That’s the headline to an article in the Observer which picks up on one of the more interesting angles to the story re: Pope Benedict’s decision on the Latin Mass:
Pope’s move on Latin mass ‘a blow to Jews’
Sunday July 8, 2007
The Observer
Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism.
In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said that he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass if a ‘stable group of faithful’ request it – though he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council which allowed the mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time.
‘What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,’ Benedict wrote.
However, the older rite’s prayers calling on God to ‘lift the veil from the eyes’ of the Jews and to end ‘the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ’ – used just once a year during the Good Friday service – have sparked outrage.
Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a ‘body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations’.
‘We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted,’ said Abraham Foxman, the group’s national director, in Rome. ‘It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.’
I suppose that given the Pontiff’s past we should expect this indifference, but you would think that he would have some of his predecessor’s compassion-if only through osmosis
[b]O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of any sinner, but rather that he be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen[/b]
When was the last protest against the Book of Common Prayer; are we discriminating if we pray for the conversion of non-Christians?
What a silly complaint. As a Protestant, I should complain that the Roman Catholics do NOT pray for me to be delivered from my darkness and converted to Roman Catholicism.
The truth is that the Roman Catholic church makes the claim that it is the one, true church and that even other churches are not in fact real churches.
With that as their theology it is only normal and understandable that they should pray for the Jews in particular, as the people-family to which and from which the church first came and as the people-family from which Jesus came, to be “delivered from their darkness.”
I hope that all Christian believers pray that those who are not Christians will be delivered from their darkness.
And of course, it would not be offensive at all to me to discover that Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and Hindus were praying the same thing for me.
Wow, reductio ad-Hitlerum by the first comment. That’s gotta be some kind of record. The poster in #1 does no justice to himself or his argument with such a inane and pointless jab at the Holy Father. Indeed, I would be shocked if he had read ANYTHING Ratzinger/Benedict had ever written.
But are these Jews complaining about “I am the way”? Are they complaining about the multiple sermons laying blame on Christ’s death at the feet of the hardhearted Jewish leaders? AND WHO CARES IF THEY ARE? They are in blindness, they are in darkness. And I say this as one with unconverted Jewish family. It’s not that I don’t have compassion, but that doesn’t change the truth. It would be nice if we could reform the truth to make it more convenient, but that’s not our choice. Perhaps they could protest the parts of the OT where God denounces Israel’s lack of faithfulness, too, as “a blow to reconciliation.”
Praying for the conversion of Jews is not wrong. Christians believe that Jesus is THE Truth; not to pray for all people to receive the truth would be to lack compassion. I personally pray for the souls of all Hindus and Muslims almost daily, that they may receive the truth and be delivered from evil. In the case of Jews who are trying to faithfully follow the Old Covenant law, I simply pray that they will see the fullness of truth in Christ.
What was wrong, I believe, was to blame Jews living today for what some leaders among the Jews in Judah did 2,000 years ago. The responsibility rested with those ancient leaders, and the due punishment was received within two generations with the destruction of the Temple forever.
I see no evidence that the liturgy as quoted above goes beyond praying that all people may receive Christ and be filled with the fullest measure of God’s grace.
Actually, if anyone had bothered to read the document before making prnouncements, they would see that the Pontiff clearly states that the Tridentine Mass may be celebrated by any priest on any day, *except* during the Triduum. That means that the offending prayers are not covered by the Moto Proprio, and have therefore *not* been approved for use. For the Triduum, the newer rites are to be used (though one can still use the Latin version of them, if desired).
As for ‘Brian for T19,’ get a life. Or better yet, read a book: preferably, one of the Holy Father’s. Might I suggest one of his books on the Liturgy?
Anglicanum –
You beat me to it. The joke is on the NYT, and, of course, Brian. Furthermore, the 1962 Missal deleted a reference to the Jews, and I wonder if it was this one.
For myself, if I were recommending the Holy Father’s books, I’d go for the new one Jesus of Nazareth. It is phenomenal!
A couple of other points: the new document is only widening use of the 1962 Missal, expanding on an initiative JPII took some years ago, which initiative, I might add, received many of these same complaints. As has been pointed out, it’s not expected to have much effect in the U.S., where most of the faithful have access to the old liturgy, except for one thing: the new rules allow for the laity to request the liturgy, and rather begs priests to deliver. In the document itself (or maybe the attached letter, time precludes my looking it up), the pope references the liturgical absurdities foisted on the Church this past generation, with the hope that wider use of the old Missal (abused in it’s time, btw) will lead to more reverent celebration of both liturgical forms. That hope, btw, is a large part of the subtext of the complaints against use of the 1962 Missal.
Well, my bad – It was the Observer/Guardian, not the NYT. Though of course it could have been.
The other point to be made is that the phrase about the veil comes from 2 Corinthinians 3.13-16. Almost exactly. We can hardly deny scripture – although be it said that there are passages in the gospel according to John that distress me in what is said about the Jews. We have to be aware of the adversarial context in which the words were formed and delivered.
I must confess though that I much prefer the prayer from the existing RC Holy Week liturgy, which prays ‘for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.’ Many Jews, I suspect, could say Amen to that.
