The white smoke rose. There’s a new pope.
Pope "Benedict XVI" is due to address the faithful shortly.
342 thoughts on “Ratzinger’s the Pope”
Comments are closed.
"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
The white smoke rose. There’s a new pope.
Pope "Benedict XVI" is due to address the faithful shortly.
Comments are closed.
Oy vey
I didn’t expect that.
It does seem to be a missed opportunity to reach beyond Europe…but given the “fat Pope–thin Pope” tradition, perhaps Poland was too relatively far from the center of Europe for comfort last time and so an African or South American will need to wait til next time.
78 years old? This shouldn’t take long. The cardinals must enjoy the Vatican food or something. Let’s hope they don’t get called back from the airport.
Good heavens, that was disrespectful. Apologies to any Catholics who may be offended.
Interesting in that in two more years, he wouldn’t have even been able to vote for the next pope, much less be it.
He’s a brilliant man, with plenty of integrity in a way, but I think the liberal American Catholic tradition I come from–not in the sense that I was raised a good Catholic, but my parents and grandparents and extended family were and the effects linger–it was already gasping for oxygen; this is probably the death blow. As far as the United States goes–Bobby Kennedy’s church has become Rick Santorum’s. Cardinal Bernadin’s church has become at best Archbishop Sean O’Malley’s and at worst Cardinal Law’s.
It’s not a tradition I can really lay claim to anymore, but it’s a very, very good one, and it’s heartbreaking to see it dying. Or maybe not dying, but certainly Rome will be doing its level best to kill it.
Oh well. Could be worse.
“I didn’t expect that.”
Well, according to yesterday’s profile of him on NPR, he runs the successor to the Inquisition. Too bad he’s German and not Spanish, or we could start a new run of Python jokes.
Pope Rat.
(of course, one shouldn’t look at the Church as if it only affects the U.S.–but the thing is, unlike someone like Hummes or Maradiaga and to a much greater extent than John Paul II, Ratzinger wants to fight the culture wars and purge the church of “filthy” (his word) heretical priests.
He’s well aware that it might lose him members, and he’s probably smart enough to realize that the political effects of such a choice might help empower or do nothing to resist people who will kill and harm a lot of innocents, but such worldly concerns are not his priority.)
“He’s well aware that it might lose him members, and he’s probably smart enough to realize that the political effects of such a choice might help empower or do nothing to resist people who will kill and harm a lot of innocents, but such worldly concerns are not his priority.)”
He probably suspects that the church will lose members but not Catholics. I don’t really understand your second clause. One of the biggest concepts which distinguishes the Catholic church from Protestant variants of Christianity is the enforcement mechanism against heresy.
At his age, Ratzinger is a caretaker. Let’s see what happens in five or six years…or he could pull a John XXIII and surprise the heck out us, though I doubt it given his, um, doctrinaire views…
“filthy” heretical priests.
With the exception of the child molestors, I figure another or purge or two throughout the world’s institutions will put the accumulated purged in the majority, should there be a suitable leader to unite them.
Then, I wonder what steps the current purgers will take to maintain their minority dominance. I fear then that “Oh well, could be worse” will be upon us.
Well, only if we define anybody whose name is on the (how shall we say it) “wouldn’t miss them” list as non-Catholics. Of course, that was pretty much what was done in Latin America. Worked like a charm. Liberation theology, non-Catholic. Nun-raper and priest-killer, no problem.
I’m worried about the impact on the 2008 election. He’s going to be very against choice and gay rights.
As apparently the only practicing Catholic on this board – let me say..
Viva il Papa!!!
Another Pope, #264 over 2000 years- Started with Peter, and the Gates of Hell will not Prevail Against it.
(perhaps this will end this inane discussion that the Church will somehow adopt the contemporary views of the New York Times)
I’m speaking about the decision to deny communion to certain politicians and not others, which Ratzinger more or less supported.
I don’t think Ratzinger would have any illusions about the extent to which George W. Bush or Tom DeLay or Dick Cheney are sincere believers in a “culture of life” as the Catholic Church understands the meaning of the phrase. I would guess he prioritizes abortion over issues of war, peace, torture, whether poor people die for lack of medical treatment, but if you were going to be pragmatic about it–the President directly controls the actions of the CIA and the U.S. military and does not directly control the Supreme Court, let alone the actions of individual women. It’s also in the political best interests of the GOP that Roe not be overturned. And by being unbending on things like contraception and condoms to stop AIDS, and inadequately dealing with the sexual abuse scandal–even if the majority of American Catholics are wrong about those issues and the Church is right, as a pragmatic matter that disconnect kills’ the Church’s chances of persuading them of its teachings about abortion.
I mean, someone like Dick Durbin–he goes to mass. He supports Roe v. Wade in defiance of the Church, but then unlike Santorum he wrote a bill banning late term abortions that would have actually been upheld by the courts and enforced against ALL late term abortions. He opposed the Iraq War. He has been the loudest, most effective voice in Congress opposing torture by the U.S. government. He has been one of the loudest and most effective voices in Congress trying to get us to do more to fight AIDS in Africa and genocide in Darfur. He supports a moratorium on the death penalty, mental health treatment for veterans. He takes poverty seriously in America–without getting into a laundry list his positions on economic issues are in excellent alignment with the Catholic church’s.
As far as the actual effects of his actions–all of this is going to completely swamp the votes he will cast against Supreme Court justices who want to overturn Roe v. Wade. And even those votes are a mixed bag, because the sorts of justices who would overturn Roe would also make decisions that ran directly counter to the Church’s teachings on many, many other areas.
I think it’s actually immoral to threaten people with hell and exile for not obeying you, and while I’m no Catholic and no theologian, there have been respected Catholic theologians who agreed. But let’s leave that aside for the moment & just look at it on pragmatic grounds. If you were a political pragmatist, if your concern was to how to best save innocent lives & get the U.S. government to act more in line with church teachings, you would not deny this man communion. But Ratzinger is not a political pragmatist–or if he is, he’s one with a much longer view. He believes that Durbin is in a state of grave mortal sin, and that Durbin will be eternally separated from God if he dies without repenting, and that to grant him communion in this state dishonors the sacrament, increases the chance that Durbin will die in a state of mortal sin, deprives the Church of its moral authority, and does real harm to Christ Himself.
And from a certain view of Catholic teaching, this makes perfect sense. So at some level you have to admire Ratzinger’s damn-the-consequences integrity to what he believes, and it’s pretty internally consistent*–as I said, he’s a brilliant, brilliant man.
At another level–this all rests on premises which I completely reject. And it’s going to do harm to people, and great harm to the parts of the Catholic tradition that my parents and grandparents and favorite aunts and uncles believed in. So it’s kind of hard to sit back and admire his intellectual brilliance and his unswerving commitment to his principles.
*with certain exceptions–e.g. the view of condoms and AIDS.
“He probably suspects that the church will lose members but not Catholics.”
Well, given that the church officially counts ME as Catholic even now, I think this is not accurate. “Members but not good Catholics”, or not “members but not practicing Catholics”, or “not true Christians” or “not in a state of grace” or “not in full Communion with Christ or His Church–but as I understand it, you’re a Catholic from baptism until excommunication, official renunciation of your faith, or death.
Well, it’s back to “The road to heaven goes through Rome!”
No more flirting with Protestant theological fads, like Charasmata and the such.
One way to look at it.
JPII did a lot of good. But he also did a lot of harm, too.
(Good against communism, harm against women, would be one short summation).
He was most damaging when he acted as Ratzinger with a human face.
Now we’re going to get Ratzinger with a Ratzinger face.
No charisma, no credibility as the Pope who brought down the Wall, no ability to touch the young.
I’m betting the honeymoon will be over before it starts. And as a result he may do a lot less damage.
Still, as the child of Catholic parents, especially as the child of a liberal Catholic father who believed in the promise of Vatican II, I see it as a deep tragedy for an institution that at some times in its history has done more good than harm.
Ratzy may have gotten rid of the Marxist, but there are the hordes of Protestants still tainting Roman theology.
Are We To Lose Our Protestant Heritage Forever?
How easily many professed evangelicals have swallowed the sugar-coated pill of Rome’s propaganda and adopting a superior manner with arrogant airs, assure the world, “We are just Christians, we are not Protestants.” Poor fools, they know not what they say nor whereof they affirm. They are the joy of the pope and the sorrow of heaven. The root meaning of the word Protestant is “a witness for”, and any who claim to be Christians and yet affirm that they are not witnesses for Christ only indict their own souls. Away with such talk, “I am a Christian but not a Protestant.” It is an outgrowth of conditioning by Romish propaganda. As a Christian I must be a Protestant and if I am not a Protestant, that is, a witness for Christ, then let it be said, I cannot be a Christian. As it is impossible to be a Christian antichristian, so it is impossible to be a Christian and not a Protestant.
More:
Are We To Lose Our Protestant Heritage Forever?
I remember hearing Deacons reminding young Protestants:
Protestants saved Christianity from the Romans!
Since, it was the Romans who killed Christ!
Maybe we have matured from these religious wars…but I doubt the Fundementalists on both sides have.
Soooo. . what’s the over/under on Vatican III? 2007?
None of this is terribly confusing.
the 1960’s happened – Vatican II happened, people who were invested in the liberationist echos of the 1960’s projected that ethos into the “spirit of Vatican II”.
A couple of more Pope’s come along a fail to deliver on that supposed “promise”.
Those same Catholics go to there grave feeling cheated (not very humble of them)
The Church ends up stronger then ever for not having abandoned the Gospels to the fashions of the times.
What Katherine said.
(Btw, I’m technically still a practicing Catholic — received Communion the other day. Do I throw away Jesus’ revolutionary teachings because of the failings
of his successors? It’s a hard question).
Any speculation on why he chose the name Benedict?
Fitz,
Do you believe the scourge of secularism and humanism (thus, the tyranny of reletivism) began with Luther’s drunken behavior?
I’m betting the honeymoon will be over before it starts.
Pretty much what I’ve been thinking. However conservative John Paul II was, his charisma and his struggles in Poland made most people at least want to like and respect him even if they disagreed with his doctrines. Now we’ve gone from a Pope who fought the communists, to a Pope who flirted with the Nazis. I imagine those visits to Israel will be very awkward. Now for all I know, that flirtation was just a “youthful indiscretion,” but I’m still a little stunned at the Church’s willingness to put him on the world stage.
“And it’s going to do harm to people, and great harm to the parts of the Catholic tradition that my parents and grandparents and favorite aunts and uncles believed in.”
Some examples of these “Catholic” traditions would be interesting to see.
He didn’t just flirt with the Nazi’s, he was a nazi.
Supposedly he guarded a bmw plant where slaves from Dachau were working. Later he went to hungary to set tank traps and saw jews being herded into death camps. The article says he deserted so yeah he gets somepoints but wow, I can’ty believe they picked this guy.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=92405
Neodude,
“Protestants saved Christianity from the Romans!”
It would be easy to make a case for that statement.
What’s your point?
It will only be a matter of time before the Vatican is fully operational.
Bill, I wouldn’t say he was a Nazi; according to the article, he was briefly a Hitler Youth when 14, and only when it became compulsory.
I wouldn’t have been brave enough to risk my life opposing the Nazis when I was a kid (indeed, I may not be that brave now).
On the other hand, if this guy is going to tell Catholics they have to make hard choices the “right” way, or else, then he needs to be reminded of his own frailty. The White Rose group wasn’t much older than Ratzinger was, and they died for opposing the Nazi regime.
As soon as I hear “traditionalists” who shout “reletivism”, it’s usually a lazy way to demonize those who disagree with them.
“As soon as I hear “traditionalists” who shout “reletivism”, it’s usually a lazy way to demonize those who disagree with them.”
Good strategy. He who demonizes his opponent first wins.
He didn’t just flirt with the Nazi’s, he was a nazi.
No he was a conscript. You know, against one’s will.
He didn’t just flirt with the Nazi’s, he was a nazi.
Maybe they want the world to know they are serious, now!
Flirt with the Nazi’s what? Wives? Daughters? Which Nazi?
See Eric Muller on the Nazi business, though you still won’t learn which Nazis he flirted with (female ones, we’re sure).
I am sad and disappointed. Yet more polarisation and more religion in politics. From the BBC profile:
“One of his first campaigns was against liberation theology, which had gained ground among priests in Latin America and elsewhere as a means of involving the Church in social activism and human rights issues.
He has described homosexuality as a “tendency” towards an “intrinsic moral evil”. During the US election campaign, he called for pro-choice politicians to be denied Communion.
He has also argued that Turkey should not be admitted into the European Union.”
I care so little about this white circus.
No he was a conscript. You know, against one’s will.
Anderson is OTM. To be fair, the Pope’s probably no worse than most of might be in the same situation. But either way, considering the Church’s own less than enviable record during WWII, it really demonstrates either an amazing insensitivity or an amazing cluelessness about “appearences of impropriety” to choose a Pope who is associated with Nazi Germany.
The Pope could use his experiences to help us all reflect on our own moral fallibility and the necessity of forgiveness. Hail, Benedict XVI if he does. But I’m not holding my breath.
Here’s a different spin on his “flirting”.
The London Times article does NOT support the assertion that Ratzinger was a Nazi.
He wasn’t a heroic resistance fighter either; there seems to have been a long period of doing the minimum legally required so as not to endanger yourself, and then stopping even that much but still not becoming really actively resistant. Given that he was 17 when he deserted in 1944, given that desertion was punishable by death….
It does seem odd to me that he completely fails to see that the arguably-excessive relativism and individualism of today’s Europe is a direct rejection of the Germany of his youth, an attempt to avoid that kind of fanatacism, blind obedience to authority, & totalitarianism at all costs. It seems odd to me that 1968 could seem to be a threat that’s anywhere close to the same order of magnitude of the 1940s. The argument that it takes an organized hierarchy to oppose an organized hierarchy breaks down given the Church’s institutional failure during those years.
So I understand Bernard Haring’s reaction much better and prefer his approach on every level. But, with Ratzinger, whom I suppose I should get used to calling Benedict XVI–there’s enough accurate criticisms one can make without resorting to slander.
He wasn’t a heroic resistance fighter either
…and we should expect a teenage seminary student to become one? Is he supposed to put down the books and start killing people?
I wasn’t arguing the criticism so much as attempting to point out a misuse of the possessive.
It appears it didn’t take.
Macallan, please. Whether or not it’s reasonable to have expected him to resist, he didn’t. Had he done so and been executed by the Nazis, few of us would’ve heard of him today, but the church would be proud of him for having done so.
It’s always strange to see the conservatives saying that one can’t really be expected to risk one’s life for one’s faith or principles. I thought we godless, faithless liberals were supposed to monopolize that tactic.
It’s always strange to see the conservatives saying that one can’t really be expected to risk one’s life for one’s faith or principles.
When you see someone argue that let me know. Back here on earth, we were arguing against ill-informed slander.
“Ill-informed slander”? Pooh.
…and we should expect a teenage seminary student to become one? Is he supposed to put down the books and start killing people?
The choices available, then, being (1) passive acquiescence in the Nazi regime or (2) putting down the books & starting to kill people? No other options?
Sigh. I’ll turn my attention to what Benedict XVI does & leaves undone, rather than what Joe Ratzinger did or left undone. Maybe that’s the message behind their taking new names.
“It’s always strange to see the conservatives saying that one can’t really be expected to risk one’s life for one’s faith or principles. I thought we godless, faithless liberals were supposed to monopolize that tactic.”
I think it is tough to expect (in the sense of making reasonably useful predictions about behaviour) most people to risk their lives for faith or principles. We can hope, or encourage, but we rarely expect it.
The kid who under compulsion went along with the evil machinery of a totalitarian state is not the man who is Pope; the man should be assessed on his record as an adult.
Good correction, Sebastian.
No other options?
Just what do you think resistance fighters do? Short-sheet the barracks?
” Ratzinger, whom I suppose I should get used to calling Benedict XVI”
Hmmm…I can see that people who owe allegiance to the church would adopts its nomenclature.
As for those who don’t–what sort of obligation does one have to refer to him as “Pope Benedict XVI”?
I generally try to be respectful to others. But does that require me to refer to foreign dignitaries by the titles of their choice?
After all, I called our former president just “Clinton”, or worse. I refer to our current president as “Bush” or worse. I didn’t generally refer to Grace Kelly’s husband as “His Serene Highness”, even though that might have been what he liked.
And I never saw any harm in the many references to the former pope, from his detractors and admirers alike, as “Wojtyla”.
So if I keep on calling this guy “Ratzinger”, am I doing something offensive, or even disrespectful? If I am, you could probably convince me to stop.
So if I keep on calling this guy “Ratzinger”, am I doing something offensive, or even disrespectful? If I am, you could probably convince me to stop.
Just don’t call him “the Ratz Man.”
Heidegger and de Man were NAZIs, yet they were rehabilitated, why not the Pope?
The kid who under compulsion went along with the evil machinery of a totalitarian state is not the man who is Pope; the man should be assessed on his record as an adult.
I agree with this. It is a liberal sensibility, folks.
“what sort of obligation does one have to refer to him as “Pope Benedict XVI”?”
I generally referred to Karol Wojtyla with his name, as long as doing so wouldn’t confuse and irritate people enough that the conversation would be impeded. I’ll probably do the same with Ratzinger.
“Just what do you think resistance fighters do? Short-sheet the barracks?”
Don’t be ridiculous, Mac. Sebastian’s point is well-taken, that while we’d like everyone to resist a powerful, murderous government, the fact is that the vast majority of people won’t. Whether the set of people eligible to be Pope should or should not draw from that small minority is Catholic sausagemaking I have no business involving myself in. But you go too far in trying to excuse Ratzinger, and in doing so demean and discredit the uncountable people throughout history who have non-violently resisted totalitarianism and murder. Gandhi? Miep Gies? Cripes, hilzoy just posted about Mbaye Diagne. Why do I even have to make a list? Surely this is so self-evident that no one would forget it merely for the sake of taking a side in an argument.
What’s wrong with calling him “the Pope”? I call Bush “the President” with no hint of suggesting approval or disapproval by doing so. That’s who he is: the president or the pope.
Heidegger and de Man were NAZIs, yet they were rehabilitated,
On whose authority?
