How is theology defined, as distinct from the church? Is it the bookish stuff? From a biography of Ratzinger:

Under Hitler, Ratzinger says he watched the Nazis twist and distort the truth. Their lies about Jews, about genetics, were more than academic exercises. People died by the millions because of them. The church's service to society, Ratzinger concluded, is to stand for absolute truths that function as boundary markers: Move about within these limits, but outside them lies disaster.

Later reflection on the Nazi experience also left Ratzinger with a conviction that theology must either bind itself to the church, with its creed and teaching authority, or it becomes the plaything of outside forces -- the state in a totalitarian system or secular culture in Western liberal democracies. In a widely noted 1986 lecture in Toronto, Ratzinger put it this way: "A church without theology impoverishes and blinds, while a churchless theology melts away into caprice." *

I think the Hitler Youth thing is a huge distraction. It's inconclusive. Good people, very good people, bad people and evil people have probably been members. It's not a predictor of much. However, his actions and his words as an adult are his (more or less) alone, and it seems there's plenty of fodder there.

Oh neat. HE'S THE POPE? Fine. When do we start Inquisition II?

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?

The Boston Archbishop is a Franciscan I think.

I make no defense of his conservatism. I just get twitchy at blanket villification. Some of my husband's relatives in Germany went the "I'd rather do my best to get my family fed, where do I sign up to stay below the radar?" route. Not everyone is brave.

However, his actions and his words as an adult are his (more or less) alone, and it seems there's plenty of fodder there.

But that's what I'm saying. His words as an adult don't show me he learned anything from his experience except to follow what the church says because if you're not religious, you're prone to evil or being corrupted by it- he makes no move toward tolerance and understanding in that biography passage.

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?

Das ist korrekt.

JZ, I'll register the domain. You start rounding up pictures.

But that's what I'm saying

I think we differ in that I'm saying HY was irrelevant, and you're saying it's something that should have had a positive effect in him that you can't see.

I have no idea what effect it had, honestly, without knowing more about him before. Maybe this is the improved Ratzinger. Maybe it's not. I got no data.

The Jerusalem Post had an editorial responding to the allegations against Ratzinger. I can't seem to get to it except through google news, but here is the relevant excerpt:

If he were truly a Nazi sympathizer, then it would undoubtedly have become evident during the past 60 years. Yet throughout his service in the church, Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

As prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the Vatican's revolutionary reconciliation with the Jews under John Paul II. He personally prepared Memory and Reconciliation, the 2000 document outlining the church's historical "errors" in its treatment of Jews. And as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, a milestone theological explanation for the Jews' rejection of Jesus.

If that's theological anti-Semitism, then we should only be so lucky to "suffer" more of the same.

As for the Hitler Youth issue, not even Yad Vashem has considered it worthy of further investigation. Why should we?

The Boston Archbishop is a Franciscan I think.

Crap. Thank you!

Not everyone is brave.

Not everybody is God's go-to guy on earth, either.

I think we differ in that I'm saying HY was irrelevant, and you're saying it's something that should have had a positive effect in him that you can't see.

That's pretty accurate. And bon bon's link, again I'm not calling him a Nazi, I'm calling him someone who doesn't recognize the lessons of the Nazis.