Pope has been chosen

[Rust]

For the first 21 months it was open Auschwitz was almost entirely filled with Poles.

Yes, but you've got to remember that Auschwitz was really three main camps , the base camp (Auschwitz), the extermination camp (Birkenau), and the Buna Works (Monowitz). Only in Birkenau were there really mass killings.

--R.

[Narrock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen

[Rust]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen

Not sure how that link is apropos; Bergen-Belsen wasn't an extermination camp. Elaborate please?

--R.

[BillyBob]

Funny, apparently this pope was a part of the Hitler Youth. Also heard that some prophet predicted this guy to be the downfall of the catholic church like a long time ago? Anyone else have more info?

St. Malachy predicted the list of Popes. Benedict XVI is predicted to only be Pope for a short term.

After that, Peter the Roman will be named. While he is Pope, The 'Judge' will judge the people.

Some say that this prediction of St. Malachy, “From the Glory of the Olive,” refers to the Order of St. Benedict, because they have a well-known group within their order called the 'Olivetans.' There is some merit to this idea. But it does not mean that this Pope will come from the Order of St. Benedict, but rather that he will take the name of Saint Benedict and will live in imitation of him.

[Diabolik]

While he is Pope, The 'Judge' will judge the people.

<img src="http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/17/judgejudy.jpg">

Hells yeah, she will!

[The Kizzy]

amazing how your that fucking stupid and can still breath.

Going for Rust's title Kahar?

I didn't say anything about him being conscripted into the army. Millions were, that doesn't mean shit. Especially since he deserted anyways. Along with your history I'd work on reading comprehension as well.

Finawin of course would simply have flunked out of the Hitler Youth in any event.

--R.

That damn Hitler didn't know what it was like having to climb stairs with ulcers!!

[Harrison]

Rust wouldn't have survived.

No google in WW2.

[mofish]

Worst possible pick. Well, for the church anyway.

78 years old, at least he wont be Pope for long.

He thinks its an anti-catholic conspiracy in the media that persecutes catholics. I guess it doesnt have anything to do with child molestation.

Wanted to deny communion to pro-choice candidates.

Also according to him, if you supported Terry Shiavo having her feeding tube pulled, you cant receive communion.

Dismissed people that attempted to find any feminist interpretations of scripture.

One of his nicknames is 'The Grand Inquisitor.'

He called Buddhism a 'religion for the self-indulgent.' Lmao.

He doesnt want Turkey joining the UN because they arent a christian nation.

He doesnt want protestant churches referred to as 'sister churches.'

Arch-conservative. More rigid than John Paul. Great. I really mean that. The more people driven away from the church the better.

[Narrock]

Worst possible pick. Well, for the church anyway.

78 years old, at least he wont be Pope for long.

He thinks its an anti-catholic conspiracy in the media that persecutes catholics. I guess it doesnt have anything to do with child molestation.

Wanted to deny communion to pro-choice candidates.

Also according to him, if you supported Terry Shiavo having her feeding tube pulled, you cant receive communion.

Dismissed people that attempted to find any feminist interpretations of scripture.

One of his nicknames is 'The Grand Inquisitor.'

He called Buddhism a 'religion for the self-indulgent.' Lmao.

He doesnt want Turkey joining the UN because they arent a christian nation.

He doesnt want protestant churches referred to as 'sister churches.'

Arch-conservative. More rigid than John Paul. Great. I really mean that. The more people driven away from the church the better.

Sounds like the best Pope they've ever had, actually.

[Narrock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen

Not sure how that link is apropos; Bergen-Belsen wasn't an extermination camp. Elaborate please?

--R.

Over 50,000 Jews were killed at Bergen-Belsen. That's quite significant. I know other ones were worse, but this one I felt should have been mentioned as well.

[Rust]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen

Not sure how that link is apropos; Bergen-Belsen wasn't an extermination camp. Elaborate please?

--R.

Over 50,000 Jews were killed at Bergen-Belsen. That's quite significant. I know other ones were worse, but this one I felt should have been mentioned as well.

Oh, yeah. There were deaths at all the camps. Dachau was around 40,000 or so. A lot of the dying in Bergen-Belsen was at the end of the war though as Germany was collapsing, food supplies dwindled away, massive transfers of prisoners arrived from other camps dying on their feet.

Dec 1944 -- 350 deaths
Jan 1945 -- 800-1000 deaths
Feb 1945 -- 6000-7000 deaths
Mar 1945 -- 18168 deaths
Apr 1945 -- 18355 deaths (9000 after liberation)
May 1945 -- 4000 deaths

During the war proper, relatively few Jews were killed in Bergen-Belsen. But 50,000 is still a horrifying number -- and not a patch on the whole process.

--R.

[Martrae]

100,000 non-Jews from Poland died at Auschwitz. The first ethnic Pole died there in June 1940 and the first Jew in October 1941.

