Pope betting

[Keaton]

[quote="sneaky ninja";p="482710"]I don't really know how I feel about this whole system of electing popes [/quote]

Write your bishop and complain, and threaten not to vote for him should he fail to take action.

[Deacon]

Heh, I was right. Fun headlines are things like "Arch-Conservative German Elected Pope" from Reuters. "Controversial German Cardinal Elected Pope" from the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (Switzerland's BBC). "Catholics, world leaders react" from AFR. "Pope Benedict Must Prove He Is Pastor for All" (nice) from Reuters. "Liberal U.S. Catholics Dismayed at Choice of Pope" from Reuters. "Joseph Ratzinger, an ex-member of Hitler Youth" from India Times. "Gay Groups Disappointed with New Pope" (what are they disappointed for anyway?) from Reuters. And calling him "The Vatican's Enforcer" from The Nation on Yahoo! News. And that's just from the first page of the Google News results out of thousands of articles. My favorite bit, a snippet from BBC's profile of Ratzinger, starting at the very beginning:

The new Pope has been chosen from what could be termed the traditional side of the Catholic Church. To some, he heralds intellectual salvation during a time of confusion and compromise. To others, his record as Pope John Paul II's prefect of doctrine showed the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to be an intimidating "Enforcer", punishing liberal thinkers, and keeping the Church in the Middle Ages. [wow...]

While many theologians strive for a Catholic Church that is more open and in touch with the world around it, the new Pope's mission has in the past seemed to entailing stamping out dissent, and curbing the "wild excesses" of this more tolerant era.

As prefect of doctrine, Pope Benedict wielded the tools of his office with steely efficiency. By influencing diocese budgets, bishops' transfers and even excommunications, what an opponent called "symbolic violence", the then Cardinal clamped down on the more radical contingent of the Church.

He has even claimed the prime position of the Church of Rome over other Christian Churches. Although he has apologised for this, he has never been so contrite about excluding liberation theologians, more progressive priests or those in favour of the ordination of women.

Holy hell...this guy is obviously a batshit insane tyrant hellbent on destroying the world and everyone in it. Amazing.

As soon as the new pope was named, did I not tell you what the reaction would be in leftist media circles? ...just brought me from the Associated Press, a story from Germany: "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger alienated some Roman Catholics in Germany with his zeal enforcing church orthodoxy." That's the lead. "But in the conservative Alpine foothills of Bavaria where he grew up, he remains a favorite son who many think will make a good pope." Okay, so in most of Germany the guy is an absolute tyrant, but Bavaria to the media is probably no different than Mississippi here in America. So to the rednecks in Bavaria, he's good. "Ratzinger, a rigorously conservative guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy..." You won't find anybody in the College of Cardinals that isn't. They cannot understand. Folks, I'm not Catholic, but I understand this. "...a rigorously conservative guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy who turned 78 on Saturday and was chosen the Catholic Church's 265th pontiff Tuesday, went into the Vatican conclave a leading candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II. But opinion about him remains deeply divided in Germany, a sharp contrast to John Paul, who was revered in his native Poland."

See? They're already doing it. It's like trying to sink a battleship with BBs but they're still firing out there. "A recent poll for Der Spiegel news weekly said Germans opposed to Ratzinger becoming pope outnumbered..." I guess the College of Cardinals didn't see the poll. I guess those dopes ought to start reading the newspapers more. Somebody needs to get them a subscription to Der Spiegel. They don't know what the people think. Can you imagine? Why, this is arrogance beyond belief, this church is out of control! That's what I'm hearing as I read this story. Let's continue here. "A recent poll for Der Spiegel news weekly said Germans opposed to Ratzinger becoming pope outnumbered supporters 36 percent to 29 percent, with 17 percent having no preference. The poll of 1,000 people, taken April 5-7, gave no margin of error." Of course not, there is no margin of error. It's a religion about the pope. Nobody's ever wrong when they criticize the pope. That's why they have a margin of error here. "Many blame Ratzinger for decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counseling pregnant teens on their options [read: preventing priests from suggesting abortion] and blocking German Catholics from sharing communion with their Lutheran brethren at a joint gathering in 2003. Ratzinger has clashed with prominent theologians at home, most notably the liberal Hans Kueng, who helped him get a teaching post at the University of Tuebingen in the 1960s."