Not that I think the criticism of Ratzinger is justified.
Heidegger and de Man were NAZIs, yet they were rehabilitated, why not the Pope?
Don’t pull my de Man chain, now. He was never a Nazi. He worked for a collaborationist paper. He wrote some obnoxious things. But his participation didn’t rise to Heidegger’s, or even Ratzinger’s (tho at least PdM was of age). And to say he was “rehabilitated” is dubious; deconstruction was probably on its way out anyway (too apolitical), but PdM’s work for Le Soir & his article on the Jews in contemporary lit were the stake through the heart. You have to look far & wide for much serious discussion of PdM any more, alas. His “negative theology” of literary meaning was interesting if depressing.
“what sort of obligation does one have to refer to him as “Pope Benedict XVI”?”
While not directly in answer to that, one has to remember that changed names are also used as a way of figuring out who is in the in group. For example, there are a number of rules for referring to the emperor, and after he dies (I hate this ‘when he passes’ euphemism) his name changes, and one of the points is that if you can’t figure out what to call him, your opinion can be safely dismissed because you don’t really understand Japanese culture.
On whose authority?
Those who assert it!
(Then those who disagree try to take it away)
Don’t be ridiculous, Mac.
It isn’t a matter of going too far in excusing him; it is that some are going too far in accusing him. This entire line is downright foolish. The Nazi’s came to power when he was a very small boy. Apparently his first adult oriented decision was to enter the seminary, an act of resistance in and of itself one would imagine. I doubt Catholic seminaries were the hot ticket for the fast track in the SS. What is ridiculous is the weird need to smear the guy with the Nazi label.
BTW, I don’t think Ghandi did much resisting of British rule between the ages of 11 and 17. Sorry, those comparisons are just silly.
What the rabidly orthodox kids are saying:
One of the tv commentators was saying that Cardinal Ratzinger chose the name Benedict XVI for this reason. Ratzinger is feared by liberals in the church because he is a conservative (though his conservatism has been overstated–see below). Benedict XV (1914-1922), succeeding Pius X who had waged a campaign against modernity, said he wanted to bring an end to the conflicts over doctrine and bring the Church together again. So, by calling himself Benedict XVI, Ratzinger is assuring liberals that he’s no Pius X.
From:
View from the Right
The passing scene and what it’s about viewed from the traditionalist politically incorrect Right.
For some interesting discussions of the upcoming conclave see the pieces by “Sandro Magister,” an Italian journalist with a pen name, at http://www.chiesa. It appears from the April 7 and April 14 articles that a rather strong party, led by Ratzinger and other top cardinals, is proposing quite forcefully less outreach of the Assisi variety and a much stronger emphasis on Catholic distinctiveness and decisiveness, especially in opposition to secular modernity. We shall see.
UPDATE: So Ratzinger himself has been chosen as the revolutionary leader/sacrificial lamb. I was surprised. Quite possibly he was also surprised. A Catholic journalist, I forget who, saw him in St. Peter’s Square a day or two before the conclave and described him as “happy and relaxed,” which suggested to me he thought there would be someone good as pope but he wouldn’t have to step forward himself and maybe could go back to writing books about theology. As it was, I thought he looked rather ill as he was greeting the crowd as Benedict XVI, at least when he wasn’t directly facing the public. He needs our prayers.
From:
Culture, politics, tradition and Catholicism
He wasn’t a hero of the resistance. But as a minor he did no more than he was compelled to by law & threat, and when he got to the age where we even begin to think people are adults, he refused to collaborate at risk to his life. That’s not nothing. It’s more than most 17 year olds did, I would imagine.
There is no need to make it into something it’s not, in either direction.
What I find interesting is the difference in how he and, e.g. Bernard Haring reacted to growing up in Nazi Germany. He doesn’t seem to understand that the individualism and relativism and resistance to ideology and refusal to submit to authority he holds in such contempt, have become widespread in Europe in large part because people will do anything to avoid the blood soaked horrors of his youth.I mean, how could the spectre of the 1968 protests appear to be a threat of anywhere near the same magnitude of 1938-44? I just don’t understand it.
You could argue that you need an organized hierarchy to oppose an organized hierarchy, but anyone who believes that the Catholic hierarchy did a better job resisting Nazi Germany than individuals following their own conscience despite the risks–that’s not an accurate view of the history. It’s just not.
As for those who don’t–what sort of obligation does one have to refer to him as “Pope Benedict XVI”?
What about common courtesy? Should we not call people by the names they prefer, absent a very good reason not to?
Do you call the former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay?
“This entire line is downright foolish.”
I’m mostly in agreement. My problem is with going too far and saying it was simply impossible for him to do anything else. That’s an unnecessary and inaccurate defense.
“What is ridiculous is the weird need to smear the guy with the Nazi label.”
He was, at one time, a Nazi. This fact obviously makes many people very uncomfortable. Obviously when you dig into the story a bit more he’s more or less exonerated, but you can’t blame people for being uncomfortable.
11 what? Ratzinger was 16 when he joined Hitler Youth. I’m sure a little study will find a number of people who joined resistance movements at that age. I’m not saying he should have become Gandhi. I’m saying it was physically and mentally possible for him to resist and that he chose not to. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I also don’t like your implication that it was impossible. It’s a bit cynical.
(Kieran Healy has the definitive reaction.)
I doubt Catholic seminaries were the hot ticket for the fast track in the SS.
While I agree that this whole argument isn’t very helpful, there is a large literature on the linkage between the Church and the Third Reich. Steigmann-Gall’s book _The Holy Reich_ is interesting in this regard.
link
Anderson–And to say he was “rehabilitated” is dubious; deconstruction was probably on its way out anyway (too apolitical), but PdM’s work for Le Soir & his article on the Jews in contemporary lit were the stake through the heart.
Stake through the heart? Only in the culture war. Theory lives and deconstruction lives and has moved on and changed. All that really died was the deconstruction fad, which needed to die anyway, since most applied it so poorly and shallowly in the first place.
As for Heidegger…yeah, he was implicated. That doesn’t invalidate his arguments. Modern theories of government cant get rid of Carl Schmitt either. He’s too much a part of the whole discussion of sovereignty and the state of exception.
Calling Benedict XVI “Ratzinger” is not the equivalent of calling our 42d president “Clinton.” It is the equivalent of calling him “Blythe.” (And just so no one thinks I’m trying to slander the man, or his late mother, the same logic would require one to refer to our 38th president as “King.”)
Lots of names get changed by public (and other) figures: George VI, Lenin, Mark Twain, John Wayne. We use these names in communication because it is the convention, and because the point of communication is to be understood. Yes, Bob Dylan sang that you can call him “Zimmie,” but actually doing so is a silly waste of everyone’s time, at best. At worst, it strikes me as an invocation of his ethnic background, for purposes one could only guess by the context . . .
I also don’t like your implication that it was impossible.
I wish I knew what you’re talking about.
While I agree that this whole argument isn’t very helpful, there is a large literature on the linkage between the Church and the Third Reich. Steigmann-Gall’s book _The Holy Reich_ is interesting in this regard.
May I humbly suggest you read your own link?
All Hail Pope Panzerfaust I, “God’s Rottweiler”! Yes, it definitely was time for a former Hitler Youth to become Pope… ah yes, just like old times, when Catholic bishops marched with Nazis. The good old days, yessirree!
– Badtux the Catholic Penguin,
“there is a large literature on the linkage between the Church and the Third Reich. Steigmann-Gall’s book _The Holy Reich_ is interesting in this regard.”
By “the Church” you apparently mean the Protestant movement which has a rather long running rivalry with the Catholic Church. As such, it probably won’t do as evidence that the Catholic Church was particularly linked to the Third Reich. They certainly didn’t resist much, but that is a different story.
mac
‘is interesting in this regard’ means that you might want to read the book. In fact, if you would read the entire link, you might come across this passage:
If you want to suggest that there were two sides, Catholics versus the Nazis, that’s your privilege, but you are making it in the absence of any knowledge of the historical facts.
evidence that the Catholic Church was particularly linked to the Third Reich
I try to be careful about what I write, and if my ‘is interesting in this regard’ was taken to mean ‘and there is a particular link between Catholicism and the Third Reich’, my apologies. As I noted, I think that the whole thing in relation the Ratzinger isn’t very helpful, and I was just pointing out that it isn’t as clear as some believe it is. One should also realize that the German dioceses had (and still have, I think) a much greater degree of autonomy from the Vatican which was a result of the Reformation and formalized in church-state treaties known as concordats.
That’s funny LJ, you quoted one of the other passages I considered quoting…
Whether the set of people eligible to be Pope should or should not draw from that small minority is Catholic sausagemaking I have no business involving myself in.
I think that’s a completely reasonable position to take, and one that I more or less agree with (not being Catholic myself). I do, however, strongly agree with Anderson and Paul that such a man might not be the best choice to lead Church whose dealings (and subsequent obfuscations thereof) with the Nazi regime were… less than optimal.
That said, if the College of Cardinals wishes to promote a former Hitler Youth member to the office of the papacy, it’s their business and not mine. Here’s to hoping that Ratzinger’s elevation will be a showcase for the power of redemption rather than the alternative.
One should also realize that the German dioceses had (and still have, I think) a much greater degree of autonomy from the Vatican which was a result of the Reformation and formalized in church-state treaties known as concordats.
Another useful venue is to note that there was no equivalent of the Lateran Treaty between Germany and the Catholic Church, and to ask what developed in its stead.
Good point, Anarch. One might also look at the Reich Enabling Acts and the demise of the Catholic Center Party as well.
Wow, a “The Pope’s a Nazi” thread.
Now,
I Am Not A Philospher
and
I Am Not A Theologian
But, I have personally met Martin Heidigger, and I’s like to make some observations.
First of all, from my experience, Heidigger was not rehabilitated in any way.
a) The Lecture on “Phenomenolgy and Hermeneutics” was a secret, closed lecture.
b) Now, I didn’t get to see the real fireworks after the lecture because I was forced to leave, but the gist of the lecture was that there are certain individuals that can actually understand Plato and the classics. They understand in a both an intellectual and intuitive way the true meaning of the basis of philosophy.
I think that kind of colored his views about the Reich.
Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant had very little to do with it.
I have a very serious question:
how would one go about officially leaving the Catholic Church & make sure that one is no longer counted as a member?
Do I write to the archdiocese of Boston, or do I have to track down the Church where I was baptized, or what?
how would one go about officially leaving the Catholic Church & make sure that one is no longer counted as a member?
Is there a big list somewhere? I’d like to know that myself.
Joining a non-Catholic church probably works, but I see your point about whom you’d let know.
(Hope that Benedict XII’s not the last straw. I would hate to see the left & center Catholics abandon the RCC and leave it to the righties. Then again, I don’t have to live in the RCC, either.)
Gasoline for the flames?
Here’s a pilfered comment from “cvcobb01” at Yglesias:
Hm. How do you say “Resistance is useless!” in German?
We will doubtless be hearing all about this kind of thing, including its veracity or lack thereof, in coming days.
(Generally, I always thought that the Catholics came off better than the Germans under the Nazis, but there’s plenty of shame to go around.)
I had already decided to leave. I’m converting to Judaism. I’ll make it official next year, and I figured, no use rushing into anything until I do, in case there are last minute pangs of doubt.
Here’s what Benedict XVI made me realize: even if I do find out, to my complete shock, that I’m Christian after all, I can never, ever be Catholic. I’d probably be Epicopalian.
But I kept hearing them talk about “66 million American Catholics”, and I realize–they’re still counting me in that, because I was baptized. And I am not willing to be counted and used for the purposes of the Catholic hierarchy for a day longer. (Seriously, I wish I’d thought of this before the archdiocese’s office closed–I got the answering service when I called & I didn’t want to harass the poor woman so I just said I’d call back tomorrow.)
And really the only thing I can do for the good people who haven’t given up yet is to vote with my feet publicly rather than silently. I’m sure Benedict XVI is perfectly willing to see the membership dwindle to preserve his own warped version of the Church’s purity, but my guess is the curia & the American bishops are not made of such stern stuff. I get this desperate need to do SOMETHING, and it’s the only thing left to do.
How about Quakers?
You just kind of sit there, and if you feel moved to say something, you say it 😉
Seriously, Protestantism really has quite a few traditions. It seems like most people here tend to think about Protestant denominations that have the same hierarchical organization as the Catholic church. Espiscopalians & Lutherans, for instance. (And Methodista are darn close, what with the bishops and all that.)
There are other denominations, descended from the Anabaptists and Hugenots and so forth, that have a single church as the unit, where the members have some more say in the business and even in the content of the message presented.
Now, these denominations might seem a little strange. the larger ones might seem Disneyesque and the smaller ones might seem quite austere.
during his days as a professor he taught that it was futile to resist the Nazis.
Given the timeline, I don’t think that works out, unless as a professor after the war, he argued this
Also, here’s a link about the Catholic church and the rise of Nazism.
and this quote might be along the lines of what the student is thinking.
German bishops released a statement that wiped out past criticism of Nazism by proclaiming the new regime acceptable, then followed doctrine by ordering the laity to be loyal to this regime just as they had commanded loyalty to previous regimes. Since Catholics had been instrumental in bringing Hitler to power and served in his cabinet, the bishops had little choice but to collaborate.
On the subject of conversion, I had a roommate who said that if he did convert, it would be to Russian Orthodox because it was “smells and bells”. (not meaning to be sarcastic about such a decision, of course)
Also, the whole thing about lack of central authority always interested me, being a Methodist from a small mississippi town filled with Baptist churches. Great softball teams, I tell you. And as for ‘Disneyesque’, in my college town, they built a huge Baptist church on the outside of town that a few irreverent folks (like me) used to call “Bapco”.
Where I grew up, a nearby Baptist liberal arts college was referred to (even by some Baptists) as “Bible Tech”. Which it was not, really.
Given the timeline, I don’t think that works out, unless as a professor after the war, he argued this.
That’s certainly how I read the remark. A better phrasing would have to be: “during his days as a professor he taught that it had been futile to resist the Nazis.”
I have no idea whether this is true or not, but that’s the only way I can interpret it to be even vaguely plausible.
That’s wierd, American Roman Catholics sound like German Roman Catholics…you know, admiring the mixture of Protestantism and Nationalism and the force of will and national spirit and stuff.
Anyway, ignoring death squads in Latin America or Germany is disgusting.
The very fact that we are having this “Nazi pope” discussion is a case study in why his selection was criminally tone deaf. When nearly all the war and strife in the world (including the so-called “war on terrorism”) can be traced back to religious conflict, surely there was a better choice than a man who intends to regress the Church further backwards in religious intolerance, and who was in the Hitler Youth? Forget for a moment that it was compulsory, that he deserted–the things that reasonable and/or informed people know and take into account. Do you think those details matter to the world’s Jews, a people understandably given to uneasiness with the subject of Nazi Germany? Do you think those details matter to moderate Muslims, who must now be very concerned about an even /more/ intolerant Pope? Don’t worry about the extremists–they thrive on religious conflict.
The only upshot I can personally see to this is that a man even more extreme and divisive than the last Pope can only serve to accelerate the Catholic Church’s growing irrelevance and dwindling influence. I just worry about how much damage he’ll do in the meantime.
When nearly all the war and strife in the world (including the so-called “war on terrorism”) can be traced back to religious conflict…
Ummm… you wanna qualify that?
And another thing, didn’t Heidegger almost become a priest?
“A Jesuit by education, he became a Protestant through indignation, a scholastic dogmatician by training, he became an existential pragmatist through experience, a theologian by tradition, be became an atheist in his research, a renegade to his tradition cloaked in the mantle of its historian.” — Karl Lowith
Ummm… you wanna qualify that?
No, actually, I don’t.
The very fact that we are having this “Nazi pope” discussion is a case study in why his selection was criminally tone deaf.
No it only says something about the people trying to hang the Nazi label on the guy.
Progressives, Moderates, Neocons: Notes Before the Conclave
[…]
But it is above all from the perspective of the Church “ad extra” that their program distinguishes itself. The most fearsome conflict of the next decades, Ratzinger and Ruini have both said on numerous occasions, will not be that between the Church and Islam, but rather the cultural conflict between the Church and “the radical emancipation of man from God and from the roots of life,” which characterizes contemporary Western culture and which “leads in the end to the destruction of freedom.” For the neoconservative cardinals, the Church’s commitment to this clash centered in the West must be given absolute priority in the next pontificate.
Their scenario has three other corollaries. The first that the Church will not fight alone in this epochal conflict, but will look for and find allies even in secularist currents of thought far removed from Catholicism; for example, in those represented by Francis Fukuyama and Jürgen Habermas, the two authors cited most frequently by Ratzinger and Ruini of late.
More:
Progressives, Moderates, Neocons: Notes Before the Conclave
I thought Habermas believed neoconservativism and postmodernism to be two sides of the same coin?
people trying to hang the Nazi label on the guy
Anyone else have the urge to sing ‘look for the nazi label’? I thought not.
his selection was…
The whole selection process is kind of amazing. I mean, they don’t get dossiers or anything, right? And while they might be familiar with the people, how much do they really know? (this is not a backhanded attack on Ratzinger/Benedict, just an observation on the nature of the process) Of course, they are in an elite group and would obviously have some sort of esprit de corps, which might translate to a greater knowledge, but it is still interesting. Why doesn’t someone do an exit poll? ;^)
No, actually, I don’t.
World War I? World War II? The US Civil War? And that’s just cherry-picking the most obvious ones.
[You can also include, I dunno, the various Chinese civil wars, e.g. the KMT/CCP conflagration of the ’30s-50s, as well as innumerable anticolonial wars — which are not necessarily religious wars, though they frequently acquire a religious gloss — as well as innumerable wars fought over greed, pride or stupidity.]