Breakdown of deaths of targetted groups:
* 5 – 6 million Jews, including 3.0 – 3.5 million Polish Jews [3] (http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/about_holo ... faq_3.html)
* 2.5 – 3.5 million Gentile Poles
* 200,000 – 800,000 Roma & Sinti (gypsies)
* 200,000 – 300,000 people with disabilities
* 10,000 – 25,000 gay men
* 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses

In addition these groups were also killed even tho they weren't specifically targetted for extermination:
* 3.5 – 6 million other Slavic civilians
* 2.5 – 4 million Soviet POWs
* 1 – 1.5 million political dissidents


Regardless of all that, I'm quite sure the new pope pretty much had no choice but to join the Hilter Youths and to hold that against him is ridiculous. Besides, there is many more real issues to dislike him for.

[kaharthemad]

A little news about the Hitler youth as it pertains to the Pope.

When the Hitler Youth program was indoctrinated Jowhn Ratzinger was still too young to join but his brother did. By the time he was old enough to join, joining was mandatory. He was in the HYP for approx 4 years before going to college. He stopped attending the HYP and was consequently denied tuition. Due the the refusal he was then placed into the German army as a conscript.


So lets see...Be hip join the HYP or goto war and get shot at. Yup if you were that age you had alot of choice.

Now to point out a few things. Most of my information does not come off the web but from books and actual survivors of that time. I was forced to talk to these people in order to get a clear understanding of what life was like. I thank my mother everyday for making me do this(At the time I thought she was nuts).
I was able to talk to a few Germans living in Nazi Germany at the time. One was a political dissident and was branded on his arm similar to that of a jew or pole. He was scheduled to be terminated when the allied forces broke into the prison and freed them.

So yes Political dsiisdents we usually short lived. A PD was anything more than saying something bad about Hitler to refusal to sign up for one of his indoctrination programs.

[Eziekial]

So if the next pope is a Roman Pope and he takes the name of Peter then we are all fooked?

[Ganzo]

Everyone has a choice. We are not talking about average Joe, this is new Pope. The leader of Catholic people throughout the world, man of principals and corage. He did not HAVE to join HYP, he did not HAVE to join the army. He was coward and did that because he was afraid for his life.

His membership in HYP don't bother me as much as what he did when he was in the army. He was a guard at BMW manufacturing. The plant that used slave labor of jews and slavic people. And no he did not guard autoparts there.

Last Pope, Jean Poul II was in simmilar position during WW2 but he chouse to go underground and join liberation movement instead.

This guys also said that his plan is to reunite all christians of every denomination under Roman Catholic Church, and Christianization of Israel.

Good choise of Pope

[Martrae]

He'll die quickly and it'll all be a non-issue anyway. I give him 5 years at the most.

[kaharthemad]

He went AWOL from the Army and ended up in a American POW camp. that is fact. The fact he was a guard at a Bavarion Motor Works factory and not on the front line shows something. When your choice is to be charged as Politcal dissident and sent to a concentration camp or be forced into a guard duty at a BMW plant seems kinda interesting of a choice. I think I would have problems if he was in the SS.

So what you are saying is because he refused to continue in the HYP and left. Was then subsequently removed from Seminary because he refused to particpate in the HYP project then forced into consciption he is a bad person.

So since he did not die for his beliefs and for fear of retribution of his family he is a bad choice. Um yeah.
People make mistakes. This man has lived with what he did for 78 years. I think refusing to continue in the HYP and in the army after he was forced to says alot for his character. At the time he joined the camps were not fired up and jews were second rate citizens but the mass transiting of jews did not happen till later. The fact is he did not stay with either. Quitting the Hitler Youth program caused him to be forced into the Army. He could have chose alot of different venues in the Military. He chose guard duty and later went AWOL because he did not believe in what was happening.

Whether he is a good Pope or not is not for you to decide right now. It is how he acts in the present. What he did at the time was a necessity. I dont think we as GenX has a right to judge him since we ourselves do not know how we would respond in such a time of duress. Fear for your life can make you do some things you might not like or reget later.

[Ganzo]

The fact he was a guard at a Bavarion Motor Works factory and not on the front line shows something. When your choice is to be charged as Politcal dissident and sent to a concentration camp or be forced into a guard duty at a BMW plant seems kinda interesting of a choice.

His membership in HYP don't bother me as much as what he did when he was in the army. He was a guard at BMW manufacturing. The plant that used slave labor of jews and slavic people. And no he did not guard autoparts there.

I would have less issues if he was forced into frontlines than him being a guard over slaves from concentration camps.

So what you are saying is because he refused to continue in the HYP and left. Was then subsequently removed from Seminary because he refused to particpate in the HYP project then forced into consciption he is a bad person.

So since he did not die for his beliefs and for fear of retribution of his family he is a bad choice.

Yes, i say because he was a follower and went along with what was going on even for 1 day, he is unfit choise for a Church Leader. Stop giving me media spin on him and think for yourself. In your opinion does a man who was afraid to follow what majority did, out of fear for his life, knowing that he is doing something that goes against his faith, fit to lead his Church?

Whether he is a good Pope or not is not for you to decide right now. It is how he acts in the present.

Back to the present than:

This guys also said that his plan is to reunite all christians of every denomination under Roman Catholic Church, and Christianization of Israel.