This guy is an ingrate now. He has no respect for the people who actually made him and he's going to force his views on everyone, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to run for the hills, folks. "He has also sparred openly in articles with fellow German Cardinal Walter Kasper, a moderate who has urged less centralized church governance and is considered a dark horse papal candidate." Well, he can be moderate all day long when it comes to the governance of the church, i.e., in administration, but there's no such thing as moderate in interpreting the scripture in the Catholic church, and I don't understand why some of you people on the left don't understand that. It's like you have your church, liberalism, I don't have to accept it. If I join it I do, but I have no intention of joining your church. I don't believe anything of what you believe. Why should I? And if I did join your church and tried to change it, what would you think of me? I might not be around long. At least able to speak.

...went out there and dug up a bunch of current stories and some past articles on the new pope, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, and there are just three more. One's AP, one's Reuters, and one is the BBC. The BBC is the pièce de résistance. "AP, Vatican City -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, the church's leading hardliner..." I don't need to read anything else after that. Here's the Reuters: "German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a strict defender of Catholic orthodoxy for the past 23 years was elected pope on Tuesday, despite a widespread assumption he was too old and divisive to win election. Papal experts expressed surprise at his election, given the opposition that seemed to have formed before the conclave." Opposition to who by who? The opposition was on the part of the AP and the American left and the news media. How do we know what the opposition was amongst the College of Cardinals? They weren't talking. They just have all these analysts out there, all these stand up news people called analysts say, "Well, I think what's going to happen out there, Paula, you know, the church needs to liberalize. The church needs to modernize. Ratzinger not all that popular, very close to Pope John Paul II. The new church knows that the pope needs to move the church to the left." It was all BS. It was all just flat out uninformed speculation. What have I always told you? These people are projecting their own ideology and their own worldview on this institution that when it comes to Scripture is not oriented in politics, and now here's the BBC. This is an older profile. This is December 18, 2003.

"To some, he is the Catholic church's intellectual salvation during a time of confusion and compromise. To others, he is an intimidating enforcer, punishing liberal thinkers and keeping the church in the Middle Ages. Certainly in the world's largest Christian community, the pope's prefect of doctrine Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger cannot be overlooked. He wields the tools of his office with steely efficiency, by influencing diocese budgets, bishops' transfers, and even excommunications, what an opponent calls 'symbolic violence' Ratzinger has clamped down on the more radical contingent of the church." Symbolic violence? Excommunications are symbolic violence? And get this. "Schooled in the Nazis' power of rhetoric during his childhood in Bavaria," you know, Mississippi to the press, "Ratzinger later deserted the German army during World War II only to be sent to a POW camp when the allies reached his hometown." Well, my God, the man has even served his country! He joined the military! He can't win, he joined the military. He was schooled in the Nazis' power of rhetoric? Oh, folks! You understand how this choice has just destroyed the day, the week, the month of the world media? "Since the late sixties, Ratzinger has pursued a doctrine that can endure independent of cultural or social trends." They're not happy about this. "He argues that only with a completely separate value system can the church offer individual freedom. His critics call this papal fundamentalism, but Ratzinger is unflappable in his personal theology. The cardinal claims that everything falls apart without truth. Whether his noble aims justify his tactics is just one of the issues challenging the church today." Whether his noble aims justify his tactics? You might as well write that about Jesus. Anyway, folks, I share all this with you because it's news and I predicted it. I predicted it an hour ago; it's already come true...

...We have the bite now that's from CBS. It's John Roberts, the cookie-cutter-looking anchor, weekend anchor at CBS, and this is what he said.