But Anarch, surely you know that both World Wars and the US Civil War were foisted on us by Rosicrucians and the Illuminati …
Well, yes, but that’s not for the Lessers to know…
Hilzoy, I’m so sorry you had to find out about that…. 😉
Has Benedict XVI actually MET a secular humanist he respected as an equal, ever? He’s as bad with the strawman arguments as Bush is. And he strikes me as smarter than Bush & he ought not to be doing this as a media strategy–so I can only conclude he’s just utterly clueless about what people like me actually think. I mean, the idea that one could believe in absolute moral truths, and agree with him on many of them, and yet think he’s got some of the others wrong–is that really so hard to comprehend? Does he think Albert Camus and Vaclav Havel and Nils Bohr and Albert Einstein and George Orwell were unconcerned with truth, or did not believe in truth? Even with Camus, who always claimed not to–it just shines through his writings.
I guess he does think, but sheesh. It’s ridiculously arrogant, and him calling himself a “humble servant” does nothing at all to convince me otherwise.
Via Atrios, the reach of religious discord is long – I wouldn’t have expected anti-Semitism in the Air Force Academy.
Re WWII, would there have been a Hitler without anti-Semitism? Would more reasonable nation-states have arisen in Europe without religion?
No it only says something about the people trying to hang the Nazi label on the guy
You are wrong. The Nazi label was not hung on him by others. He hung the Nazi label on himself when he joined the Hitler Youth, and when he protected an armaments factory staffed by slaves from Dachau. No one hung the label on him. He made choices.
Were the other choices he had great ones? No, they would have been hard choices to make. Great men make hard choices. They should have chosen one of those great men. I find it hard to believe an organization as large as the Catholic church does not have a few available. Instead they chose a former Nazi who later claimed resisting the Nazis would have been futile. We won’t even go into the reactionary ideas he has espoused since that time.
I’m not impressed with the decision, and I am not impressed with the argument that he should be given a pass because he was just following orders.
What Fitz said @ April 19, 2005 01:54 PM: Viva il Papa!#
And, Felixrayman, he was forced to join the Hitler Youth (and of course later deserted). If he hadn’t, his family would have been killed by the SS, as I understand it.
He was NEVER a member of the Nazi Party and deserted from the Germany Army, risking exectution at the age of 18, which, you know, I’d call pretty much an hard choice. Please don’t call that man a Nazi again.
he was forced to join the Hitler Youth (and of course later deserted). If he hadn’t, his family would have been killed by the SS, as I understand it.
James,
if you have a cite for that, I would appreciate it. The (admittedly not numerous) things I read didn’t have anything about his family being threatened. Thanks.
I think that all the discussions about him joining the Hitler jugend are not usefull at all. He was elected pope because of his actions and believes in the Catholic church and should be judged on those.
For me, those are actually much worse than him following the law instead of resisting it at 14 yrs old. He seems to be an authoritarian fundamentalist who will try to make the catholic church more orthodox. He is very anti-gay, he thought the pedophilic scandals in the US were invented by the media, he will not allow women an equal role, he is willing to try to influence politics (preaching that Turkey should not be in the EU is not a church matter), etc.
There is such polarisation these days, people become less open minded and tolerant in all area’s and this is yet another example. Most of us have stated one way or another that there should be attempts to moderate and liberalize islam. I thing the same goes for R-Katholics (can’t say catholics, we have old-catholics because the pope didn’t appoint bishops between ca. 1700 and 1850 and the catholics appointed their own and rome declared them a seperate grou). These old-catholics are more modern and liberal).
Katherine: But I kept hearing them talk about “66 million American Catholics”, and I realize–they’re still counting me in that, because I was baptized. And I am not willing to be counted and used for the purposes of the Catholic hierarchy for a day longer.
I sympathise with that – nor would I. (I count as a pagan, not a heretic, because I was reared a Quaker, and Quakers do not baptize their children.)
You can apply for excommunication, by the way: I have a friend in Montreal who did that. (She said it was timeconsuming, but very satisfying.)
Felixrayman: The Nazi label was not hung on him by others. He hung the Nazi label on himself when he joined the Hitler Youth, and when he protected an armaments factory staffed by slaves from Dachau. No one hung the label on him. He made choices.
I’d agree with that. I’d also agree that focussing on his Nazi past when he was a teenager is kind of a waste of time. We accept (well, most of us do) that people can make bad decisions when they’re young that they later come to regret and try to reverse: in the US Robert Byrd is a classic example, of someone who made a bad decision (to join the KKK) and then later regretted, repented, and reversed his course. So with Ratzinger.
Besides, what Ratzinger did in his adult years as the head of the Inquisition is bad enough. We really don’t need to dig up what he did as a teenager to condemn him as a bad choice for Pope.
Liberal Japonicus, hello. I’m afraid my comments about his family were based on talking to people – and, of all horrors, Catholics! – since that’s what we tend to do instead of scouring the Web… we’ve got this trust thing going on, you see…? 😉 Hence my ‘as I understand it’. I’ll see if I can find anything, or get back to the people I heard from.
But it should be relatively easy for you to find out that joining the Hitler Youth was made compulsory some time around the start of the Second World War (I’m not the WW2 expert in the Casey family and have conflicting memories of it being 1938 and 1941 – Ratzinger was drafted in during 1943), and that people who refused to join and serve were shot, ditto their family members.
Further for the record, his father was outspokenly anti-Nazi, and Ratzinger is a Bavarian, where the Nazis used to fare badly in elections before they effectively abolished those.
Call him a German… because he is. Don’t call him a Nazi… because he never has been.
And SOME DAY we will get over calling anyone, of any age, knowledge of the truth of Nazi Germany, or reluctance, who was serving the state in any capacity in Hitler’s Germany a ‘Nazi’…
…but clearly not today.
Easy label, people. Have fun with it.
Given that he was 17 when he deserted in 1944, given that desertion was punishable by death….
He deserted in 1945, after the Soviets reached Berlin and after Hitler’s suicide. A bit different than deserting in ’44.
World War I? World War II? The US Civil War? And that’s just cherry-picking the most obvious ones.
Oh. See, I thought it was patently obvious from context that I was talking about CURRENT conflicts and the need for the CURRENT pope to be less religiously divisive TODAY.
And while religion did exacerbate and enable WWII and the Civil War, it wasn’t the central problem. Nowadays: it’s key.
Mac: No it only says something about the people trying to hang the Nazi label on the guy.
Aren’t we the nasty little one today. Go back and actually read what I wrote.
I like Robert Byrd. I think the man’s genuinely repented for his KKK past, has genuinely rejected it. But I wouldn’t appoint the man as ambassador to Israel or South Africa. It’s not about qualifications–it’s about appearances and the effect those appearances have on international and religious relations. And as evidenced by their choice of Rat and their continued non-handling of the pedophilia problems in the priesthood, appearances are something the Catholic Church doesn’t get.
James
‘trust, but verify’ if I remember correctly. At any rate, there are not a lot of Catholics to talk to over here :^)
But more seriously, I’m not trying to undermine your trust in your fellow Catholics, but just trying to historically precise. I’m sure that as Cardinal Ratzinger has often written and lectured on the fundamental importance of absolute truth, he wouldn’t want a story about him that was untrue to be taken as truthful.
The basic source seems to be his autobiography, which seems to be where most of the non-scurrilous articles are getting their info. This Sunday Times piece notes his father’s anti-Nazism, but notes that it was that, and not the chance that his son wouldn’t sign up, as being responsible for the family being threatened. Also the end of the article alludes to the point made earlier about Ratzinger suggesting that resistance was futile:
He has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.
As I’ve said, I don’t think it is that important (‘vatican sausage making’ is quite close to my take on the matter) so I pass on this awfully titled NYPost op-ed for interest’s sake, showing the desperation for getting a new angle on the story but not with any ill intent.
This Mirror article also has some points that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
I also found the Cardinal Ratzinger fan club, which also got a lot of flak because the fan club merchandise (t shirts that say ‘putting the slapdown on heresy since 1984’) may have been manufactured in Chinese factories.
Also, you are right that the Nazis fared poorly in Bavaria and other Catholic provinces, however, elections were abolished because of the Enabling act of 1933, which was made possible because Pacelli, the future Pius XII, negotiated a concordat with Hitler where the Reich would give the Catholic church certain privileges in Catholic areas if the Catholic Center Party would ‘voluntarily’ disband and priests would not counsel resistance to the state. This is not to accept Cornwall’s thesis about Pius being ‘Hitler’s Pope’, but it is clear that the Catholic Center Party was the bulwark of opposition to Hitler and the Nazis and when they agreed to support the Enabling acts, this was an important step.
Finally, I want to apologize if my comment came off too harshly, I just wanted to know if you had a particular source in mind.
ps on preview, I see that Catsy is lighting into mac. I feel pretty certain that mac was referring to bill‘s comments in particular, so I think a little restraint is probably in order. However, I do wish that mac’s comment had been a wee bit more focussed as that is the only comment that has attempted to hang a label. I also think that it’s not very nice to refer to him as ‘Rat’ as it doesn’t really promote comity.
Liberal Japonicus, I’ve read too many of your comments here – and respect you too much as a result – to have taken any of your comments here harshly, no fear of that.
My brother has just told me that, from his studies, “there was no such thing as collaborating. You either did it or died. As the Hitler Jugend joined when
underage, it was the family’s responsibility to make sure you joined and if you refused the SA or SS would kill you, or put you in a camp. Opposition wasn’t allowed.”
None of which is supposed to serve as a rebuttal to your points, but I’ll leave with two of my own (not aimed at anyone here specifically):
1. I personally see the teenage Ratzinger’s actions as pretty courageous, and have been delighted to discover them, very recently. Please judge me as you will.
2. There is no basis whatsover for calling him a Nazi. And every time he is called one, it weakens the charge against those who do deserve it.
Not getting into the Pius XII thing, though I’m reasonably satisfied he’s not even approaching as guilty as Cornwall sketched him.
As for the Ratzinger fan club, it’s a bit silly, isn’t it? Tacky, if nothing else.
Those who reject Rome, reject Christ and those who reject Christ reject THE TRUTH, and those who reject the truth will go to HELL.
See, a simple sylligism that would make Aquinas proud!
LJ: I also think that it’s not very nice to refer to him as ‘Rat’ as it doesn’t really promote comity.
Words cannot express my indifference to this. Pope Rat, in 1986 when he was merely head of the Inquisition, declared that a “homosexual orientation”, even if the person is totally celibate (emphasis mine), is a “tendency” toward an “intrinsic moral evil”. Moreover, a homosexual inclination is both an “objective disorder” and a “moral disorder”, which is “contrary to the creative wisdom of God”.’ cite
Comity? I am not interested in comity with anyone who reverences a man capable of this kind of thinking. What Ratzinger is saying in this “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” is that anyone who has sexual feelings towards someone of the same sex is, well, —-ed. Ratzinger isn’t interested even in the classic Christian argument of allowing that lesbians and gays have to be celibate: protecting priests who screw around with little girls is one thing (he’s claimed that the scandal about paedophile priests in the US is nothing but an attack on the Church’s good name), but an adult having a loving same-sex relationship with another adult (or even wanting to?) As far as Pope Rat’s concerned, wanting is enough to make me intrinsically evil.
Comity? Forget it.
Well, count me as one of those people who thinks that ‘Pope Rat’ actually doesn’t illuminate anything. Perhaps I’m missing some step where calling someone a name actually advances the argument, but I don’t think so. I do realize that ridicule and humor are weapons, but ‘Pope Rat’ doesn’t even have the grace of a 1st grader’s intelligence behind it. This is not a slam at your or Catsy’s intelligence, just a plea to examine the intellectual content of ‘Pope Rat’ and see if it advances your arguments in a meaningful way. And if you want to seize on me saying ‘it’s not very nice’, just attribute it to thinking that I didn’t need to lay all this argumentation out.
Sully had an interesting take on this:
SInce I asked about non-offensive modes of address above, let me note that I find “Pope Rat” several giant steps more offensive than “Ratzinger”.
“Pope Rat” is simply name-calling, and should be reserved for use by people who want to set out to express contempt. I take it that is what Jesurgislac wanted, so I won’t be saying anything surprising, but I can at least say “heard it, loud and clear”.
My question was different: whether I might refer to him by his surname instead of his title–and a surname under which he has published and been known professionally for decades. This does not seem to me per se offensive, even when we take into account the “common courtesy” point that Mr. Yomtov makes above.
LJ: Well, count me as one of those people who thinks that ‘Pope Rat’ actually doesn’t illuminate anything.
It may illuminate how much he is loathed and disrespected already, in two sylables.
On the other hand, I know people who keep pet rats who find using “rat” pejoratively to be objectionable, because they like rats…
Well, count me as one of those people who thinks that ‘Pope Rat’ actually doesn’t illuminate anything.
You’re right, and it’s not supposed to. It’s a pure ad hominem appellation that serves only to exhibit the degree of contempt I have for this wasted genetic material they’re now calling Pope.
My arguments are advanced in other, more reasonable ways, which I believe I’ve demonstrated. This is just venting. And as Jes so eloquently stated, I have no interest in comity with someone who has effectively declared war on sexuality and put the weight of their office behind outlawing any kind of love they disapprove of.
Actually everyone‘s got a tendency toward evil, as far as Church doctrine is concerned. So don’t feel all alone, J. I’m not sure if there’s any flavor of Christianity that doesn’t have some semblance of the inherent sinfulness of Man as a tenet.
Slarti: Actually everyone’s got a tendency toward evil, as far as Church doctrine is concerned. So don’t feel all alone, J.
I don’t feel “all alone”, Slarti: there are approximately 600 million human beings who have been condemned by the new Pope as an “intrinsic moral evil”.
You are not one of them, of course: whatever Pope Rat may think of your lifestyle, he puts you morally above me because you’re heterosexual. For no other reason.
Now, you may well be morally a better person than me. I have no idea how we’d establish that, and I’m not really interested in trying – it seems to me to be as pointless an activity as comparing IQ points. Let’s say that there are aspects of you I regard with sincere admiration (your parenting skills, for example), just as there are aspects of you I dislike. This is true of most people I know.
But I find Pope Rat’s notion that you are morally better than me because you’re straight and I’m a lesbian as objectionable an idea as (for example)proclaiming as a moral principle that white people are just better than blacks, or that Christians is just better than Muslims. Because he’s not judging either you or me as individuals: he’s prejudging wholesale as categories.
I beg to differ. Everyone is “one of them”; if you don’t agree, you’re wildly out of touch with doctrine. All men are sinners, J. That’s pretty much the foundation of Christianity. The Catholic Church is simply elevating one sin over others.
I don’t agree with the Pope’s views on this, of course, but the expectation that any cardinal elected as Pope might have the remotest possibility of holding a differing viewpoint is just irrational. Get it: the Mother Church doesn’t like you.
Slarti: I beg to differ. Everyone is “one of them”;
Would you say that if Ratzinger had proclaimed being black to be an intrinsic moral disorder? Or if he’d declared all disabled people to be intrinsically morally disordered?
Get it: the Mother Church doesn’t like you.
I “get it” better than you do, evidently.
Are Protestants still heretical? Is the notion of Christian liberty a one way ticket to hell?
Liberty of Conscience Threatened
ROMANISM IS NOW REGARDED by Protestants with far greater favor than in former years. In those countries where Catholicism is not in the ascendancy, and the papists are taking a conciliatory course in order to gain influence, there is an increasing indifference concerning the doctrines that separate the reformed churches from the papal hierarchy; the opinion is gaining ground, that, after all, we do not differ so widely upon vital points as has been supposed, and that a little concession on our part will bring us into a better understanding with Rome. The time was when Protestants placed a high value upon the liberty of conscience which has been so dearly purchased. They taught their children to abhor popery, and held that to seek harmony with Rome would be disloyalty to God. But how widely different are the sentiments now expressed.
The defenders of the papacy declare that the church has been maligned; and the Protestant world are inclined to accept the statement. Many urge that it is unjust to judge the church of today by the abominations and absurdities that marked her reign during the centuries of ignorance and darkness. They excuse her horrible cruelty as the result of the barbarism of the times, and pled that the influence of modern civilization has changed her sentiments.
Have these persons forgotten the claim of infallibility put forth for eight hundred years by this haughty power? So far from being relinquished, this claim has been affirmed in the nineteenth century with greater positiveness than ever before. As Rome asserts that the “church never erred, nor will it, according to the Scriptures, ever err” (John L. von Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, book 3, century 11, part 2, chapter 2, section 9, note 17), how can she renounce the principles which governed her course in past ages?
The papal church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas, she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed, and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution.
More;
Right-Winging Protestants’ Have Critiques Too!
I’m sure Right-Wing solidarity will eventually win out, in order to crush the dictatorship of the liberal.
Slarti: All men are sinners.
That may be true but when my partner and i are sharing our love we are no more sinning than you and your spouse.
Good comment Jes. If Pope Rat were saying blacks were sinners because of their color he would be ostracized but he can wholesale categorize gays as sinners and get away with it because we’re still the ones you are allowed to kick. Well, we kick right back now.
This Pope won’t even live long enough to see the walking anachronism he is becoming. At some point relatively soon the world will move further away from the Church unless women and gays take their rightful place. The Pope’s penis has nothing to do with the job and everything to do with those who set up the rules on Earth, not in Heaven.
The Messiah spoke forcefully against divorce, yet the obsession to persecute homosexuals gets all the energy.
I still say most churches play to the mass hatred of the base. When it becomes fashionable to hate Jews again, the churches will be back to blaming liberals for ignoring those who killed Christ.
And the cycle of life continues.
Oh. See, I thought it was patently obvious from context that I was talking about CURRENT conflicts and the need for the CURRENT pope to be less religiously divisive TODAY.
It wasn’t obvious, which is why I asked if you wanted to qualify the otherwise unqualified statement.
Aren’t we the nasty little one today. Go back and actually read what I wrote.
I did read what you wrote, and it’s very interesting that you would take offense. Did you label him a Nazi?
Saying that Ratzinger never should have been selected because of the “appearance” of some connection to the Nazis doesn’t strike me as tone deaf, if that had been taken into account it strikes me as cowardly and reeks of PC fakery. No you didn’t label him a Nazi, but apparently you want to pander to those who would. Why pander to other’s ignorance and prejudice? All you do is validate their charges. Sorry that the cardinals didn’t see it your way.
BTW, The analogy to Byrd makes no sense, he was a Grand Whatever of the KKK, and he has a despicable and not particularly brief public record of racist politics. The KKK isn’t something he was forced to join as a teenager, and he didn’t run away from it at the earliest opportunity.
