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.

Ratzinger has distinguished himself in the field of Jewish-Catholic relations.

Too bad he's been so hostile to all the other religions.

t edit To wit: In 1997 Ratzinger annoyed Buddhists by calling their religion an "autoerotic spirituality’" that offers "transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations." And Hinduism, he said, offers "false hope"; it guarantees purification based on a "morally cruel" concept of reincarnation resembling "a continuous circle of hell." The Cardinal predicted Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic Church’s main enemy this century.

Maria, I'm so seriously thinking about it. I mean, I'm sincerely and utterly delighted to know that he's not only not a closet Nazi but has played an instrumental part in the Church's recent acts of apology, atonement and reconciliation. But that still leaves the social conservatism, the anti-feminism, the hostility to liberation theology, the etc. etc. etc.

But now I must leave -- first meeting with a staffer at the School of Circus Arts, to decide what kind of volunteer work I'll be doing with them for the next few months.