ROBERTS: His conservative bent, his strict adherence to conservative Catholic doctrine, has earned him the nickname in some circles as "God's Rottweiler."

Now, see, that is a media trick. What "circles"? Name the circles? Washington Post, all these people do this: "Critics say that Cardinal Ratzinger is referred to as 'God's Rottweiler'..." You know what, it's just a trick. That's just a trick for the reporter to get his view in but he can't identify himself as the critic, so you just name these anonymous critics. This is CBS. The caller from Oxnard said he heard it on ABC. We'll assume that he heard it on CBS. If he heard it on ABC, if both ABC and CBS both said this, then there are talking points going around -- and I swear, listen to this. "His conservative bent, his strict adherence to conservative Catholic doctrine..." That could be BBC, could be AP, could be Reuters, could be everything that we've already shared with you today about what the press is saying. They're all in lockstep. They all think and report the same thing, because they're all on the same page. They all have the same template about this church, and most other institutions that frighten them.

A pittance to the person who can name the author.

[Makh]

"Schooled in the Nazis' power of rhetoric during his childhood in Bavaria," you know, Mississippi to the press, "Ratzinger later deserted the German army during World War II only to be sent to a POW camp when the allies reached his hometown." Well, my God, the man has even served his country! He joined the military! He can't win, he joined the military. He was schooled in the Nazis' power of rhetoric? Oh, folks! You understand how this choice has just destroyed the day, the week, the month of the world media? "Since the late sixties, Ratzinger has pursued a doctrine that can endure independent of cultural or social trends."

He was in the Hitler-Jugend...

[Deacon]

[quote="Deacon";p="482734"]"Joseph Ratzinger, an ex-member of Hitler Youth" from India Times.[/quote]
What's odd is that the headline's contents is only spoken to briefly at the tail end of the article. Trying to boost viewership and clicks by putting out an insane headline like that, perhaps?

At the age of 14, he joined the Hitler Youth, as was required of young Germans of the time, but was not an enthusiastic member.

His studies at Traunstein seminary were interrupted during World War II when he was drafted into an anti-aircraft unit in Munich.

He deserted the German army towards the end of the war and was briefly held as a prisoner of war by the Allies in 1945.

His supporters say his experiences under the Nazi regime convinced him that the Church had to stand up for truth and freedom.

Posted Tue Apr 19, 2005 6:00 pm:

I shall keep the pittance I promised earlier and instead provide you with a link.

[minsx]

HAHA I love Rush

After at least 1500 years of doing things one way, and beleiving, with good cause, that that was the way GOD wanted them to do it, why would anyone up and say, 'oh, such and such a popular magazine showed that some of these people don't aggree with how we do things (and might not have for the past 50 years) . . we ought to change'

and they get accused of keeping the church in the middle ages for doing so.



I agree with Rush. . ."I'm not Catholic, but at least I understand how the system works"

[Rileyrat]

This is exactly what I love about Rush...The odd thing is they media keeps talking about liberal and conservative catholics. The thing is, within the catholic church, as an institution, there aren't conservative and liberal catholics, there are however good and bad catholics. Calling yourself a "liberal catholic" is just a way of easing the pain of being a bad catholic, IMO anyhow. People want so badly to point out the new pope's faults that they are just grabbing for anything. When they say that he "joined" Hitler's Youth at 14, what they fail to remind you of is that ALL 14 year old boys were forced into Hitler's Youth. One of my favorites is how the media tried to paint him a bad person both ways with his military service. They want you to hate him for "joining" in the Nazi Army during WWII, and if you don't dislike him for this, they then point out how he deserted the military. They "innocently" change the word drafted to joined, left out that he was drafted while at siminary school, and then made sure they threw in words like Nazi as to add gasoline to the fire. The way I see it is the man was forced into military service under a cause he did not agree with and simply jumped ship, apparently ready to accept any punishment for doing so, as soon as he could. They want you to dislike him for either being a Nazi, or abandoning his duty diring WWII when neither is the real case because his duty was and is to the church. And as for calling him strict or an "enforcer", anyone deeply involved with the catholic church, or anyone that went to catholic school will tell you that strict is part of catholic dogma. What I really think the media dislikes about the man is that he is loud and outspoken (common trait in the German culture) while John Paul II was softspoken and gentle. For over 20 years you could not take aim on a politically powerful, while nonpolitical, office without outraging the common people.