Would you say that if Ratzinger had proclaimed being black to be an intrinsic moral disorder?
Yes, he would. Jes, Slart’s not defending Ratzinger, just pointing out that the dichotomy is not as stark as you present it. Everyone has tendencies toward evil — Jesus said that to even think about sinning was as bad as the act itself. Ratzinger’s not saying that all homosexual people are evil, he’s saying that the urge to commit a homosexual act is a sinful urge, one of any number of sinful urges.
I understand your sensitivity to this, but there’s really no reason to attack Slart, who very clearly said that he doesn’t agree with the Catholic church’s teachings on this subject.
No you didn’t label him a Nazi, but apparently you want to pander to those who would.
Mac, do you have even the slightest inkling of how diplomacy works? Politics? How to manage large numbers of people? It’s not pandering to recognize that the baggage attached to a person–unfair or otherwise–makes them a liability.
BTW, The analogy to Byrd makes no sense
It makes perfect sense, you simply don’t get it because of an inability to see the forest for the trees. Both Byrd and Ratzinger are tainted by their past associations in ways that make them horrible choices for any position of leadership or diplomacy that require them to connect with people of other races or religions, respectively. The fairness and details of those associations are completely irrelevent for these purposes–what matters is how they /appear/.
did read what you wrote, and it’s very interesting that you would take offense. Did you label him a Nazi?
followed by
No you didn’t label him a Nazi, but apparently you want to pander to those who would.
Ahh, the old ‘I didn’t call you an idiot and if you think I did, you are an idiot’ trope. Never seen it in that short a space, but there you are. My apologies for butting in, Catsy.
James Casey: 2. There is no basis whatsover for calling him a Nazi. And every time he is called one, it weakens the charge against those who do deserve it.
As a matter of technicality, I believe that he was, in fact, a Nazi since the Hitler Youth was the official “underage” arm of the Nazi party. [Those with a better knowledge of the later arcana of the Nazi regime are invited to correct me here.] He was also an unwilling Nazi — there’s a phrase you don’t hear too often — and appears to have done the minimum he needed to do to get along, which nevertheless included being a prison guard at Dachau. It was a complicated situation whose complexity is only worsened by the fact that a) it’s ever-so-easy to throw labels around as a substitute for an understanding of what actually happened, and b) it’s largely moot anyway: as others have noted above, the boy is not the man.
LJ: Also, you are right that the Nazis fared poorly in Bavaria and other Catholic provinces…
What? The Nazis did outstandingly in Munich (in a relative sense, that is); heck, the NSDAP was essentially a Bavarian party for about half of its pre-Enabling Act existence. The Nazi party only started being approximately national in 1926 after Goebbel’s “conversion” and mission to Berlin, and it took another few years to get its (national) feet under it.* The Nazis swept Munich in 1933, shortly after Hitler took power (and before any of the eliminationist reforms had passed, IIRC). I can’t seem to find a handy site with electoral numbers in 1929-1933 broken down by region but, if memory serves, the Nazis did extraordinarily well in the Munich area if not necessarily in Bavaria as a whole.
And perhaps the most important point of all, though somewhat subtle: Dachau, the first and arguably most important concentration camp inside German borders, was in Bavaria. This isn’t a coincidence.
* I’m distinguishing here from Strasser’s “renegade” party as well as Goebbel’s pre-conversion antics since those aren’t what we think of as Nazi party activities (and were contemporaneously disavowed by Hitler) because a) they were garden-variety right-wing and b) they didn’t fall under the Fuhrerprinzip.
kenB: Ratzinger’s not saying that all homosexual people are evil
Yes, he is. You may think that it’s possible to draw a line between “being gay” and “having sexual feelings towards people of the same sex” but I assure you that it isn’t. I think telling gays that it’s okay to have sexual feelings so long as you’re celibate is morally iffy, but at least it’s a humanly possible position to advocate: a gay person who believes in the Church can decide to be celibate. I would be saddened by that choice, but it’s a possible choice.
Telling gays that having sexual feelings at all makes us “intrinsically morally disordered” is a humanly impossible position. It is not possible to decide not to have sexual feelings. It is a moral position identical with telling black people that the color of their skin makes them intrinsically morally disordered, and if they want to escape from sin they will have to change it.
Is a Buddhist’s urge to follow Buddhism an evil urge?
Is the Hindus’ urge to follow Hinduism an evil urge?
Calvist urges, must be evil.
Jes, do you have a cite? What you’re suggesting is that Ratzinger declared that anyone who has homosexual feelings is essentially irredeemable. I’m no Catholic, but it’s hard for me to believe he really said that.
I’d say the same thing that I’ve already said in this thread, Jesurgislac: I don’t agree with the Pope’s views on this. And given at least recent history of the Catholic Church, that’d be a sufficiently radical departure from previous Papal opinion that a global expression of shock and dismay would be warranted. Opinions that comply almost perfectly with that of previous pontiffs is…unsurprising. To some of us, anyway.
Yes, I imagine you do. Again, though, the Mother Church has always disliked homosexuals. What did you expect?
Irrelevant. What you believe to be a sin and what the Catholic Church declares to be a sin are, if you’re a non-Catholic, two entirely different things. I think you’re reading things into what I said that aren’t there. As usual.
Exactly. This is just one of the many reasons I’m not a Catholic. Hell, I’m just barely anything.
I’ve browsed about in the Bible (not a serious inquiry, mind you) for some sort of heirarchy of sins, and I haven’t found anything that says dishonoring your parents is less offensive to God than murdering them. It’s possible I’ve missed something; if you think I have I’d be obliged if you’d point it out. I’m also a little mystified about the focus on homosexuality; one would think that if it were all that important, it’d be one of the Eleven Commandments. As it is, it doesn’t even seem to really rate an advisory.
Again, though, the Mother Church has always disliked homosexuals. What did you expect?
As an aside, I know this wasn’t always true but I can’t remember when the sea-change happened. Anyone happen to know when homosexuality became a mortal sin? Anyone happen to know when the “current” bout of anti-homosexuality became entrenched?
kenB: What you’re suggesting is that Ratzinger declared that anyone who has homosexual feelings is essentially irredeemable.
Yes, that’s exactly what he’s saying – so long as we have homosexual feelings. (I suppose should we manage to kill all sexual feeling entirely, that would make us “redeemable”.) I cited his “pastoral letter” above.
I’d say the same thing that I’ve already said in this thread, Jesurgislac: I don’t agree with the Pope’s views on this.
I never said you did. I just found your implication that Pope Rat wasn’t singling out lesbians and gays especially to be rather patronising – and factually inaccurate.
Jes, can you stop with the Pope Rat please?
“””Anyone happen to know when homosexuality became a mortal sin? Anyone happen to know when the “current” bout of anti-homosexuality became entrenched?”””
Yes – More than 2005 years ago.
Actually 5000 if you refer to Jewish law.
No one EVER said being Black or a women is a sin.
Practicing homosexual sex is considered a sin, and that is hardly new.
Abondoning such fundemental truths – and basic scriptual authority is a suicide pact.
A cursory glance at the protestant denominations that have embraced the Dogmas of modern leftism reveals a emaciated and dwindling congregations. When you abandon Christ – the sheep tend to stray.
One need look no further than Western Anglicanism to see a contemporary western Church in deep schism – cut off from 70 million of it 77 million member world wide body and in threat of being expunged. With the remaining 7 million in deep fracture within the west. This is what adherence to modern pieties bring
Anarch: Jes, can you stop with the Pope Rat please?
Well, he’s 78. I’ll stop when he stops.
Anarch: Anyone happen to know when homosexuality became a mortal sin? Anyone happen to know when the “current” bout of anti-homosexuality became entrenched?
From the 10th century onwards, according to John Boswell in his fascinating book: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality : Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century.
(It’s interesting that a common medieval interpretation of the “sin of Sodom” was that it was gluttony: the people of Sodom were guilty of lack of hospitality to strangers.)
I implied that? Where?
I think you’re seeing what you want to see, which is hardly a new thing in our discusssions. What I said was that church doctrine is that all men (includes women, ISGWS) are predisposed to evil. In exactly what way we’re predisposed to evil isn’t really all that important. What the passage you quoted specifically does NOT say is that having homosexual urges is itself a sin, merely an inclination toward evil. You really ought to start reading what I wrote, instead of what you imagined I meant by that.
Anarch: Anyone happen to know when homosexuality became a mortal sin? Anyone happen to know when the “current” bout of anti-homosexuality became entrenched?
From the 10th century onwards, according to John Boswell in his fascinating book: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality : Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century.
(It’s interesting that a common medieval interpretation of the “sin of Sodom” was that it was gluttony: the people of Sodom were guilty of lack of hospitality to strangers.)
As it is, it doesn’t even seem to really rate an advisory.
You need to read a little deeper, Slarti. Try Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 for instructions about killing homosexuals. Deuteronomy 22:5 forbids women wearing men’s clothes, and Deuteronomy 23:17-18 forbids homosexuals entry into church (dogs and prostitutes are similarily banned). Paul has a few less-than-tolerant things to say as well, and there are various passages throughout the bible that refer to the issue.
Here’s a full listing from the Skeptic’s Bible, a great on-line resource.
PS – I respectfully second the request to Jes about the papal nomenclature.
Slarti: You really ought to start reading what I wrote
I did. What you wrote was “Actually everyone’s got a tendency toward evil, as far as Church doctrine is concerned. So don’t feel all alone, J. I’m not sure if there’s any flavor of Christianity that doesn’t have some semblance of the inherent sinfulness of Man as a tenet.”
I found the tone of this comment patronising, which I accept was my own reading of it, and I find it kind of pointless, if you didn’t intend by it that Pope Rat wasn’t trying to pick out lesbians and gays especially.
If you don’t care about this one way or the other, Slarti (and that appears to be your current argument) why mix in?
Homosexuality is proscribed in Leviticus 20:13. But if you widen your scope of examination there, you’ll see that all sorts of other things are also proscribed that, as has been noted, seem to be much less visible in Church law than homosexuality. And if you widen your scope a few chapters, you’ll see that planting corn and beans together is a no-no; one on which the Church is, mysteriously, silent.
I cant believe we a quoting John Boswell as authentic historicall information. I dont like to speak poorly of the dead- but Boswells work is roundly discarded by hisorians for what it is- progay propaganda.
Its ludicrous stuff – and fly’s in the face of the overwelming mainstream scholarship on the subject.
Did God really destroy an entire city because they were rude to visitors?
And why did Lot offer his daughters to the mob?
I understand Jes’s disdain for the new Pope. His track record on gays and lesbians is beyond horrifying (he’s even gone so far as to suggest violence against gays and lesbians is to be expected…a wholly unChrist-like position IMO).
I don’t think it makes sense to call him derogatory names though. That shuts down people’s willingness to consider your opinion and, thereby, does nothing to change things.
Fitz: I cant believe we a quoting John Boswell as authentic historicall information.
I’m sure your opinion on this topic will be judged on its merits. A short resume of John Boswell‘s work as a historian is available.
What, you’re saying that I don’t have a dog in this fight, so my thoughts aren’t worthy of consideration? Great. I’d considered and discarded a like policy for any of your opinions about anything American (including government), but I can reexamine that policy if you want me to.
John Boswell was often criticized as an “advocacy scholar”. Some gay scholars, adhering to the secularist norm, dismissed him as a “Catholic apologist”. Much more common has been the attack on him as a “pro-homosexual” writer, who distorted and misread texts. Other reviewers were impressed by his work.
Fitz: Did God really destroy an entire city because they were rude to visitors?
Apparently so, if you believe a literal reading of your Bible.
Also according to a strictly Catholic interpretation: cite: “For the first man was expelled from Paradise on account of pride, from which he went on to an act of gluttony: while the deluge and the punishment of the people of Sodom were inflicted for sins occasioned by gluttony.”
My friends are going to hell. Two of them, independently, when told that Ratzinger was the pope, responded with something like “he was great as Cliff on Cheers.”
Anybody pissing off as many people on opposite sides as Boswell seems to be must be on to something.
The whole thing, Edward, if you please:
Again, none of this is anything new to the Roman Catholic Church. Why the shock and outrage now, of all times? Do you have an alternative candidate that holds different views?
I dont subscribe to a literal reading of the bible
Slarti: I’d considered and discarded a like policy for any of your opinions about anything American (including government), but I can reexamine that policy if you want me to.
No, that’s not what I meant.
I mix into debates because when I care about the subject under debate. When I don’t give a damn, I don’t join in. I don’t, indeed, see much point in joining in debates in order to tell the people who do give a damn that I don’t. What you appear to be saying is that you don’t give a damn about the topic under discussion – and if that’s the case, why are you here discussing it? Why not join in a discussion where you do care?
“And why did Lot offer his daughters to the mob?”
Fitz,
Being gay wasn’t the mobs problem. There was a lot of straight gang-rape and straight sins being acted on, as well.
Maybe you can help me out here, though.
Is a Buddhist’s urge to follow Buddhism an evil urge and thus, a mortal sin?
Fitz: I dont subscribe to a literal reading of the bible
Or care about Catholic theology? You claimed just the other day that you were “apparently the only practicing Catholic on this board”…
It’s still horrifying Slarti. It boils down to:
I believe we have to fundemental mis-interpretations happening.
#1. The Catholic church does not subscribe to a literal(i.e. fundementalist) approach to Biblical interpretation. Its a religion of the word, not of the book.
#2. It condems acts that are sinfull, irespective of the inclinations that drive them. Those very inclinations though (as discussed above) may be intrinsicly disordered.
I’m not seeing the relevance, Jesurgislac. Are you telling me that I don’t care?
My understanding is that areas where the Center Party (and therefore Catholics) were strong, Nazis were not supported, in large part because of exhortations by the pulpit, and Bavaria was (is?) one of the most traditionally Catholic regions of German, such that cremations are not permitted. Munich was, of course, the home of the Beer Hall Putsch, so I think the Nazis had a rump of support that was assisted by a willingness to use intimidation. The Nazis never won over 50% nationally, with their biggest margin being 44% in the 1933 election. Apparently, in Bavaria, the Center Party had a sister party (the Bavarian People’s Party) and a further data point would be that the Bavarian government resisted the appointment of a Nazi Gauleiter most strongly.
link
Unfortunately, the 3-D program linked at the top of this page is broken. The other pages are also quite worthwhile.
He was also an unwilling Nazi — there’s a phrase you don’t hear too often — and appears to have done the minimum he needed to do to get along, which nevertheless included being a prison guard at Dachau.
Geesh, this nonsense has now deteriorated into he was “a prison guard at Dachau”? I guess letting facts get in the way of a good smear is just inconvenient. What’s next? He was an unwilling Nazi who ran the gas chambers?
Thanks for the cite, Jes, sorry I missed it before.
Yes, that’s exactly what he’s saying
No, it’s not. Did you read the whole thing? The logic is basically that homosexual acts are sinful, and so the desire to commit them is a sinful desire. Therefore, he says that homosexual Christians should resist that urge, just like any other temptation.
Slarti: Are you telling me that I don’t care?
Actually, what I read your comments as saying is you’re telling us that we shouldn’t care.
If that’s not what you intend, I mis-read you.
If you do care, why are you telling us we shouldn’t?
Two of them, independently, when told that Ratzinger was the pope, responded with something like “he was great as Cliff on Cheers.”
The conclave where everyone knows your name?
Macallan: Geesh, this nonsense has now deteriorated into he was “a prison guard at Dachau”? I guess letting facts get in the way of a good smear is just inconvenient.
To be precise, he was enrolled in a military unit protecting a BMW plant where slaves from Dachau worked.
Geesh, this nonsense has now deteriorated into he was “a prison guard at Dachau”? I guess letting facts get in the way of a good smear is just inconvenient.
No, it was a mistake on my part: he was a guard at a plant where prisoners from Dachau were working. I’d apologize for the error but given your attitude it’s not worth it. Should you ever wish to climb down from that high horse and start debating the truth instead of lambasting people with specious allegations — an accusation which you are all too free with yourself — I’ll be happy to welcome you.
As a side note, there were a number of incidents where participants in Nazi atrocities could perhaps be described as “unwilling”. Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men is an excellent volume for many reasons, not least of which is illuminating the many subtleties of those who participated, willingly or no, in the Holocaust.
It’s still horrifying Slarti. It boils down to:
Officially, I feel violence should be condemned where it happens, but you really were asking for it.
I don’t know — this is another one of those “explain” vs. “explain away” issues. Objectively it makes sense that as homosexual rights advance, those who feel threatened by them react more violently. OTOH, in the context of that letter, there really was no good reason to speculate on the causes of the violent acts, so maybe the less generous interpretation is justified.
That statement that “no one should be surprised” by violence against gay people is THE single reason why I’m going to try to get out. I am really surprised at your failure to grasp why it upsets people, Slarti, because you’re usually pretty sensitive about these things.
I won’t be an accessory to that, and I won’t recognize the man who said those words as infallible, ever.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. I give up.
That statement that “no one should be surprised” by violence against gay people is THE single reason why I’m going to try to get out. It’s even more blatant than Cornyn’s remarks. I am really surprised at your failure to grasp why it upsets people, Slarti, because you’re usually pretty sensitive about these things.
I won’t be an accessory to that, and I won’t recognize the man who said those words as infallible, ever. And since he’s blatantly not infallible, the sort of enforcement that invites these reactions:
is old fashioned bullying.
Slart, sorry you’re giving up. I’ll try to explain.
I should preface this with the disclaimer:
I Am Not A Good Christian
There is problem with folks who get highly torqued about religious teachings regarding sexuality. This is what I see as the problem: It is a trap to think that, if only my church would change its teachings on this issue or that, homosexuality, marriage, divorce, contraception, etc., then I would be all good. Because the church does not change its stance on those issues then it is condemning me.
My understanding of Xian thought is that every human is born in, and lives in, a state of sin. That darn 10th Commandment about not coveting is especially problematic, because even if you do good on all the other 9, there is something inside each and every one of us that tells us “I want that”, “I should have that”. It is that selfishness that is in us that is the mortal sin that we all commit.
Wanting the church to approve of my behaviour, well that falls under that 10th commandment stuff. It is vanity, because those behaviours are not what the church is about.