He thinks its an anti-catholic conspiracy in the media that persecutes catholics. I guess it doesnt have anything to do with child molestation.

Wanted to deny communion to pro-choice candidates.

Also according to him, if you supported Terry Shiavo having her feeding tube pulled, you cant receive communion.

Dismissed people that attempted to find any feminist interpretations of scripture.

One of his nicknames is 'The Grand Inquisitor.'

He called Buddhism a 'religion for the self-indulgent.' Lmao.

He doesnt want Turkey joining the UN because they arent a christian nation.

He doesnt want protestant churches referred to as 'sister churches.'

Arch-conservative.

[Martrae]

Besides, there is many more real issues to dislike him for.

[kaharthemad]

So you are saying you would have done things differently if you were in his position?

[Ganzo]

I do not know, but than I'm not a Holy Leader of Catholicizm, the Infaulable Apostole of God on Earth.

See what i'm geting at. HE IS NOT AVERAGE GUY TO ABIDE BY EVERYDAY RULES

[Eziekial]

Yes but do we see our future and act accordingly? I don't think so. For all I know, I could be the pope 50 years from now (God forbid) and Lord knows there are some skellies in my broom closet.

Wasn't Moses raised the son of Pharaoh?

[Ganzo]

Wasn't Moses raised the son of Pharaoh?

And what did he do when he saw soldier beating on a slave?

[shiraz]

Another nickname he's had is God's rottweiler

From CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04 ... index.html

Ratzinger has said modernity led to a blurring of sexual identity, causing some feminists to become adversaries of men. He labeled homosexuality "an intrinsic moral evil."

He argued that Muslim Turkey did not belong in Christian Europe and issued a document saying that Catholicism was the only true religion, questioning the validity of other religions, even Christian ones, even as his Pope John Paul II was trying to reach out to other faiths.

Although objections came even from some of his fellow cardinals, the pope did not restrain Ratzinger, in part because their friendship went back four decades, to the time when the two were young priests at the Vatican II meetings in Rome.

In 1984, Ratzinger caused a major diplomatic stir with a condemnation of communism, calling the Soviet Union and its satellites "a shame of our time."

After the collapse of the communist regimes, he also condemned the excesses of capitalism and cautioned, "We must coordinate the free market with the sense of responsibility of one towards the other."

He tangled with other cardinals and disciplined church officials who dissented from official church policy.

He rejected a 1993 pastoral letter co-written by fellow German Cardinal Walter Kasper that encouraged divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to return to the sacraments.

After Kasper came to Rome in 1999 to take over the Vatican's ecumenical affairs office, he and Ratzinger jousted in a series of journal articles.

In them, Ratzinger argued for centralized authority over the church and Kasper advocated the equality of the local church with the universal church.

In his homily at Monday's eligendo Summo Pontifice Mass before the cardinals began the conclave, Ratzinger warned against "relativism" and said having a strong faith, based on church teaching, is often labeled today as a "fundamentalism."

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires," he warned.

Allen said Ratzinger's homily expressed his core message that the church must remain true to itself.

"If you want to boil it down, it is the kind of modern idea that there is no truth with a capital 'T.' That is, that absolute truth does not exist; that you have your truth, I have mine, and we sort of go our separate ways," Allen said.

"Ratzinger, in concert with a very strong current in church tradition, is insisting that is not true. That, in fact, there is absolute truth, and the pinnacle expression of that truth came in the person of Jesus Christ.

"And therefore, that the church must have the courage to proclaim that absolute truth, even in an era that doesn't want to hear it."

[Eziekial]

Wasn't Moses raised the son of Pharaoh?

And what did he do when he saw soldier beating on a slave?

He killed the soldier and saved the slave. My arguement was a bit weak because I did not explain the other circumstances that may have effected our new pope's decisions back then. Like the Nazi's going around and saying positive things (propaganda) about what they where all about and putting a huge amount of spin on their actions or just covering up their autrocities. The western world was SHOCKED when our soldier discovered the mass execution chambers and concentration camps as we liberated Europe. I did not grow up in Nazi Germany but I have read that they (the Nazis) did not go around shouting "Join the Hitler Youth Program and learn to gas Jews!" I would imagine the German people would not have stood and allowed for such things if they knew the true nature of the nazi party. The insidiousness of that regime was it's propaganda machine and it's ability to fabricate such a distorted picture of reality to the point where an entire nation was fooled into believing their government was acting noblely.

It is easy to point to someone's past and find inadequate behavior, especially when someone is young, when you hold them to such a high standard such as the position of Pontiff. I would rather judge them on their recent decisions and actions, than draw conclusions from a lot of assumptions from 60 years ago. What has he done in the last 10, 20,30, even 40 years that can be scutinized and used to best determine the character of the next spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church?

Frankly, I am indifferent to his appointment. I have not, and more than likely never will be a fan of the Catholic Church. The doctrines and rituals to say nothing of the unworldly wealth of this organization simply does not sit right with my belief in God. I have no doubts that Pope Ratzinger has faith and strong beliefs, we shall not have to wait very long to see what he believes God wants him to do while he wears the funny hat.