[amlthrawn]

Riley, you make some very excellent points. I would like to expound a bit on the first one you made.

The odd thing is they media keeps talking about liberal and conservative catholics. The thing is, within the catholic church, as an institution, there aren't conservative and liberal catholics, there are however good and bad catholics. Calling yourself a "liberal catholic" is just a way of easing the pain of being a bad catholic

I don't particularly favor the words "good" and "bad" Catholic (just as I dislike the notion of "good" and "bad" people). But your point is 100% correct. There are Catholics that follow the dogmatic teachings and practices and those that don't. The bottom line at the end of the day is not whether you agree with Church law or not, but whether you follow it. If you claim yourself a follower of the Catholic Church, you must accept her teachings in their entirety. You fully within your free will to say, "I don't agree with the church's stance on birth control and pre-marital sex," but your actions in accordance with this "belief" remain sinful. As soon as you start "customizing" teachings and dogma, you are no longer following Catholic teaching but something else.

[Deacon]

Heh, an interesting tidbit from a humorist's blog (just the first sentence):

Okay, so my Latin really isn't up to snuff...but anyway, some thoughts on Benedict XVI, seeing as it's been some 60 plus years since we've seen a German on a balcony speaking to tens of thousands below, as it were.

[mikehendo]

Yes, he was in the HJ.. A Nazi pope.. so much for someone who is kind and compassionate. And Riley, there wre youth in Germany around that time taht didnt join the HJ. Not a whole lot, but there were some.

The last thing Christianity needs is a tyrant in control of Catholicism, cause that will give Christianity a bad name and scare people away.

[Deacon]

[quote="amlthrawn";p="483289"]You fully within your free will to say, "I don't agree with the church's stance on birth control and pre-marital sex," but as soon as you actions in accordance with this "belief" are no less a sin.[/quote]
See, that's one thing that does certainly annoy me about the Catholic church: some old dude in a hat doesn't get to say what is an what is not a sin. That's pretty much the way it worked in the system Jesus came to throw out (see: Pharisees). Otherwise, you might as well toss the entire book of Romans right out the window :/



[quote="mikehendo";p="483295"]Yes, he was in the HJ.. A Nazi pope.. so much for someone who is kind and compassionate. And Riley, there wre youth in Germany around that time taht didnt join the HJ. Not a whole lot, but there were some.[/quote]
Please tell me that your post is dripping in oily sarcasm. Wikipedia says you're wrong:

The Hitler Youth was organized into an adult leadership corps, and the general membership comprised of boys ages fourteen to eighteen. After 1938 [3 years before Ratzinger turned 14 in 1941], the Hitler Youth was a compulsory organization, mandatory for all young German men.

[Rileyrat]

[quote="mikehendo";p="483295"]Yes, he was in the HJ.. A Nazi pope.. so much for someone who is kind and compassionate. And Riley, there wre youth in Germany around that time taht didnt join the HJ. Not a whole lot, but there were some.

The last thing Christianity needs is a tyrant in control of Catholicism, cause that will give Christianity a bad name and scare people away.[/quote]

It is inevitable that some would slip in the cracks but the fact is it was one of those things that wasn't really mandatory, the way I understand it anyhow, but it was clearly demonstrated to be "in your best intrest". It's like saying a man can't become a Baptist preacher because he went to catholic school when he was 14. In those days, German families tended to do what the government told them to do, even if it was against the families belief structure, and ontop of that 14 year old German boys tended to do what thier families told them to do.