We are saved by the grace of God*, in Christ, and not by our own doings.
*Maybe not me. I am more of a deist than anything.
Slarti: Oh, for Pete’s sake. I give up.
If you don’t want to explain what you meant, fine.
Anyone happen to know when homosexuality became a mortal sin?
Fitz: Yes – More than 2005 years ago.
Actually 5000 if you refer to Jewish law.
Wrong. Judaic law does not describe homosexuality as a sin. This is an all-too-common misconception propagated out of linguistic and historical ignorance, frequently abetted by preexisting biases in need of justification. In other words, people are either reading something that isn’t there out of bigotry, or parroting what they’ve been taught about it without doing the research to find out if it’s true.
The Hebrew term usually mistranslated as “abomination” (and, in some cases, “abhorrence”) is to’evah, meaning “ritually impure”. It is, like much of Leviticus, a reference to ceremonial and/or ritual purity, and has no relation whatsoever to sin. Had the authors wished to invoke sin, they would have instead used the word “zimah”. The two words are not synonyms. It was a stricture to prohibit Hebrews from participating in the rites of the temples in Egypt and Canaan, in which ritual homosexual sex was common. It also aligns with much of what Leviticus and Judaic law in general is concerned with, that being things in their proper places.
As for references to homosexuality in the New Testament, I suggest you review your Bible. Jesus didn’t have anything to say about homosexuality; that was Paul’s pet obsession, and Paul’s record of intolerance is not only at complete odds with Jesus’ message, but quite well-documented.
No one EVER said being Black or a women is a sin.
This statement is historically ignorant, and prima facie false.
Abondoning such fundemental truths – and basic scriptual authority is a suicide pact.
Abandoning beliefs based on demonstrable falsehoods is not a suicide pact, it’s part of being a thinking adult human.
DaveC: It is a trap to think that, if only my church would change its teachings on this issue or that, homosexuality, marriage, divorce, contraception, etc., then I would be all good.
Exactly where are you seeing people on this thread making this argument? Indeed, can you link to any examples of this argument? It reads very much like a straw man.
As for references to homosexuality in the New Testament, I suggest you review your Bible. Jesus didn’t have anything to say about homosexuality; that was Paul’s pet obsession, and Paul’s record of intolerance is not only at complete odds with Jesus’ message, but quite well-documented.
Also worth noting is that the Christian faith is largely derived from Paul’s work and words, and not Christ’s. Most stuff I’ve read on the early followers of Christ have indicated that, unlike most Judaic sects of the day, women members enjoyed complete equality with men. That changed with Paul’s influence, and that is the modern Catholic Church’s legacy.
DaveC, the church teaches that you can only be saved from sins you repent of, and it is impossible to repent of something you’re quite convinced isn’t a sin.
I could go to confession about having cohabited before marriage, I could say the Hail Marys, at this point it would cost me nothing, but I would be lying–I’m just not sorry about it. I don’t think it was wrong. I think that even insofar as sexual matters go, the church has bigger things to worry about than my deep, dark, totally 100% monogamous past. I could go to confession about using contraception, I could say the rosary, but I would go right back out and “sin” again. It seems to me to do that would only add “bearing false witness” to the list of sins, and it would dishonor the sacrament of penance, which has real uses.
Well, the church teaches that if that’s the state of my soul, I should not receive communion. And if I drop dead tomorrow in this condition, I’m going to hell–whereas if I raped or murdered someone but then felt really sorry about it & did penance, I’d spend more time in purgatory but I’d get to heaven in the end.
It’s not that I wouldn’t sin anymore if it dropped the retrograde sexual stuff. It’s that, if you are unalterably think they’re just WRONG about what’s a mortal sin, you can’t repent, which means you can’t participate in the other sacraments.
I suppose if I weren’t otherwise leaving the church the thing would be to tell the priests this. If they want to deny communion they ought to deny it to all 90%+ of American Catholics whom they say aren’t in a fit state to receive it & deal with the revolt this is likely to cause. No more of this picking on the convenient targets like Catholic politicians, openly gay people, and people who remarry.
Wanting the church to approve of my behaviour, well that falls under that 10th commandment stuff. It is vanity, because those behaviours are not what the church is about.
I can’t speak for those who actually want this, but for me and nearly everyone I know, the problem is not so much that the church has this view, but rather that through this view those beliefs are routinely inflicted on those who do not share them. When a religion gets used to make laws that affect my life, I have a legitimate reason to call that religion out on its problems.
Jes, way upthread–I think telling gays that it’s okay to have sexual feelings so long as you’re celibate is morally iffy, but at least it’s a humanly possible position to advocate:
Well why not? Prior to Lateran IV this was the Church’s position on heterosexual sex as well, and heterosexual intercourse within marriage was only just tolerated as an unfortunate and icky necessity for those who were second-class Christians. It took 1000 years for the Church to accept ‘natural’ procreative sex. Looks like we are right on schedule for another doctrinal shift.
It took 1000 years for the Church to accept ‘natural’ procreative sex.
To be fair, that came after a thousand years during which the Church didn’t really have much trouble with sex.
as others have noted above, the boy is not the man
I thought the boy is father to the man.
I agree with Ratzinger that the Church must be a moral compass in the world. It’s only that I think his moral compass is skewed.
Nonetheless, if he does good (e.g. against poverty, war, and social injustice) I will applaud him. If he does evil (e.g. against gays and women) I will criticise him. We face tomorrow with the Pope we have, not the Pope we would like to have, as a great sage once said. 🙂
*starts checking out goddess books from the library*
Maybe, we should just change what it means to be Catholic.
We can get rid of the gospels while we are at it also.
To be fair, that came after a thousand years during which the Church didn’t really have much trouble with sex.
Umm…wrong 1000 years. I’m talking about the period from Augustine to Lateran IV and the whole virginity/celibacy fixation with the virgin martyrs and whatnot. That leaves only about 350 years of ‘before’ with respect to the Church.
Maybe, we should just change what it means to be Catholic.
Hasn’t that been constantly happening for thousands of years now?
I suppose if I weren’t otherwise leaving the church the thing would be to tell the priests this.
Would they care? Does the fundamentalism of Rome consistently reach down to actual American churches, or are there priests who have more relaxed views?
I guess my remarks above really only reflected a Protestant point of view: Salvation through Grace alone.
I’m talking about the period from Augustine to Lateran IV and the whole virginity/celibacy fixation with the virgin martyrs and whatnot. That leaves only about 350 years of ‘before’ with respect to the Church.
Oh, sorry, I did misunderstand. [For some reason I read Lateran IV as Vatican II; I have no idea how that happened.] In that case your formulation is, to the best of my knowledge, incorrect: irrespective of the Church’s official stance on sex and sexuality, the de facto stance c. 800 – 1100 AD [in Northern Europe at least, possibly extending back to the breakdown of Roman culture c. 650 AD] was one of tolerance or at least indifference. There’s a fairly well-respected school of thought that asserts that the sexual reforms of the Church in the early second millenium were occasioned precisely by the promiscuity of the clergy and the inheritance complications that arose therefrom.
And don’t even get me started on the pre-Reformation Church and its attitudes towards prostitution, illicit sex or illegitimate children. Mainly because I lost my notes from that class.
Anarch: No, it was a mistake on my part: he was a guard at a plant where prisoners from Dachau were working.
Sorry, you’re still wrong. He wasn’t a guard at the BMW plant.
I’d apologize for the error but given your attitude it’s not worth it. Should you ever wish to climb down from that high horse and start debating the truth instead of lambasting people with specious allegations — an accusation which you are all too free with yourself — I’ll be happy to welcome you.
A cite of where I lambasted anyone with specious allegations?
Anarch–irrespective of the Church’s official stance on sex and sexuality, the de facto stance c. 800 – 1100 AD [in Northern Europe at least, possibly extending back to the breakdown of Roman culture c. 650 AD] was one of tolerance or at least indifference.
Different sides of the same class. De facto, they did not have enough centralized power to address questions of the laity in practice.
What is certain is that most of the literature that circulated during that time was saints’ lives and treatises on virginity, all of which were hugely popular. I’m not disagreeing that heterosexual intercourse was tolerated or accepted in marriage, merely pointing out that the church did not praise sexuality in marriage, but treated it as a sort of unpleasant inevitability of Augustine’s version of the fall. And even then it is a sign of moral weakness in nearly every written work of the period that has a religious focus.
“No you didn’t label him a Nazi, but apparently you want to pander to those who would.
Mac, do you have even the slightest inkling of how diplomacy works? Politics? How to manage large numbers of people? It’s not pandering to recognize that the baggage attached to a person–unfair or otherwise–makes them a liability.”
Are we talking about Bolton or the current pope? I think there is a serious disconnect between the reason popes are chosen (to lead the Catholic church) and what so many people here seem to want out of a pope. Popes are not elected by the cardinals to provide Jesurgislac’s preferred interpretation of the Scriptures. Popes are not elected by the cardinals to provide non-Catholics with fuzzy warm feelings. Popes are not elected by the cardinals to provide outreach to other religions (though the pope may certainly choose to do so). Popes are elected to lead the Catholic church. So much time is being focused on the pope as an individual when the real problem most people have with him is that he is a representative of the Catholic church–which you don’t really like. That includes American Catholics who want to disagree with the church about doctrine. Your problem isn’t the pope. Your problem is the whole idea of the Catholic church. I’m not Catholic, but it is still obvious to me that the problem so many of you have is with the Church and not the pope.
This is especially obvious in that your problems are the virtually identical to the ones you had with the last pope. It clearly isn’t the just the person that you dislike. You don’t like the institution.
I just knew there was something fundamentally wrong with Zima. Still, Leviticus prescribes death for engaging in homosexual behavior, which seems to be a bit harsh for “ritually impure”.
For perspective, death is also prescribed for cursing one’s parents, and a variety of other activities. So, there you go.
For perspective, death is also prescribed for cursing one’s parents, and a variety of other activities. So, there you go.
Small point, but strictly speaking death is de facto prescribed for all sins. The New Testament perspective changes the dynamic to who fills the prescription.
But since even those with no sin in their hearts also die, Mac, what’s the difference?
Not explicitly. Leviticus 20 is a collection of offenses for which the penalty is death. Sometimes by burning.
Now, if you’re talking about death in another sense, I’m not going to disagree with you. I’m talking about it in the being-killed sense.
So much time is being focused on the pope as an individual when the real problem most people have with him is that he is a representative of the Catholic church–which you don’t really like
Nonsense. Whatever my feelings about the Catholic church, I would rather see them led by someone who fought the Nazis rather than someone who fought for the Nazis, and someone who participated, however unwillingly, in allowing the Holocaust to happen. It is disturbing that some find it so difficult to believe that distaste for promoting such people to positions of great power is genuine.
Whether you or the Catholic church care about my opinion on this is irrelevant, I’ll keep stating it because I think it is important.
But since even those with no sin in their hearts also die
Does one of those exist? Don’t ask me though, nobody’s gonna elect me pope or mistake me for theologian.
Any of y’all planning to change churches, the Baptists would say “Come on in. The water’s fine.”
(An attempt to insert levity. I’m not proselytising. IANAGC.)
It clearly isn’t the just the person that you dislike. You don’t like the institution.
I don’t make any secret of what I think of the Catholic church, Sebastian, but that is not the whole of my problem with this pope. The problem is that the pope wields, through his position, an enormous amount of power to influence the views of people across the world. Those views spill over into my life when the people who look to him try to turn their views into law.
The pope is also /the/ central figurehead of the Catholic church. As such, the kind of person he is and the way he is viewed by the rest of the world /matters/, in a very real-world way. For all the noise that conservatives make about the prominence of divisive extremists in Islam–whose sphere of influence of in East Fumbuckistan pales in comparison to the pope–you and Mac are sure exhibiting a selective blindness to the effect an extremist religious leader has when he’s not Muslim.
So no, this is not, as you allege, simply my contempt for the Catholic church. It’s the fact that the pope wields enormous power for good or ill in the world–and I think this man’s contributions will fall heavily on the side of ill. And no small part of that is due to the sheer divisiveness of his views and his past.
Baptists use the same Bible as most of the rest of Christianity, DaveC.
Still, Leviticus prescribes death for engaging in homosexual behavior, which seems to be a bit harsh for “ritually impure”.
Seems a bit harsh to me, too, but do keep in mind the contemporary views. Texas may have put in an express lane for death row, but back then it was mass transit. :>
you and Mac are sure exhibiting a selective blindness to the effect an extremist religious leader has when he’s not Muslim.
Exactly what “extreme” position does the new pope hold? You seem to confuse traditional with extreme. For instance, to use your example, Wahhabism was a tiny fringe cult up until the British decided the guys in the Saud tent would win the royalty lottery. Today’s Wahhabists are quite extreme in comparison to mainstream Islam of one hundred years ago. Is Pope Benedict Ex Vee One extreme in comparison to mainstream Catholic theology from a hundred years ago? How about in comparison to Vatican II?
Additionally, what extreme position does he hold that differs from his predecessor?
If my comments caused some to make up meaning completely disjoint from what I actually said, I’m wondering if Mac’s last couple of posts offer more, or less, wiggle-room? Anyone? Bueller?
Always looking to improve the product, me. For extra credit and a discount coupon book, how many of you took Mac’s last couple of comments as a recommendation that they should just lie back and enjoy the ride?
“For all the noise that conservatives make about the prominence of divisive extremists in Islam–whose sphere of influence of in East Fumbuckistan pales in comparison to the pope–you and Mac are sure exhibiting a selective blindness to the effect an extremist religious leader has when he’s not Muslim.”
You are using a disturbing lack of distinction in your uses of the phrase “extremist religious leader” if you are trying to apply them to both the new pope and extremist relgious leaders such as are found in Iran or in the person of Osama bin Laden. So far as I can tell, the new pope is not calling for jihad, is not calling for homosexuals to be stoned, is not calling for teenaged girls whose parents sold them into prostitution to be hanged for unchastity, does not support honor killings, and is not interested in retaking large portions of Europe under the historic claims of the Holy Roman Empire. So far as I can tell, the new pope is going to be very much like the old pope, only less charismatic. Kind of interesting that you accuse me of moral blindness when you are manifestly incapable of making some very elementary moral distinctions. Splinter meet log.
SH, the new pope did, however, try to influence directly the american presidential election. Since, the last time I checked, the US military was occupying an Islamic country, and the presidential election involved significant debate on that occupation, you might want to recognize that the pope is meddling not only with american politics but how those politics affect members of other religions.
Meddling? You mean like Chirac or Schroeder? You are being awfully vague. Was he asking that the US topple walls on homosexuals in Islamic countries? Did he ask that we please allow honor killings? Did he want the US to command Muslim women to get veils?
Good heavens, he isn’t even trying to arm China. What exactly am I supposed to be acknowledging? Am I supposed to acknowledge that he opposed the US war in Iraq. Acknowledged. And yet that changes absolutely nothing of what I have said in the thread above. I disagree with disagreeable world leaders all the time. What does that have to do with the thread?
With the exception of Sebastian NO one on this thread has expressed even a cursory understanding of Christian thought much less Catholicism, much less Church Doctrine.
Even the History of our latest Pope has been horribly twisted as has his statements concerning the last election.
I cant even begin to answer all the false understandings presented here.
I don’t say any of this out of pride (i hope)
But I’m reading this, marveling, not knowing were to begin.
Perhaps Casy’s comments regarding homosexuality are a good place to start. (since they directly answer mine)
No serious theologian or student of History would even ATTEMT to justify the notion that homosexuality was not considered a sin from the first days of Judaism/Christianity.
Those denying that contention are usually homosexual apologists or revisionists attempting to create a new mythology on the subject. This is in order to sound authoritative and knowledgeable as if mainstream thought is widely in dispute.
This is a common tactic of propagandists, that hoplessly confuses a subject matter with the attention of making all historical claims seem subjective and arguable.
Perhaps has Casey just been roped into this unknowingly, and is playinfg the perfect Christian foil. Never the less, his examples and approach are well known and can be easily debunked by a simple google search.
This also is true (to a lesser degree concerning historical views on sexuality, chastity, celibacy and the esteem given sex – that have been brought up.
Do your homework people- really it makes for a better discussion.
Its not true – its a lie (that simple)
(I said)
No one EVER said being Black or a women is a sin.
(casey wrote)
This statement is historically ignorant, and prima facie false.
Its hardly false on the face of it. The contention was that backs and women were considered inferior – (but not having “sinned” simply because they were blacks or women)
(as contrasted with homosexual acts, that are considered sinfull)
With the exception of Sebastian NO one on this thread has expressed even a cursory understanding of Christian thought much less Catholicism, much less Church Doctrine.
I think I have at least a passing understanding of Christian thought, at least in terms of the majority variety of Christianity in the U.S., although it is pretty much at odds with Catholicism, especially with regards to the Commandments numbers 1 and 2.
No serious theologian or student of History would even ATTEMT to justify the notion that homosexuality was not considered a sin from the first days of Judaism/Christianity.
You are apparently neither, since you continue to display ignorance in the matter. You made a specific, demonstrably false statement about Judaic/Levitical law. I corrected you.
Those denying that contention are usually homosexual apologists or revisionists
Or people with a more accurate grasp of language and a study of the Bible beyond the level of someone who mouths the Psalms and parrots the pastor.
You know, someone who makes an effort to understand what he’s talking about.
This is in order to sound authoritative and knowledgeable as if mainstream thought is widely in dispute.
You didn’t make a claim about mainstream thought. If you had, my answer would have been that yes, most people who claim to follow the Bible do in fact incorrectly believe that the Old Testament calls homosexuality a sin, that “abomination” is a remotely accurate translation of to’evah, and do display a profound degree of hypocrisy about which Levitical laws they take seriously. They are indeed “mainstream” views. That doesn’t make them either right or moral.
No, as I said, you make a specific claim. I refuted it. You are now backpedaling and have spent at least half a dozen of what it pleases you to consider paragraphs calling me a propagandist and apologist without actually trying to refute the facts that I laid out for you.
Never the less, his examples and approach are well known and can be easily debunked by a simple google search.
