Doesn't make him a good guy.

Yeah, but it does make him not a Nazi.

I rescind my Nazi labelling of him, and forthwith shall refer to him as a Scary-Ass Bigoted Zealot.

So, okay. He went along with the crowd with the whole Hitler Youth thing. That was a long time ago. But what he's done recently is even scarier. The dude was, until today, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was formerly known as the Inquisition.

This is why there are 'better' things to call him than "Nazi." It's too kneejerk, true or not.

I rescind my Nazi labelling of him, and forthwith shall refer to him as a Scary-Ass Bigoted Zealot.

That's more fair.

But at his age, in that atmosphere, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from that.

Well, that's kind of what I'm saying. You can't pillory him for the mere fact of belonging. But at the same time, you can't hand-wave that it was only for cover, either. "It was mandatory," might be a defense, and a real one. Or it might be beside the fact. We don't (yet) know.

It's like if Cheney got elected president, huh?

I rescind my Nazi labelling of him, and forthwith shall refer to him as a Scary-Ass Bigoted Zealot.

That's more fair.

Apparently, some of his nicknames include: “the enforcer”, “the panzer cardinal” and “God’s rottweiler.”

Just....neat.

It's like if Cheney got elected president, huh?

never stops screaming

So, knowing very little about cardinals except there's that charismatic one from Africa who typically wears black over purple, rather than red over white, and that there's Cardinal Law who screwed the pooch on the whole sex abuse scandal thing, and there's the new Boston Archbishop, who's, what, a Dominican? Apparently I know more than I thought. Let me start over. So, am I to take it that, from a progressive, inclusive, not-alienating-more-Catholics-let-alone-everybody-else perspective, they could hardly have chosen worse than Ratzinger?

ETA: Oh, actually I think the new Archbishop is not a cardinal at all. Still, I'm pleased that I remember stuff about him, so I'm leaving it in.

So, my guess is that Pope Benedict XV's election is gonna alienate a lot of American Catholics. European Catholics tend to be not so conservative, also, but are they gonna be mollified by his being a European?

I have no idea how this'll be received in other parts of the world, is what I'm getting at.

What brenda said. I think I would feel less, whatever... suspicious...harsh...something about his HY membership if in his adulthood he'd shown what effect that had. Surely if you're forced to join an evil organization that's overtaking your country, committing atrocities, crimes against humanity, don't you later see the dangers in calling a certain segment of people less than equal? Don't you caution against the power of the majority to impose its will on the minority? I don't see that. And yeah, I'd still like an inspiring story about 12 year old Ben jacking with the Nazis partisan style. But I could forgo that if, like I said, he seemed like he'd learned the lessons of what he saw and was doing his part to make sure it never happened again.