Also people like to think of pope John Paul and John Paul II as liberal popes, leading the church into current times, when all of thier real changes, aside from giving mass in the local tounge rather than Latin, came in the adminastrative areas of the Church, not in the doctrine.

Besides, putting the burdins of Cristianity in a whole on the pope is rather unfair don't you think? He speaks to Catholics about the Catholic stance on certain modern subjects, not all Cristians. The man has never shown signs of being anymore of a tyrant than any of the other cardinals. Excommunication, strong opposition to the "lessening" of Catholic values, and sterness are things all Cardinals do, or atleast the ones acting on behalf of the churches teachings. This man just happens to be a little more bold and outspoken about it than his two previous successors. He doesn't possess the "likeableness" that the John Pauls did but that doesn't mean he won't be a good pope anymore than Winston Churchhill's being a drunk stopped him from being a good Prime Minister to the U.K.

[minsx]

[quote="Deacon";p="483296"][quote="amlthrawn";p="483289"]You fully within your free will to say, "I don't agree with the church's stance on birth control and pre-marital sex," but as soon as you actions in accordance with this "belief" are no less a sin.[/quote]
See, that's one thing that does certainly annoy me about the Catholic church: some old dude in a hat doesn't get to say what is an what is not a sin. That's pretty much the way it worked in the system Jesus came to throw out (see: Pharisees). Otherwise, you might as well toss the entire book of Romans right out the window :/[/quote]

Actually, close study of history and religion shows the Pharisees to be the relative 'good guys' and the Sadducees to be the relative 'bad guys'. Paul (and many of the other apostles) found no discrepancy in labeling themselves both Jewish, Christian, and Pharisees. (PM me if you want more. . . there's a good bit of story to that, but this thread isn't a lesson on religion).

In any case, Jesus came to throw out no system at all, only to fulfill his destined mission as Savior (Gethsemane) and on the way he condemned the fact that the system that had gone haywire because people were manipulating it wrongly to effect their own interests . . . so if you are going to compare anyone in the bible with what's going on today, it would be more like the interest groups that want to change the catholic church are akin to the Sadducees, though this time the motivation isn't money or power, it's the desire to do what you want when you want it and feel good about it.

Heh, in any case, I have a sinking suspicion that nobody will agree on anything until He comes back to set us all straight for the second time.

[Keaton]

One thing I hate about the pope-bashing is that he hasn't really done anything yet; and this isn't the presidency or anything, where he's made campaign promises - "If I become pope, I promise you I will crack down on heretics!"

I have my reservations about the guy - not too many, as I'm not religious and I wasn't raised in the Church, but I always worry about things that have a big impact on the global community such as this. Do I think he's a Nazi? No; I think it's a horrible and unethical thing to do to accuse him of Nazism, whether currently or in the past. It seems pretty clear to me that participation in the Hitler Youth was compulsory and on his part utterly unenthusiastic, that his participation in the war was certainly not by choice as he was drafted, and his duties lay not with the Party but the Church seeing how he deserted the army pretty quickly.

I think the man's going to be a hardass, and it's going to be a nasty shock for the rest of the world after so many years of JPII's diplomacy. I know a Church isn't required to be diplomatic at all, and I know it doesn't have any obligation at all to please or appease anybody, as good or bad as this behavior may be for it; I'm just saying he might be a hardass, and that's not going to do much for the Church's role in politics, which was pretty influential, I think, under JPII. He might not turn out that way at all, though. We'll see in the coming months.

[SunTzu]

..or he could just have been a foolish, uninformed child who thought joining up would be cool, and realized it wasnt, and jumped ship?

I fail to see how he having been in HJ has anything to do with his position as pope. Even IF he was a believing nazi, he was only a child that had been brainwashed for almost his entire life.

[Deacon]

[quote="minsx";p="483331"]Actually, close study of history and religion shows the Pharisees to be the relative 'good guys' and the Sadducees to be the relative 'bad guys'.[/quote]
:facepalm:

A close study of your post shows you missed the point and then proceeded to wander off on a totally unrelated and irrelevant tangent.