Then do it. If what I said is that easily debunked, then it should be the work of a minute for you to do so. Specifically, I defy you to demonstrate that my assertions about Leviticus and Judaic law are not supported by a clear reading of the original passage in context.
In other words, put up or shut up. I’m sick of your propensity for spouting unsupported BS to justify your own bigotry.
“Specifically, I defy you to demonstrate that my assertions about Leviticus and Judaic law are not supported by a clear reading of the original passage in context.”
You weren’t defying me, but personally whether or not homosexuality was considered a ‘sin’ under Mosaic law isn’t particularly interesting to me considering that whatever label you used, breaking the restriction was punishable by death.
Now if you want to point out that we don’t follow lots of the rules in Leviticus, that would be a different issue….
“The pacific tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O’Connor: ‘Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world.’ …The archbishop of St. Louis once said: ‘Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes.’
“Every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the Catholic Church takes an oath of allegiance to the pope, in which occur the following words: ‘Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord (the pope), or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose.'” -Josiah Strong, Our Country, ch. 5, pars. 2-4.
From:
http://www.inbookseast.org/bookstoreadpage/ap/apchapter35page.html
Did God really destroy an entire city because they were rude to visitors?
Pff. God sent a bear to eat some kids after they made fun of one of his prophets. He drowned everyone in the entire world because he was feeling pissy. He allowed a guy’s family to be slaughtered and the same guy to be inflicted with all sorts of maladies just to win a bet. It’s not as if he wasn’t known for fits of pique.
And why did Lot offer his daughters to the mob?
Why did he have sex with them later? (Or, more accurately, vice-versa?) Doesn’t seem to be the most sexually healthy bunch around, IMO.
Sebastian, Ratzinger “meddled” in the last election by specifically ordering US bishops to deny communion to John Kerry. You don’t think that’s “meddling” in another country’s election? OK. Noted.
It is an old anti-papist critique, but it is still taught among the orthodox and fundementalist Protestants.
Roman Catholic urges to follow the Pope seem sinful.
Funny thing, those evil “urges”.
As an aside, I just want to note my full support for Mac’s sudden preference for — or, at least, indifference to — expedienct acquiescence over principled opposition. Or if I’m misreading, then I register my amusement that principled opposition is important when one is giving out rubbers and birth control pills, but not necessary when one is thinking about resisting the goddamned Nazis.
Fitz–This also is true (to a lesser degree concerning historical views on sexuality, chastity, celibacy and the esteem given sex – that have been brought up. Do your homework people- really it makes for a better discussion.
Its not true – its a lie (that simple)
“If ‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman,’ it is bad to touch one…’because of fornication,’ as if one were to say, ‘it is good to eat the finest wheat flower,’ and yet to prevent a starving man from devouring excrement, I may allow him to also eat barley…the reason why he says ‘it is better to marry’ is that it is worse to burn…It is as though he said, ‘it is better to have one eye than to be totally blind; it is better to stand on one foot and support the body with a cane than to crawl upon broken legs.”–(Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum I,7)
I can get you similar examples from Augustine (who I referenced), the Hali Meithad, and many other texts along the same lines. Good to know that not only have I not done my homework and am lying, but the primary sources from the Church fathers are too.
As an aside, I just want to note my full support for Mac’s sudden preference for — or, at least, indifference to — expedienct acquiescence over principled opposition. Or if I’m misreading, then I register my amusement that principled opposition is important when one is giving out rubbers and birth control pills, but not necessary when one is thinking about resisting the goddamned Nazis.
Uh oh. You in trouble…heh heh.
“Ratzinger “meddled” in the last election by specifically ordering US bishops to deny communion to John Kerry. You don’t think that’s “meddling” in another country’s election? OK. Noted.”
I didn’t say it wasn’t meddling, I am suggesting that if meddling is enough to bar someone from becoming a leader, there are others that would be in serious trouble–say Chirac.
Furthermore the dynamic of denying communion to a barely practicing Catholic who embraces ‘his’ religion when the polls show that Catholic votes are sorely needed is rather interesting. I might argue that Kerry was the one who was turning Mass into a political statement, but frankly I don’t care. What bothers me about Islamic scholars is not that they are trying to inject religion into politics, but the content they are trying to inject. Which brings me back to my original point. Your problem isn’t with the current pope, your problem is with the ideas that the Catholic Church wants to express. And that is fine, but you don’t have to demonize the pope (either the recently dead one or the current one) to note that you prefer easy access abortions.
The funny thing is that I don’t even like the church yet it is quite obvious to me how unfair this thread has been.
“Sebastian, Ratzinger “meddled” in the last election by specifically ordering US bishops to deny communion to John Kerry. ”
I’m pretty sure this isn’t true. He allowed it, but he didn’t require it, told them they should speak about the matter privately with the politician first before making a decision, and he specifically disallowed telling Catholics they could be denied communion for voting for Kerry. He’s ridiculous more lenient about rightish interference with politics than leftish–I mean, to plan to fire Oscar Romero, and let Michael Sheridan off without even a reprimand, is absurd. But as far as direct meddling; no. Ratzinger is nobody’s patsy. He’s much too smart and too ornery.
The highest ranking participant in the election shenanigans was Cardinal Arinze. I’m sure this had NOTHING to do with the RedStaters’ devout hopes Arinze would be chosen. Heh.
“Furthermore the dynamic of denying communion to a barely practicing Catholic who embraces ‘his’ religion when the polls show that Catholic votes are sorely needed is rather interesting.”
Support this or withdraw it please.
nous
That seems (cursory glance) to be Jerome quoting Paul.
Notice the emphasis on fornication, when he states It is “better to marry than to burn” – Paul was specifically relating to “come and follow me”
This was to his followers – He required all his disciples to be celibate (a consistent church teaching for priests -{teacher)] The interpretation is – Come help me convert everyone to Christianity (it a righteous calling) but you have to be celibate-If you cant handle that, than you should probably get married (its better than ending up fornicating instead & burning)]
(hope that gives you a better Idea of the attitude’s , not at all different than today!)
CASY
The Levitical Law
(Leviticus 18:22; 20:13)
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable [or, ‘an abomination’].
If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable [or, ‘an abomination’]. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Traditional Position:
Under Levitical Law, homosexuality was one of many abominable practices punishable by death.
Pro-Gay Argument:
The practices mentioned in these chapters of Leviticus have to do with idolatry, not homosexuality.
The Hebrew word for “abomination,” according to Boswell, has less to do with something intrinsically evil and more to do with ritual uncleanness.[80] The Metropolitan Community Church’s pamphlet, “Homosexuality: Not A Sin, Not A Sickness,” makes the same point:
The (Hebrew word for abomination) found in Leviticus is usually associated with idolatry.[81]
Gay author Roger Biery agrees, associating the type of homosexuality forbidden in Leviticus with idolatrous practices. Pro-gay authors refer to the heathen rituals of the Canaanites-rituals including both homosexual and heterosexual prostitution-as reasons God prohibited homosexuality among His people. They contend homosexuality itself was not the problem, but it is association with idolatry and, at times, the way it was practiced as a part of idol worship. In other words, God was not prohibiting the kind of homosexuality we see today; He forbade the sort which incorporated idolatry.
Response #1:
The prohibitions against homosexuality in Leviticus 18 and 20 appear alongside other sexual sins-adultery and incest, for example-which are forbidden in both Old and New Testaments, completely apart from the Levitical codes. Scriptural references to these sexual practices, both before and after Leviticus, show God’s displeasure with them whether or not any ceremony or idolatry is involved.
Response #2:
Despite the UFMCC’s contention that the word for abomination (toevah) is usually associated with idolatry, it in fact appears in Proverbs 6:16-19 in connection with sins having nothing to do with idolatry or pagan ceremony:
There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable [an abomination or toevah] to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
Idolatry plays no part in these scriptures; clearly, then, toevah is not limited to idolatrous practices.
Response #3:
If the practices in Leviticus 18 and 20 are condemned only because of their association with idolatry, then it logically follows they would be permissible if they were committed apart from idolatry. That would mean incest, adultery, bestiality and child sacrifice (all of which are listed in these chapters) are only condemned when associated with idolatry; otherwise, they are allowable. No serious reader of these passages could accept such a premise.
From http://www.narth.com/docs/dallas.html
or
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/adf_resources/default.aspx?mid=750&cid=3212
Sebastian, I have to ask honestly, do you even pay attention long enough to know who you’re arguing with anymore? Because when you respond to my very first post in a thread with, “Which brings me back to my original point. Your problem isn’t with the current pope, your problem is with the ideas that the Catholic Church wants to express,” I have to imagine you don’t. I didn’t express any opinion on popes current or former, or the Catholic Church; other people did. I noted that the new pope tried directly to affect US election results. That’s it. Take up your other point, such as it is, with the people who are affected by it.
PHIL
The current Pope never tried to “influence an election”
What he did was clairify that Catholic politicians who openly support abortion CAN be denied communion IF their (A) Bishop were they are recieving it thinks its prudent
(B) Has communicated the Church teachings to the Catholic politician – giving him a chance to repent, or seek forgivness..ect.
As an aside, I just want to note my full support for Mac’s sudden preference for — or, at least, indifference to — expedienct acquiescence over principled opposition. Or if I’m misreading, then I register my amusement that principled opposition is important when one is giving out rubbers and birth control pills, but not necessary when one is thinking about resisting the goddamned Nazis.
That you find this perplexing, or even remotely analogous is of little surprise.
An alternate take on the passage from Leviticus, from an Orthodox rabbi no less.
I assume he’s unusually liberal for an orthodox rabbi. Nevertheless I would trust his understanding of Hebrew & interpretation of the Torah over those of the Alliance Defense Fund and NARTH.
Its Orthodox or Reform Rabbis’
An orthodox rabbi can be more liberal in interpretation than a Reform raddi. (they both have liberal & conservative branches)
Its like Catholic & Protestant.
Fitz–(hope that gives you a better Idea of the attitude’s , not at all different than today!)
Yes, that is a modern interpretation of the passage which Jerome cites. What it is not is any sort of engagement with what Jerome is actually arguing. If you were to actually read Jerome, you would see that these biblical quotations are used entirely divorced from their original context–a practice not limited to Jerome, but common to most of the early Church fathers. In fact, you won’t see much quoting with context until the start of the scholastic movement (about 100 years before Lateran IV, interestingly enough).
What Jerome is saying (rather than what Paul was saying) is that marriage is to celibacy as being blind in one eye is to being fully sighted. Not exactly the most glowing endorsement of marriage.
A bit more involved than, ‘Paul said x-we believe that he meant ‘this’ by x – Jerome mentions x- therefore Jerome must have meant ‘this’ as well.
Nous
Jerome was a monk right, he seems to be arguing for the superiority of his chosen way of life. Just as Paul did. To this day a Catholic Priest will tell you that his vow of Chastity makes him a better Christian. (and I would agree)
But that’s not to say that he thinks sex is unlawful or wrong for married couples.
(how would we get babies to Babtize)
Here’s more on Orthodox Jewish Rabbi’s interpretations od Torah (and from a friendly source)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_jortho.htm
I’m glad to be a beacon of consistency for you, Mac.
Its like Catholic & Protestant.
Wait, you see the difference between Protestants and Catholics as a difference in the libearality with which they view the scriptures?
Which of the two is supposed to be liberal? Catholic religiosity is largely fiction, compared with some brands of Protestantism.
I think fitz was saying that there are liberal and conservatives within both Orthodox and Reformed Judaism, and the relationship between them is similar to that between Catholicism and Protestantism.
FItz–Jerome was a monk right, he seems to be arguing for the superiority of his chosen way of life.
Well, no, he was not part of any monastic order, so not a monk. That (monasticism) came much later. He was, however, typical of the ascetics of his time. He believed, as did most Christians up to Augustine, that there was no need to make any babies to be baptized because Jesus was coming back Any Minute Now. It was not until Augustine that theologians began thinking about a Christianity built for the long haul rather that for a world about to end.
“I think fitz was saying that there are liberal and conservatives within both Orthodox and Reformed Judaism, and the relationship between them is similar to that between Catholicism and Protestantism.”
Much as it pains me to say so, fitz is right about one thing. The branch of Judaism which is least literal about scripture is Reform, not Reformed.
Oops, pardon my ignorance. Actually it didn’t seem quite right when I typed it, but I didn’t bother to double-check.
Isn’t it actually Reconstructionist?
Reform Judaism is like Protestantism in the emphasis on the individual conscience & relationship with God.
But overall Judaism, in all its forms, is much, much, much more like Catholicism than Protestantism. And reform Judaism is becoming more concerned with the ritual mitzvot as the years pass.
Here is the list of 613 commandments by the way.
They are all over the place in every way imaginable.
I don’t know how the Orthodox deal with the more morally problematic ones, i.e. “to keep the Canaanite slave forever”, the six death sentences, “that the violator (of an unbetrothed virgin) shall marry her” (not such a good deal for the virgin), “to slay the inhabitants of a city that has become idolatrous and burn that city”, “Not to keep alive any individual of the seven Canaanite nations”, “To exterminate the seven Canaanite nations from the land of Israel”, etc.
I guess the notable lack of Canaanites these days helps, but it seems like the open advocacy of slavery and genocide would seem to indicate that you don’t necessarily want to read and follow all of these literally.
Katherine: you do know that there are still Philistines, right? (One of my favorite ever discoveries.)
Computer woes, so this will be brief:
A cite of where I lambasted anyone with specious allegations?
Look upthread:
I could probably shag two or three more from other currently active threads but it’s not worth it; a cite was asked for, and a cite has been provided.
[BTW, I suppose you could attempt to claim that this wasn’t lambasting or the allegation wasn’t specious. But you would be wrong.]
You were making an objection to a thread of thought well in progress by the time you got to it. When I say “which brings me back to my original point” I am refering to my original point in the discussion. The fact that you were not the original adressee is not relevant to my original point. If you don’t think it is relevant, fine. But I bring it to your attention because it seemed as if you didn’t understand my point (which admittedly was far up the thread from what you quoted.)
Sebastian: I might argue that Kerry was the one who was turning Mass into a political statement, but frankly I don’t care.
How was Kerry “turning Mass into a political statement”?
Phil: As an aside, I just want to note my full support for Mac’s sudden preference for — or, at least, indifference to — expedienct acquiescence over principled opposition. Or if I’m misreading, then I register my amusement that principled opposition is important when one is giving out rubbers and birth control pills, but not necessary when one is thinking about resisting the goddamned Nazis.
Macallan’s support for pharmacists who prefer forcing their religious beliefs on others to doing their jobs really is not in conflict with his support for Ratzinger joining the Nazis and guarding slaves from Dachau working at BMW: he is supporting the idea that people should be forced, against their will, to follow principles that others have determined for them.
That was way out of line, Jesurgislac. I think a retraction is in order. I know making up positions for others and then giving them a hard smack is irresistable to you, but this crosses the line.
How else are godless liberals to act?
Jesurgislac, you are temporarily banned. The Nazi comment to Macallan is way out of line. Please see the posting rules.
[BTW, I suppose you could attempt to claim that this wasn’t lambasting or the allegation wasn’t specious. But you would be wrong.]
I doubt it. Look at his response; he continued to argue why he felt it was important to appeal to those who will mischaracterize the pope as a Nazi.
Look, I understand it is embarrassing to be caught in obvious factual errors, particularly slanderous ones, but that’s no excuse to turn it into an attack on the person who points it out.
Fer crying out loud. Even Ratzinger acknowledges he was a Nazi. A junor Nazi. That’s what being a Hitler Youth is. Unwilling, maybe, but he was on the list. Obviously, not all Nazis were as bad as others. Ditto Baathists or whatever. Lots of regular folks are forced or coerced into positions they would not volunteer for. Good for him for getting out when he did. Much better if he had found a way to get out earlier, or never join in the first place. But that’s between him, his confessor, and God.
To quote Ursula, the sea witch “Life is full of tough choices, baby.”
What’s potentially scary about Ratzinger is that he, of all people, who saw first hand what blind faith and orthodoxy (to the Fuhrer) could be used for, does not encourage the free debate of theology within the church. Or maybe that was just him being Inquisitor, and as Pope we’ll see his more open side.
To quote Ursula, the sea witch “Life is full of tough choices, baby.”
Baby is perhaps more an apropos term here than you meant it.
The Nazis came to power in 1933 IIRC, which would make Ratzinger 6 years old. Please tell me at exactly what point a small boy is supposed to make that tough choice? Should he have stormed the barricades at 6? How ’bout 7? Is he ready to stand up and get shot like a man at 8? At exactly what age is someone supposed to, as a matter of conscience, be dragged off to prison or get shot by the dictatorial regime that has dominated the only life he’s ever known? At what age is he demanded to risk not only his life, but also his parent’s and his brother’s?
I look forward to all you armchair freedom fighters educating me on this matter.
FWIW, I think that as much as it horrifies many people (and those on the other side really need to acknowledge the validity of that) to think that the Pope was once, for whatever reason, a Nazi, he was a boy at the time.
We make a distinction between the actions of children and adults for very good reasons, including autonomy, maturity, and realistic alternatives. I know I’d not want the mistakes of my youth to haunt me forever.
There are plenty of issues on which to criticize Ratzinger without suggesting that remnants of the evil of Nazi Germany will guide his actions as Pope, which at this point is the only real reason to object to his involvement as a child.
Holy crap, now Macallan subscribes to the chickenhawk meme. (“armchair freedom fighters”) Did I wake up on Mars? That’s a critique that I know for a fact you, as a supporter of the Iraq war, would never accept, but you suddenly feel comfortable jumping on a high horse busting it out against people talking about resisting the Nazis? Holy effing crap.
Sorry, but I had too many relatives die in Nazi gas chambers and slave labor camps to be terribly forgiving towards so-called “good Germans” during the war years. I would certainly expect a 15- or 16-year-old budding seminarian(!!!!!) to understand the difference between right and wrong, and to not place a high value on going along to get along. And I would definitely, definitely expect a person of any serious moral sensibility whatsoever to not devalue and shit on the memories of brave resistance fighters across Europe by telling people that resistance was futile.
I also seem to recall some figure central to Catholic theology making remarks about there being no greater love than a man laying down his life for another, and other such folderol.
I think you’re being a little harsh on votermom here, Mac.
