Popes and Jews

The young Bavarian, Joseph Ratzinger, must have been in a quandary. He had just hit 14 and all 14 year old boys in Hitler’s Germany of 1941 were automatically drafted into the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary unit of the Nazi Party obligatory for all future Nazis. The Third Reich was designed to last a thousand years and it needed regular recruits to perpetuate its “Master Race.”

His older brother, Georg, was already enrolled even though their Catholic father was strongly opposed to der Feuher and all that godless Nazism represented. However, Joseph’s and Georg’s options were severely limited, unlike the largely-fantasized lives of Austrians, Maria Reiner and the von Trapp family in The Sound of Music. Their hills were alive with more than music and flight was unrealistic.

Besides, Joseph wanted to be a priest, even a cardinal, so his planbook didn’t include marriage and propagating. He retaliated by not bothering to attend required Hitler Youth meetings in a silent protest. Joseph was again drafted at 16, after entering the seminary, this time into the German anti-aircraft corps and he briefly trained for the infantry.

As World War Two was ending, he deserted from the German military, briefly became an Allied POW, re-entered the seminary, received Holy Orders, and went on to become a liturgical scholar, bishop, archbishop, and a cardinal.

In April, 2005 Joseph Alois Ratzinger succeeded Pope John Paul II when he was elected 265th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI became sovereign head of the Vatican, Bishop of Rome, and leader of the world’s 1.13 billion Catholics.

Fast forward four years, which is where this article is going. It required a short intro just as a personal admission is in order.

As a Catholic, I have major issues with my Church, especially but not limited to its infestation by homosexuals who have disgraced and all but impoverished the Catholic Church with their perversions.

My other issues range from disagreements with the Second Vatican Council to ordaining women as priests to permitting priests to marry, marry women, that is. Such changes would go a long way toward cleaning up the mess the Church is in.

As for regretting the excesses of the Crusades and the Inquisition, they are such old news they don’t merit regrets or apologies in A.D. 2009. Others should follow suit in burying the past.

I should also add that I am of Irish extraction with no known connections or relatives in Germany, Austria, or in any of the neighboring Benelux countries. Point is, I don’t have a national dog in the fight between Pope Benedict and Israelis and, unfortunately, there is a very mean fight in progress.

This pope, in my estimation, is a good man, a man who has experienced and dealt with life up very closely and very personally. He has seen and resisted evil incarnate in Hitler and Nazism and what he witnessed has clearly colored his life and thinking.

I would not sanctify him as a future saint, as I would his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Sainthood requires far more proof of holiness and more longevity in his current position.

He also is a peace-loving man, as most popes and other spiritual leaders have tended to be in the last 500 years or so. In that role as peace advocate, if he were to “take sides,” any hopes for accomplishing any true peace on Earth would be dashed against the rocks of divisive political sectarianism and nationalistic bluster.

And, so, Pope Benedict XVI went to the MidEast, to a Holy Land that has been immersed in violent turmoil for 6 decades, if not for 2000 years. To an objective observer, based on the reactions of some to his journey, it would seem this 82 year old holy man took this road trip for the sole purpose of stirring up trouble.

He was received well enough in Jordan on what the Vatican termed a ”journey of faith,” of peace, and renewal, a pilgrimage intent on avoiding political intrigues and entrapment: xxhttp://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-25775.

In Israel, he encountered what can best be described as a cool welcome, something shy of wild enthusiasm. At worst, he was received with outright condemnation.

Israel is still steeped in a seething, unrelenting anger against Germany for the Holocaust, three generations and more since Hitler’s war was ended by Allied troops and after those Allies freed the concentration camp survivors. Sixty-four years may not be sufficient time for Jews to consign memories of the Holocaust to an awful era of their history.

The matter of Jewish antipathy toward the papacy is more complex. It should have been so consigned years ago since the initial disdainful and rude reaction to Benedict’s visit is rooted in a misconception, namely what they regard as Pope Pius XII’s inadequate response to Jewish refugees during the Second World War.

That canard has long been floating around but the best recent Jewish recognition of its inaccuracy is this grudging, almost sarcastic, report that Pius XII saved 24 Jewish refugees, “just weeks after German occupiers rounded up about 2,000 Roman Jews on Oct. 16 and deported them to Auschwitz.” (http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/05/1003472/vatican-document-shows-pius-xii-saved-jews)

A far more exhaustive and objective article refuting the charge of Pius’ disregard for the Jewish plight and his designation in one book as “Hitler’s Pope,” can be found here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/dalin.html.

A more pertinent question may be, If Pope Pius XII is to be condemned, why should not the United States, and FDR, be condemned for failing to rescue Jewish refugees in the 1940’s? After all, FDR turned back a boatload of them and had far less compassion, although . . .

(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/)