Leading candidate for Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth
 

THE wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets ? including ?the enforcer?, ?the panzer cardinal? and ?God?s rottweiler? ? is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him.

Although far short of the requisite two-thirds majority of the 115 votes, this would almost certainly give Ratzinger, 78 yesterday, an early lead in the voting. Liberals have yet to settle on a rival candidate who could come close to his tally.

Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger?s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...572667,00.html

He was in the Hitler Youth and now he might be the next Pope. :1orglaugh

As opposed to John Paul II, under whose watch thousands of kids were molested by hundreds (or more) of priests?

I wonder who will receive Cardinal Law's vote?

What a bizarre cult.

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Hitler Youth as a possible Pope, child abuse not being punished - is this really one of the world's major religions? :(

That whole shabang in the vatican looks like a freak show the more you see them on TV.

Bunch of cultists is what it boils down to. With their garish robes, bizarre rituals, altar boys hanging with a bunch of old men, walking around a marble slab with an incense bottle, putting pieces of what's supposed to be the flesh of jesus in people's mouths.

Fucking Weirdos. The church is still living in its medieval ways before science took over the world. Religion is losing steam.

:1orglaugh

I think YOUTH should eb foucused on Hitler YOUTH. This was Boy Scout which a young person could or could not choose to join. And towards the end of the war teh German did in fact FORCE boys under 18 to fight in the war. He's 78 so born around 1927. Hilter took over when he was about 5. So a child of 5 is brought up to worship Hitler and his beliefs and this is somehow the child's fault?

exactly, if you didnt join the hitler youth or later on, the army, you would get spat on in the street and worse. in short you had no choice

Every Nazi has a great excuse for why he supported Hitler. If being "young" was a valid excuse, then what about all of the young German soldiers who killed Jews in concentration camps?

Nobody is calling for him to be jailed - but an ex-Nazi Pope? :1orglaugh

I worked with a German engineer who was also in the Nazi Youth. He was one of the nicest guys I've ever met. If you were a young man in Germany during WWII, you were in Hitler's Youth party.

A) I couldn't care less who is Pope. I'm an athiest.

B) You take a child of 5 and brainwash him for 10-12 years and you are shocked why he joined the Hitler Youth you are stupid. Go read history you didn't have a choice. I am 100% certain that if you were living in Germany in the 1930's or early 40's and were young and you refused to join the Hitler Youth you'd be quite dead before you were 18. I guess every soldier in the Iraqi Army before 2003 "supported" Saddam. You do realize that many of the same people that are in Iraq's new army were the SAME ones working for Saddam? So why are we being friends with Iraq now?

I can't believe you people waste time on this shit. Who cares. You think bitching about it is going to make a difference? If you're going to waste time at least post something worth reading.

thanks for pointing it out :thumbsup

I don't get why they would pick a 78 year old. He got like 2 years left to live, if they're lucky.

:mad: worshipping jesus is like worshipping the golden calf :mad:

The Catholic Church's history is so dark this Hitler Youth thing is hardly a speck on the wall.

Don't say JP2 toutched childrens ... that's not true ... but I agree, the catolic church is bull

oh come on, who wasnt a part of that?

Im no fan of Ratzinger but you left out the rest of the story:

"In 1937 Ratzinger?s father retired and the family moved to Traunstein, a staunchly Catholic town in Bavaria close to the Führer?s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941.

He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. ?Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,? concluded John Allen, his biographer.

Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.

Ratzinger has insisted he never took part in combat or fired a shot ? adding that his gun was not even loaded ? because of a badly infected finger. He was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

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.

?Resistance was truly impossible,? Georg Ratzinger said. ?Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy.?

:1orglaugh

almost every kid was in the Hitler Youth, not like they had much choice.

So what? He was a child at that age, a very young guy, filled with state propaganda, how could he make the clear difference at around 18yo what was good or wrong in that propaganda infested atmosphere?
However, the next Pope should not be a German, but from some other poorer country ...