Her main point seems to be that Ratzinger saw, up close, the possible consequences of rigid and unquestioning adherence to ideology, and she is dismayed that this seems not to have influenced his thinking.
Seems sensible to me.
On the other hand, this is the Catholic Church we’re talking about. Since when has open theological debate been invited in that camp? You know, questions like “Just where did this purgatory idea come from, anyway?” or “You know, I just read the Bible for the 23rd time and I STILL can’t find a reference to a Pope, never mind papal infallibility”.
I look forward to all you armchair freedom fighters educating me on this matter.
Coming from a charter member of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, this is not only blatantly disingenuous, but simultaneously the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
There are plenty of issues on which to criticize Ratzinger without suggesting that remnants of the evil of Nazi Germany will guide his actions as Pope, which at this point is the only real reason to object to his involvement as a child.
I’m more or less on board with that, Edward. But aside from my pragmatic objections to the wisdom of poping Ratzinger, what bothers me about his youth as a Nazi is that his attitudes as pope seem very informed by this juvenile past of which we’re supposed to absolve him. Even as Catholic leaders go, he’s unusually authoritarian and intolerant towards difference and dissent. Is this from his religious beliefs, a product of the environment in which he grew up, or a result of the areas of overlap between the two? We don’t know, and certainly don’t know enough to go calling him a Nazi, but we /can/ look at his track record, his public statements, and say reasonably that he doesn’t seem to have learned from the horrors of his youth.
Her main point seems to be that Ratzinger saw, up close, the possible consequences of rigid and unquestioning adherence to ideology, and she is dismayed that this seems not to have influenced his thinking.
No offense (really), but are you kidding me? I’m not Catholic, but I would assume that the only people ever considered for pope had “rigid and unquestioning adherence” to what they deem a universal truth. It’s sort of the GED minimum qualification I imagine. If you’re not rigid and unquestioning of Catholicism, I doubt you’re a cardinal let alone a candidate for pope.
Now, if you or she means, that living up close under a murderous fascist tyranny would influence his thinking, he’s apparently stated many times that it does influence his thinking.
Jeanne d’Arc at Body & Soul made an interesting comparison: there are plenty of 14 year olds Ratzinger is perfectly willing to say must risk their lives to avoid complicity in evil & mortal sin. And “the fetus will certainly die anyway” is not considered any sort of excuse.
yikes…Jeanne D’Arc hits one out of the park
I think that what’s disturbing is not that Benedict XVI learned to like totalitarianism, but that he didn’t learn to distrust it. I know he thinks he learned, but I think his actions say otherwise. Contrast him & Haring.
I’ll make one comparison to Mac & the Catholic Church: his tolerance and compassion & demand for understanding of the hard choices that other human beings must make, depends almost entirely on whether he sees them as similar to him or not. If you’re in the club any excuse will do. If you’re not, no excuse will do.
I’ll make one comparison to Mac & the Catholic Church: his tolerance and compassion & demand for understanding of the hard choices that other human beings must make, depends almost entirely on whether he sees them as similar to him or not. If you’re in the club any excuse will do. If you’re not, no excuse will do.
Excuse me? Project much?
Since when has open theological debate been invited in that camp?
*grin* You’re so right, Slarti. Still, one would think, specially after JPII actually apologized about the whole Galileo thingie, that they’d be a tad more — I don’t know — laid back or something. Oh well.
I’m still hoping that the person that is Pope Benedict XVI is slightly different from Cardinal Ratzinger. Less focus on the ideological purging and more on the ethical/moral purging would be a good start.
To be an utter dweeb, now you’ve calibrated the settling time between commission and admission of error: nearly four centuries.
If you’re not rigid and unquestioning of Catholicism, I doubt you’re a cardinal let alone a candidate for pope.
Recent counter examples: John XXIII, John Paul I.
And technically you don’t have to be a Cardinal, or even a priest, or even a Catholic, to be elected Pope. You just have to be a man. Whoever the Holy Spirit tells them to pick.
Now, if you or she means, that living up close under a murderous fascist tyranny would influence his thinking, he’s apparently stated many times that it does influence his thinking.
I think it influences him is ways he does not really see, you know.
I think it influences him is ways he does not really see, you know.
Fair point, though I imagine that is true of all us.
Shah. As if.
And I say that with all due respect, etc to the religious beliefs of Catholics (which is something I share with Katherine: I was born a Catholic, and no longer am one), but the probability of someone outside the priesthood being elected pope is pretty remote.
There hasn’t been a non-cardinal elected pope for over six hundred years, I think.
That’s just 2 hundred years more than the Galileo thingie. Practically last week, in Vatican years. ;P
Slartibartfast and Katherine,
You are both, still Roman Catholic. Bad Roman Catholics, but you are still considered members until you ask to be struck of those baptism roles.
I wish the federal government would audit ALL churches roles and then we can see how mnany folks are members of multiple churches.
It’s a tax thang.
I’ll make one comparison to Mac & the Catholic Church: his tolerance and compassion & demand for understanding of the hard choices that other human beings must make, depends almost entirely on whether he sees them as similar to him or not. If you’re in the club any excuse will do. If you’re not, no excuse will do.
BTW, just so I’m clear Katherine I find that statement incredibly offensive and expect an apology.
BTW, just so I’m clear Katherine I find that statement incredibly offensive and expect an apology.
I’d say it’s pretty solidly supported by the body of evidence that is your accumulated written words. Of particular note is the embarassing contrast between things I’ve seen you write about the responsibility of Iraqis to rise against Saddam or Muslims to combat extremists in their community, and the litany of excuses you’ve offered for why Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler youth.
Catsy, please let Mac and Katherine work this out. They’ve known each other for quite some time, in blog years, anyway.
Look, I understand it is embarrassing to be caught in obvious factual errors, particularly slanderous ones, but that’s no excuse to turn it into an attack on the person who points it out.
And yet you continue to do so. Funny, that.
I’m still hoping that the person that is Pope Benedict XVI is slightly different from Cardinal Ratzinger.
Don’t hope, expect. IMHO, he had a role to play with JPII. I’d bet that he’s looking forward to playing some of JPII’s role and getting someone else to do his old job. I’d be interested to see just how liberal that fella is and if the role changes him or he changes the role…
Having finally been able to attend to matters of fact, I need to modify my construction above: Ratzinger was not “a guard” at a prison plant where slaves from Dachau were working; he was, as Jes correctly noted, “enrolled in a military unit protecting a BMW plant where slaves from Dachau worked.” [Ratzinger’s knowledge of the factory workers is unknown AFAIK; I’ve read too many conflicting sources of late to feel confident one way or the other.] I had thought I had read somewhere that military units were frequently conscripted into prison guard duty — Ordinary Men has a chapter on one such assignment, for example — but this does not appear to apply here.
Catsy,
When you need to make things up to make your point, chances are you don’t have one.
And just to back up what I said in my post above, here is Macallan from a Tacitus comment:
Like most fools who attempt the chickenhawk canard they ignore that this formulation equally excludes them from making any comment on matters of war.
I’ll wait eagerly for Macallan’s explanation of how his own glorious freedom-fighting past entitles him to exercise this chickenhawk variant on others, or alternately on how his formulation above does not also preclude him from having an opinion on the matter of Ratzinger’s decisions during the war.
No offense (really), but are you kidding me? I’m not Catholic, but I would assume that the only people ever considered for pope had “rigid and unquestioning adherence” to what they deem a universal truth. It’s sort of the GED minimum qualification I imagine. If you’re not rigid and unquestioning of Catholicism, I doubt you’re a cardinal let alone a candidate for pope.
No, I’m not kidding. My understanding of Catholicism is limited, so I welcome (well, not really welcome, but accept) correction. But as I understand it there are certain beliefs that are the core, the foundation of what it means to be a Roman Catholic. There are others that, while promulgated by the Vatican, and most members of the hierarchy, are not quite so essential to the faith, and the degree of their importance varies quite a bit. There further seem to be matters on which theologians actually dispute Catholic orthodoxy. So my point is not that Benedict ought to be encouraging debates about the Resurrection, but that on other matters, where there is some room for differences of opinion, he ought to be more open to dissenting views, and to be willing to reconsider the wisdom of church doctrine.
Sorry for the vagueness, but I’m not sure where these lines are, though I feel confident they exist.
After all, as votermom points out, one of the most celebrated Popes of our time, John XXIII, was plainly unafraid of change, of rethinking orthodoxy.
I’ll wait eagerly for Macallan’s explanation of how his own glorious freedom-fighting past entitles him to exercise this chickenhawk variant on others, or alternately on how his formulation above does not also preclude him from having an opinion on the matter of Ratzinger’s decisions during the war.
Reading is fundamental. Opposite to your silly chickenhawk squack, I didn’t say any of you Armchair Freedom Fighters couldn’t comment or advocate a position. Quite the contrary, I specifically asked you to comment and advocate a position.
Sorry for the vagueness, but I’m not sure where these lines are, though I feel confident they exist.
No need to apologize, I’m no theologian, let alone a Catholic one, so I’m sure your correct at some level.
After all, as votermom points out, one of the most celebrated Popes of our time, John XXIII, was plainly unafraid of change, of rethinking orthodoxy.
Which is ironic, given that I’ve been led to believe that he was elected as a caretaker pope and surprised the heck of the College of Cardinals.
Well, no, what you did was use a rhetorical flourish — a variant of the “chickenhawk”/”101st Fighting Keyboarders” slur — to insinuate that people were out of line for discussing what Ratzinger should and shouldn’t have done if they had never been in his shoes. You can delude yourself into thinking that your words don’t have implications if you’d like, but the context was pretty clear. I’d better not even hear you so much as squeak the next time somebody refers to armchair warrior bloggers. (A formulation that I have spoken out against when used against pro-war bloggers, just as I am opposing your use of it here, in case you were thinking of accusing me of inconsistency.)
“Armchair freedom fighters.” Jesus.
(Me, I like to think I would have resisted the Nazis, but since my father was Jewish, I would have most likely been dead or sent to a camp before I ever had the chance.)
You can delude yourself into thinking that your words don’t have implications if you’d like, but the context was pretty clear. I’d better not even hear you so much as squeak the next time somebody refers to armchair warrior bloggers.
Actually the delusion might be your own… or perhaps it’s mine, let’s see. Phil why don’t you step down from Attack Mac mode for a second and see if you can see where you’re straining for an analogy that simply doesn’t fit. The Chickenhawk formulation isn’t analogous because we aren’t talking about debating a policy; people are criticizing someone’s specific actions. For the Chickenhawk squawk to be analogous, it would have to be used in situations where someone who hadn’t served was critical of a specific soldier’s action. I’ve never actually heard it used in that context, it’s only been used in the ‘you’ve never served so you can’t advocate sending young men to die’ context.
I don’t know about you, but I think in a scenario of someone being critical of a soldier’s actions there is some validity in a Chickenhawk like question, particularly if the complaint was that the soldier failed to perform bravely or above the call. I think it would be fair and reasonable for someone to say something like, ‘Do you know what it’s like to be in combat with live bullets and mortars being fired at you? Why do you think you’re qualified to judge what a soldier should and shouldn’t do in that situation?’
Do you think a question like that is reasonable?
If people were limited to discussing only the rightness or wrongness, appropriateness or inappropriateness, morality or immorality, of activities to which they themselves had once been participants in, then nobody could ever discuss much of anything. (And hilzoy would be out of a job.)
So, no, I don’t think it is a particularly reasonable question; it’s intent appears, generally, to be a bludgeon used to prevent people from applying their own moral judgement to a situation the bludgeoner approves of.
When you need to make things up to make your point, chances are you don’t have one.
Then it’s nice to know you’ll be there to point it out when an occasion arises where I actually have. That not being the case, however, I stand by my statement.
If people were limited to discussing only the rightness or wrongness, appropriateness or inappropriateness, morality or immorality, of activities to which they themselves had once been participants in, then nobody could ever discuss much of anything.
Again, nobody has been limited or “bludgeoned” into not discussing or offering their views. Quite the contrary, I want to know from everyone who is condemning the young Ratzinger’s actions a specific gauge of what age we should hold a Nazi era German accountable to his or her standard of moral conduct.
More to the point, Mac, ask yourself this: Would you have considered even for a single second referring to someone who unequivocally approved of Ratzinger’s war-era decisionmaking as an “armchair freedom fighter?” If not, then you’ve essentially answered your question, and made my point about bludgeons and rhetorical flourishes, all on your own.
I’m sure that makes sense to you Phil, but it doesn’t make any to me.
Quite the contrary, I want to know from everyone who is condemning the young Ratzinger’s actions a specific gauge of what age we should hold a Nazi era German accountable to his or her standard of moral conduct.
But you don’t want the same information from someone who approves of young Ratzinger’s actions, which, again, I believe proves my point. You only request this alleged clarification from, and belittle as “armchair freedom fighters,” people who think he did the wrong thing. Why aren’t people who sit here 70 years down the road and yet approve of his actions as much “armchair freedom fighters” as those who condemn him? They weren’t there either, after all.
(Hit “Post” too quickly.) I mean, on what basis are you able to make excuses for his actions, or rationalize them? You weren’t there, you don’t know what it was like.
I mean, on what basis are you able to make excuses for his actions, or rationalize them?
Perhaps because I’m not? All I have been attempting to do is thwart spurious charges that so far no facts brought forth support. I’m not Catholic, don’t particularly support him or even know enough to have a considered opinion on his suitability as a pope or human being. I do know that, based on what has been reported, it is unfair to label him a Nazi or to make blanket assertions about what he should have done. Pretty simple really.
Mac
You know, I wish someone who you might consider to be more on your side would have made this observation, but since no one has…
You seem to be engaged in this (especially noting your comment about not being a Catholic and not being particularly supportive of the new pope) primarily as an exercise in chain-pulling. I would suggest that this is the same dynamic that occurred in the pharmacist thread. I don’t want to accuse you of arguing for a position that you don’t really hold (that would be calling you a liar), but if you think there is some clear age before which people are not held accountable for their actions, why don’t you argue the fact? If you don’t think that there is a bright line, then you are acknowledging that the distinction is not as clear as your arguments claim it is.
Considered members by the Catholic Church. The Lutheran church I am a currently a member of doesn’t consider me a Catholic, I assure you. Nor do I. So of the three parties, only the one in whose opinion I’m not interested in the least thinks I’m a Catholic. I can live with that.
It does neatly explain the “billion Catholics” meme rather well, though: if anyone and everyone ever baptised by a Catholic priest is a Catholic, well, it makes the numbers better, doesn’t it?
Considered members by the Catholic Church. The Lutheran church I am a currently a member of doesn’t consider me a Catholic, I assure you. Nor do I. So of the three parties, only the one in whose opinion I’m not interested in the least thinks I’m a Catholic. I can live with that.
This dovetails nicely with the question of religious imperatives operating on — and that pun is most definitely intended — Terri Schiavo.
if anyone and everyone ever baptised by a Catholic priest is a Catholic,
Well, according to Monty Python, you’re a Catholic the moment Dad came…
You seem to be engaged in this (especially noting your comment about not being a Catholic and not being particularly supportive of the new pope) primarily as an exercise in chain-pulling.
Defending someone from unfairly being called a Nazi is an exercise in chain-pulling?
I would suggest that this is the same dynamic that occurred in the pharmacist thread.
Arguing the importance of the 1st amendment is an exercise in chain-pulling?
Armchair freedom fighters:
this, again? Mac, perhaps prof. hilzoy can educate us on the ethical duty to resist evil.
The point, at least for this athiest, is simply this: Couldn’t the Church have picked someone who showed a little more fortitude in the face of evil? Isn’t self-sacrifice in the face of evil PRECISELY the core message of Christianity? If the Church is trying to persuade me that it’s truly lost its way, it could hardly have picked a more perfect symbol that the elevation of Ratzinger, someone who failed that test.
On AFFs generally: the point of the slur is Not that those who haven’t fought can’t comment. The point of the slur is that combat is so uniquely awful that those who have actively avoided it, or refuse to volunteer, should have less credibility than veterans when calling for war.
It’s frequently referred to as cowardice, though I think that’s not quite right, especially given an all-volunteer army.
For me, it’s more a breach of the social contract. Those who call out for fellow Americans to bear a heavy burden should, as citizens, be willing to bear that burden themselves. Even if Jonah G. can’t be taught to fire a weapon, I bet he could learn to drive a truck.
Put simply, there something ugly about saying: “Let’s you and him fight.”
Given that this whole argument pivots on should, I’m unconvinced. Don’t should me, man.
You seem to be engaged in this (especially noting your comment about not being a Catholic and not being particularly supportive of the new pope) primarily as an exercise in chain-pulling.
Defending someone from unfairly being called a Nazi is an exercise in chain-pulling?
Sorry, let me rephrase
You seem to continue to engage in this… For proof, I would submit the number of comments and the fact that a cursory count shows about 10% are yours. (but my math is rotten, so I may be wrong) I suspect similar numbers would be gleaned from the pharmacist thread. I say this as someone who doesn’t particularly feel comfortable with the judging of a person retrospectively or the name calling involved.
Given that this whole argument pivots on should, I’m unconvinced. Don’t should me, man.
*shoulds you*
Slarti: i dunno, seems to me you deserve a cold shoulder. [aaahhh, that felt goooood.]
IANAE [i am not an ethicist], but aren’t all moral arguments based on “should”? Is the best argument (returning to an old Volokh post) against torturing someone to death a moral one (we shouldn’t do that) or a consequential one (we’ll turn into a society of sociopaths)? any competent ethicist want to join in?
mac, your unresolved problems re pharmacy, to me, were your refusal to recognize the establishment clause problem, and your refusal to recognize that any functioning society must be able to require that people comply with laws of general applicability even if compliance violates their religious beliefs. (Church of 1% Taxation, anyone?)
You seem to continue to engage in this…
You mean I continue to respond to arguments? This is bad… how?
mac, your unresolved problems re pharmacy, to me, were your refusal to recognize the establishment clause problem, and your refusal to recognize that any functioning society must be able to require that people comply with laws of general applicability even if compliance violates their religious beliefs.
