude is indicative of a deep

hatred for the Church unrelated to this man or his history. Your tag line confirms it.

Hey, if you don't like Catholicism, don't practice it.

[Moderator]

50. Locking

As noted, the original post's title seems inflammatory.

Thanks for your consideration.
DU Mod