by Guest » Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:42 am
I'll be happy to compare Ratzinger to many Jewish leaders, Ganzo, and what they've done. He was very anti hitler and you are wrong to judge him based on what happened when he was under 17 growing up in Germany. Thats an ignorant and wrong position for you to take.
Here's his Bio of that time:
1927 Ratzinger is born on April 16, Holy Saturday in Marktl am Inn, and is baptized the same day. Reflecting on this experience in his memoirs, he says:
To be the first person baptized with the new water was seen as a significant act of Providence. I have always been filled with thanksgiving for having had my life immersed in this way in the Easter Mystery . . . the more I reflect on it, the more this seems fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still waiting for Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust. [p. 8, Milestones]
Ratzinger admits it is not easy to say what his 'hometown' is. As a rural policeman, his father was transferred frequently, and his family was continually on the road.
1929 Ratzinger's family moves to Tittmoning, a small town on the Salzach River, on the Austrian border.
1932 December: Due to his father's outspoken criticism of the Nazis, Ratzinger's family is forced to relocate to Auschau am Inn, at the foot of the Alps.
1937 Ratzinger's father retires and his family moves to Hufschlag, outside the city of Traunstein, where Josef would spend most of his years as a teenager. Here he begins classes at the local gymnasium for classical languages, where he studies Latin and Greek.
1939 Ratzinger enters the minor seminary in Traunstein, the initial step of his ecclesiastical career.
1943 Ratzinger, along with the rest of his seminary class, is drafted into the Flak [anti-aircraft corps]. He is still allowed to attend classes at the Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich three days a week.
1944 September: Having reached military age, Ratzinger is released from the Flak and returns home, only to be drafted into labor detail under the infamous Austrian Legion ("fanatical ideologues who tyrannized us without respite").
November: Ratzinger undergoes basic training with the German infantry. Due to illness he finds himself exempt from most of the rigors of military duty.
1945 Spring (end of April or beginning of May): As the Allied front draws closer, Ratzinger deserts the army and heads home to Traunstein. When the Americans finally arrive at his village, they choose to establish their headquarters in the Ratzinger house. Josef is identified as a German soldier and incarcerated in a POW camp.
June 19: Ratzinger is released and returns home to Traunstein, followed by his brother Georg in July.
November: Ratzinger and his brother Georg re-enter the seminary.
1947 Ratzinger enters the Herzogliches Georgianum, a theological institute associated with the University of Munich.
1951 June 29: Georg and Josef Ratzinger are ordained into the priesthood by Cardinal Faulhaber, in the Cathedral at Freising, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
1953 July: Ratzinger receives his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich. In connection with his doctoral studies he produces his first important work: Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche [People and House of God in Augustine's doctrine of the Church].
Ratzinger devotes his Habilitationsschrift -- book-length contribution to original research in order to teach at the university level -- to Bonaventure's theology of history and revelation.