I believe the key phrase there is “to me”. Selective reading of the First Amendment and over-emphasis on one clause at the expense of others doesn’t strike me as a good foundation for constitutional interpretation. Try applying the “laws of general applicability” on free speech and wait for the screams of outrage.
hilzoy’s probably better equipped than I, but I’ll take a swipe at it.
The chickenhawk argument has always been passed off (or foisted off) as a logical argument. If you’re presenting it as a moral argument, you’d do well to cough up some background on why your moral stance is “better” than the one you’re arguing against. I’m not really sure what you mean by “moral argument”, but whatever it is you mean by that, I don’t think you or anyone else I’ve encountered has presented a compelling basis for having this set of values.
Oh, and to be clear: I’m not claiming that hilzoy will agree with me.
you can’t shout Fire in a crowded theater. Inciting to riot is against the law. Content-neutral time, place and manner restrictions on speech have always been constitutional. Fighting words, oddly enough, do not receive Free Speech protections. Every state in the union has laws against defamation. Noise ordinances are constitutional. So yes, there are any number of laws of general applicability which restrict speech, including laws which directly restrict the content of speech. And oddly enough, i don’t hear any screams of outrage. (and no, they haven’t been muted by the powers of the state.)
I’m absolutely serious about the Church of 1% Taxation hypo.
You know F/BRGoRD, about a second after hitting post I knew you or someone respond like that. 🙂 My bad, I should have been more clear and said ‘try and apply it a like circumstance’.
You mean I continue to respond to arguments? This is bad… how?
Look Mac
If you can’t understand that it comes across as extremely disingenuous when someone who says they are
not [] a Catholic and not [] particularly supportive of the new pope
spends so much time and energy on this, then I can’t really explain it to you.
I think there are some very interesting issues, and Ratzinger/Benedict’s history makes us wonder. I mean, he was a friend and supporter of Hans Küng (I believe that Küng was instrumental in his receiving an academic position, yet Ratzinger’s criticism played a role in stripping Küng of his right to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian in 1979.) How does he look at the past? What does he think about the choices he made? But thoughtful speculation is not going to emerge from the wreck of this thread.
Everyone else, verbum sap.
If you can’t understand that it comes across as extremely disingenuous when someone who says they are
not [] a Catholic and not [] particularly supportive of the new pope
spends so much time and energy on this, then I can’t really explain it to you.
Curious. Curious indeed.
The fact that I spend time and energy defending someone who I have no partisan interest in… this makes me a bad person? Makes me dishonest? What? How is this disingenuous? How am I not being straightforward or candid?
I hadn’t been reading this thread, since I just thought: well, I wouldn’t have picked Ratzinger as Pope, but no one asked me, nor can I think of any reason why they should have. But I just decided to, for no reason. Almost as though I had been summoned…
First, about the general topic: I think it’s pretty clear that the best possible thing to do, if one is a teenager in Nazi Germany, is to find some way to resist. Ratzinger did not do this; ergo he did not do the ideal thing. It’s also clear that that would have been hard, but not impossible; and that it would have taken real courage. What’s much less clear is: to what extent do you hold people accountable for what they do as teenagers, under the Nazis, a long time ago? And also: exactly how hard would it have been, given not just the danger, but also the fact that he would not have had much experience of a non-Nazi Germany, and thus might have had a hard time making the leap of imagination required? And: what was the attitude of the Catholics he knew and studied with towards the Nazis, to what extent was he influenced by their example (given Catholic views on obedience), and how did that inflect things for him?
If I were, say, God, who knows the human heart, and had an interest in assessing the state of Ratzinger’s soul, I’d be a lot more interested in what he has made of this episode since then. Has he repented, sincerely, asked himself what this revealed about him, and tried to develop whatever courage he lacked at the time? He may well have done this, and if so, I would think that that matters a lot. Has he tried to deny or minimize it? Ditto. But not being God, I have no idea about this, so no real view about what this says about him after all this time.
Slarti: I’m not sure what contrast you intend when you contrast moral and logical arguments. (If x is an act of murder, then x is wrong; x is an act of murder; therefore x is wrong. Both moral and logical, no?) And yes, moral arguments are often about what we should do/ought to do/what it would be right or wrong to do; but some can be convincing nonetheless. At least, I hope so.
But about chickenhawks: I don’t think that people who have never fought have no right to speak in favor of a war, or even that people who avoided fighting have no such right. If I were of draft age and there was a draft, and (let’s suppose) we decided to try to conquer Canada absent some very, very good reason, I think I would decline to serve and (I hope) go to jail; but I can’t see why I would, for that reason, forfeit my right to support some future war.
Actually, I don’t think anyone ever exactly forfeits their right to say anything. But I think one can question the consistency of people who support sending others to fight and die, but who were themselves unwilling to fight in their time, when that unwillingness is not based on principled opposition to the war, but rather on something like the thought: well, someone has to fight, but I don’t want it to be me. (Where this ‘I don’t want’ isn’t the perfectly understandable desire that your draft number not come up, but translates itself into e.g. trying to get a deferment you’re not really entitled to.)
Then I think it’s fair to ask: is this person willing for other people to risk their lives, but not to do so him/herself? If so, why? Does this person think there’s some principled difference between himself and other people (there might be one; s/he might be in a position to make some vital contribution to the war effort outside combat but not in it), or not? And if not, isn’t this person advocating war only on the assumption that the sacrifices it entails will be borne by other people? Is it like saying ‘let’s you and him fight’, or (as Henry Kissinger once said) “we will fight to the last Kurd”? That, I think, is an ugly attitude; and it also calls into question whether the person making the argument really accepts the idea that the war is important enough to require that people who matter risk their lives, or whether the underlying assumption is something more like: well, I matter, but I won’t be risking my life, and those who will matter a lot less.
But it might be that the deferment seeker of a few decades ago has thought a lot about what he did (it’s ‘he’ now, given who would have been seeking deferments back then), and concluded he was wrong, and really tried to become a better person. If so, and if he has succeeded, then it might well be that if he were to find himself (s he now is) back in the situation in which he previously left the dying to others, he would act differently. In this case, I think there’s nothing to criticize.
if one is a teenager in Nazi Germany, is to find some way to resist. Ratzinger did not do this; ergo he did not do the ideal thing.
What do you base this on? From my understanding of his past, he was compelled to enter the Hilter Youth, but was able to get out by pursuing the seminary. Seems he found a way to resist. Later he was drafted into a military role and deserted at the risk of being shot on site (or is it sight?) by the SS. Again it seems he found a way to resist.
ya know, i come up with teh best pun i’ve had in months (cold shoulder), and get no response. damn.
prof h, thanks for the insight.
mac, i’m afraid i don’t understand your last. (and worse, i’ve become predictable!) except for slavery, i can’t think of a single right in the BoR which is absolute.
i can’t think of a single right in the BoR which is absolute.
Except the right to buy prescriptions when and where you want them!
[snare drum]
Thank you! I’m here all week, try the veal!
More seriously, we should stop rehashing an old thread here. Cheers.
From my understanding of his past, he was compelled to enter the Hilter Youth, but was able to get out by pursuing the seminary. Seems he found a way to resist.
That’s not resistance, that’s avoidance. Which is not reprehensible but not, I would think, exceptionally admirable.
Later he was drafted into a military role and deserted at the risk of being shot on site (or is it sight?) by the SS.
Assuming the timeline in the Wikipedia entry here is accurate:
He deserted his post in the last few weeks of the war, after having served for two years, when the collapse of Nazi Germany was imminent and when death from Allied forces was considered (rightly or wrongly) an equal threat to being shot by the SS for desertion. Again, I don’t really see anything admirable in this act.
Which is not reprehensible but not, I would think, exceptionally admirable.
I agree totally. I have in no way said he was a heroic figure in his youth. Defending someone from a fallacious slur doesn’t de facto mean that I would argue the individual is the polar opposite of the slur.
Thanks for that, hilzoy. I retain the hope that elevation of Cardinal Ratzinger to Pope will encourage everyone to examine their own history and see where they may have fallen down.
On CNN, they were interviewing a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim cleric (I think) asking about the new pope. They asked the Jewish rabbi about the nazi accusations and his reply was that he couldn’t imagine Pope JPII choosing someone who had problems with the Jewish faith to be such a close confidant. The Muslim cleric was also questioned about the new pope’s conservatism and his assertions that the truths in other religions were of a secondary nature to the truths embodied in Catholicism (this is from memory), and he had a lovely response which was that in Muslim culture, when a person receives a name change, they also infer that with this comes a change in outlook and attitude.
Some other interesting points are the new pope’s opposition to Turkey’s entry into the EU and whether his attitudes towards Islam will mirror the previous Pope’s (in this article it argues that the previous pope felt that the Catholic church had an ally against the encroachment of modernism in Islam, with much being made of Islam’s reverence of the Virgin Mary, and the new pope is just the tonic needed. I don’t have a particularly strong opinion on it, primarily because I don’t know if we should view these policy decisions as a sort of ‘business’ decision so as to strengthen the Church or not) As the Chinese curse goes, may you live in interesting times.
Mac: I really haven’t followed this closely, which is one reason I hadn’t particularly commented. All I really meant to say was: the absolute best, completely and totally great thing to do would have been to join the resistance, or in some way to actively work to thwart the Nazi state. I wasn’t aware that R. had done this, but if he did, my apologies. Then I wanted to say: jeez, but who among us does the absolutely best ever thing? All the time? Etc., etc. It wasn’t meant to be any more of a criticism than: his moral record, like that of (almost) every other human being (the almost because I don’t want to argue the divinity of Jesus right now) is to some, perhaps infinitesimal, degree imperfect, which just sets up the next question: how imperfect?, which I wanted to decline on the grounds that while I don’t want to debate Jesus’ divinity, I am completely confident that I am not God.
Whew! Done.
“I am completely confident that I am not God.”
Dang, and I had my Gospel all drafted.
I am completely confident that I am not God
Being inclined to zen koans, I have to say that this is probably something that God might say.
LJ: Aha, you see through my clever self-deprecation…
Back when I was a teenager, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to prove that anything other than one’s own consciousness existed (and, specifically, that the material world did.) (This was the first move in an argument for the claim that any tenable world view required a leap of faith of some kind. I was Christian at the time.) Anyways, there were, I knew, all sorts of philosophical arguments for the existence of the external world/something other than me, but the one that really resonated, and made it impossible for me ever to take solipsism seriously, even for an instant, and even just as an intellectual possibility, was the thought that if solipsism were true, then I must have imagined not just the entire world in all its strange beauty, but all the people I knew, as well as all the literature I had read and all the art I had seen, and if anything in the world was clear to me, it was that the me I know could not possibly have come within ligh-years of writing even one of the really wonderful poems or novels I had read, let alone all of them.
What about the you you didn’t know?
Ah. I was not clear that that would count as ‘me’ in any serious sense.
(There’s a reason I ended up in philosophy…)
My favorite take on solipsism was in the Terry Johnson’s play Insignificance, which puts Einstein, Joe McCarthy, Marilyn Monroe, and Joe Dimaggio together. One of DiMaggio’s tics is to grip an imaginary bat when he’s stressed, which occurs quite often when his new wife takes a shine to Einstein. Joe McCarthy (who is pursuing Einstein and threatening him for his communist past) proudly proclaims that he is a solipsist. Dimaggio and McCarthy end up on opposite sides of a shut door with McCarthy trying to get in and Dimaggio says ‘if you are a solipsist, what am I doing right now and I’ll let you in’, to which McCarthy, completely at a loss, says ‘gripping an imaginary baseball bat’. To which McCarthy struts into the room like a peacock.
prof, I hate to break this to you, but we are all just figments of your imagination, and thou art god (hat tip, RAH).
Don’t be silly. You are all figments of my imagination. Hmm, apparently I have some self-loathing issues. 😉
I apologize for my Sebastian-self getting uppity like that.
Mac, [ I mean, on what basis are you able to make excuses for his actions, or rationalize them? ]
Perhaps because I’m not? All I have been attempting to do is thwart spurious charges that so far no facts brought forth support.
Wait a second. All of your statements and questions in this thread sure look to me not to have been made or asked to genuinely elicit anyone’s opinions — in fact, those who have offered opinions have been derided as “armchair freedom fighters” — but to strongly suggest that either Ratzinger was too young at all points during the Nazi period to have made a capable decision about resisting (which is patently false), and/or that he was so bound by circumstance that he couldn’t possibly have resisted meaningfully (also patently false).
Far from simply “thwart[ing] spurious charges,” your entire line of response and questioning — unless you are pathologically capable of disingenuity — boils down to, “Well, what was he supposed to do? He was young, and resistance was dangerous.” And yet, when people say, “Well, here’s what he could have done,” they get derision from you.
I don’t believe Ratzinger was a Nazi, certainly not as we would think of Hitler or Goebbels or even John Demjanjuk as a Nazi. I do think that he appears not to have had much desire to meaningfully resist, and that he learned little from the experience. I further think that telling people that resistance would have been futile is an entirely dishonorable thing to have done and stains the memories of brave resistance fighters all over Europe.
Eric Muller has a thoughtful series of posts up about this, including one in which he talks about ways that young men who wanted to resist did resist, and in ways which, if they did nothing to hasten Hitler’s defeat, accomplished more than “biding one’s time and running for the Americans at the first chance.” And this one, which suggests that the man who now claims the very mantle of God to act as moral leader for all baptized Christians has spent more than a little time trying to polish a turd.
Look, I will at least admit I have a blind spot: I had relatives murdered in the Holocaust, so I am, again, unsympathetic to a lot of attempt by Germans to varnish their histories. If Germany had been as full of “good Germans” and “unwilling conscripts” as we’re led to believe, they could have simply turned their energies and their guns against the SS and the Nazi leadership and freed themselves of that yoke.
Meanwhile, Ross Mackenzie is a complete moron:
And so Benedict XVI may prove to be for the Catholic church – and broadly for Christianity itself – not God’s rottweiler, as the meanest of his critics would have him, but God’s good German shepherd.
One wonders if he has any comprehension of what the term “good German” means.
I too am unsure, but it wasn’t my contrast to begin with. If moral and logical arguments are functionally the same, then “moral” is a superfluous adjective, at least in Francis’ comment that I responded to.
Yes, yes, of course. But if I assert something I hold to be true without in any way justifying it, I’m going to have any expectation that others will immediately recognize its shining, untarnished truth get brutally dashed in short order.
I want to thank you, though, for…can’t think of one word, so I’m going to have to put it a number of different ways…organizing and very succinctly addressing the various arguments, statements, etc presented in this thread. Sort of a philosophical maid-service, if that’s not too insulting: one who comes in, tidies up, and leaves the place much more intellectually tidy than a few minutes before.
Ok, next. I’m always afraid I’ve crossed the line between acknowledgement and fawning; which I hope explains some of the awkwardness.
The number of sutures I required as a child snuffed out that question before it really had time to develop. Plus, if I really was making it all up, I would have made up a whole lot more broken things being fixed before Dad came home. I remember one time I had the bright idea that when I’d annoyed my oldest brother (only 3 years older, but when you’re 10 that makes for a big difference in size) I could shut the bedroom door and brace a mop handle between the doorknob and the ceiling. I was utterly certain that would do the trick. Plus, my dreams of being an interstellar voyager and scientist never materialized, although for a while I could laughingly call myself a rocket scientist and not be telling a complete whopper. In fact, my entire life is so much an accident that the idea that I’m a figment of someone else’s imagination is much more plausible.
Oh yeah. Yours. Well, scratch all of the above.
Didn’t a bunch of commie existentialist teenagers resist the NAZI’s in France?
I remember one time I had the bright idea that when I’d annoyed my oldest brother (only 3 years older, but when you’re 10 that makes for a big difference in size)
Nothing like older siblings to put paid to the notion of being a solipsist.
He wasn’t a Nazi, but the real reason to oppose the new pope has been overlooked. He loves cats. Infallible my eye.
[ducking]
Wow. He looks a lot like his brother.
Wow. He looks a lot like his brother.
Well, sure. Didn’t you see The Boys From Brazil?
[ducking and running for cover]
Didn’t you see The Boys From Brazil?
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been meaning to add that to my Netflix list. I’ve never seen it.
Slarti — in fact, we are all emanations of Moe. And thanks.
I think hilzoy hits the nail precisely on the “chickenhawk” issue. The point is not that anyone is not entitled to an opinion on war. It is a question of character.
From my point of view, having been of military age during the Vietnam war, it is that there were a great many people who supported the war who were unwilling to enlist. They were happy to force others – draftees – to bear all the risk and misery of fighting, but not to bear it themselves. This struck me then, and does now, as indefensible. But it was common. Today what I want to know about those who did this is whether they have reflected on their actions, recognize that they were problematical, and try to be more careful as a result.
I want the same from the Pope. His situation is not analogous, but it is clear that he acted in a less-than-ideal manner. Like Phil, whose family history is similar to mine, I do not think he was a Nazi in the sense of an SS member, say. (Also like Phil, I am a harsh judge of those in any way connected with the Nazi regime).
Unlike Phil, I think, I am not willing to condemn the Pope solely on the ground that as a teen-ager, under coercion, he joined the Hitler Youth. But, again like Phil, and hilzoy, I would like to know more about how his experience has affected his thinking, and where his reflections on his actions have led him.
People always say that. Or were you talking about the Pope?
Mac, you’d be better off reading the book. Unless you’re entertained by either a) killer dobermans, or b) a rather pathetically staged fight between an aged Sir Larry and an aged Gregory Peck.
Actually, when I describe it that way, it’s much better than I remember . . .
Mac, you’d be better off reading the book.
Noted. Thanks.
Likewise, Marathon Man is much more colorfully psychotic than the movie. And its sequel…William Goldman must have been way off meds, writing that.
This thread is probably finished, but the NYTimes article gives some insight into the forces that have shaped Ratzinger, and provides some explanation of the Küng/Ratzinger relationship.
I think the record should be set straight here. Ratzinger did not desert. Period. He was captured in-action and proudly served the Nazi war machine. He not only ‘observed” but guarded Jewish slaves as they worked at the BMW plant. This is not an opinion but a historical fact. This is well documented and there are photos to prove it showing the capture Ratzinger in uniform. Sorry folks but the truth be told, Ratzinger took part in collective and horrible crimes.