[blockquote] Actually, if anyone had bothered to read the document before making prnouncements, they would see that the Pontiff clearly states that the Tridentine Mass may be celebrated by any priest on any day, *except* during the Triduum. That means that the offending prayers are not covered by the Moto Proprio, and have therefore *not* been approved for use. For the Triduum, the newer rites are to be used (though one can still use the Latin version of them, if desired). [/blockquote]
This is incorrect. Private Masses are banned during Easter Triduum, this applies to both the TLM and the Novus Ordo. Only public Masses, regardless of form used, may be said during this time.
Conor –
Mass isn’t said on Good Friday. What’s the point of the regulation?
The Good Friday Liturgy used to be known in English as the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified, although given that it was Communion from the reserved sacrament the word Mass was clearly inaccurate and a popular usage rather than official. BTW looking up my old Missal I noticed that the prayer for the conversion of the Jews was followed by one for the conversion of pagans, asking God to ‘remove iniquity from their hearts, that, putting aside their idols, they may be converted to the true and living God …’ Now there is a prayer for our times, and I wonder why the mainstream media have not picked up on that. A bit too close to the bone, perhaps.
Can someone identify all of the language to which Jewish groups are objecting? The press quotes snippets but it would be helpful to see all the language in question.
Fr. Tee, since you have the Missal, perhaps you can provide the actual text.
Irenaeus – As to “Jewish groups”, Abe Foxman of the ADL is the only specific citation I find. Did I miss others, or is the Observer/Guardian just exaggerating reactions? Of course, a reputable newspaper would never do such a thing… I’m sure.
From the 1962 Missal
“Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Let us pray. Let us kneel.
“Arise.
“Almighty and everlasting God, You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness. Through the same our Lord. Amen.”
[blockquote] Mass isn’t said on Good Friday. What’s the point of the regulation? [/blockquote]
There are two other days in the Triduum. Are you under the impression that i’m unaware that Good Friday is the only day of the year on which a Host is not consecrated?
First, even the current normative redaction of the Good Friday service has us praying for the Jews (and the Protestants, and the Muslims, and the pagans, and the atheists, and everybody else) that they come to the fullness of life in Christ.
Second, the two notorious phrases — the one in the Good Friday services claiming that the Jews were “faithless” and the one in the baptismal renunciations that calls Jewish covenant fidelity “superstition”, were both removed before the 1962 redaction, which is the only edition of the older redaction permitted to be used.
So Mr. Foxman just has it plain wrong.
Conor, it’s the Good Friday Liturgy under discussion, not Holy Thursday and not the Easter Vigil.
What you know and don’t know, I couldn’t say, but I would assume you do know that Good Friday doesn’t have a Mass, that being fairly common knowledge. However, the Holy Father has banned private Masses for Good Friday (and the rest of the Triduum) in the old liturgy, and you seem to know that private Masses are banned in both Missals, so I thought you might know something about Mass on Good Friday I don’t.
Actually, I have an old memory of Ash Wednesday not having a Mass as well, but I think that’s from my Episcopalian youth and it may be a false memory anyway.
Ms. Knapp, thank you for the information. I read something like it the day and couldn’t find the specifics.
And now, if anyone reading this will pray that I, a Catholic for 20 years, will come to “fullness of life in Christ”, I would be most grateful.
There is going to be littled demand for the Tridentine Mass in the U.S. But some of us that welcome the pope’s decision are hoping it will reconnect us to our cultural roots and also put pressure on parishes to change whose liturgies are more like city council meetings (all head-trip) or merely a platform for a priest to “strut his stuff” as ringmaster of the “show” Also, hopefully it will help drive from the Church the heretical hymns and childish folk ditties that infect the Church. If Eastern Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches can produce hymns and chants in English that are reverential, Mystical, and “popular” -then certainly the RCC can do the same.
I’m currently reading Jesus of Nazareth and I have read his Milestones memoir detailing his apologetic for his Nazi period. If you choose to give the world’s greatest moral leader a free pass on his past or write it off to youthful coercion that is indeed your business. The fact remains that the single driving force in both religious and racial antisemitism has been Christianity. And it is indeed also a fact that the “Vicar of Christ” wore a swastika. The antisemitism in the above comments is clear as well.
Brian –
So Christianity is to blame for Nazi Germany? Wow!
Deacon John –
I got busy feeding the troll (bad, Words Matter, bad boy!) and forgot to respond to your point. Which was only an aside to say that bad music seems to carry the seeds of it’s own demise. Our diocese celebrated the priestly ordination yesterday of 4 men (big stuff around here) and noticed that the lusty singing of good hymns – Alleluia Sing to Jesus (Hyfrydol) and God, you gave the Great Commission (Abbot’s Leigh) – compared to the silence (except for the choir) for the stinkers. The Gloria was the De Angelis in Latin and the people chanted it. To be fair, they also sang the Mass of Creation for the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, which has been the diocesan standard under our old bishop.
So there is hope – as though 4 new priests weren’t hope enough.
What is most important is that the Pope hada the courage to make such a move. He has said again, “This is who we are and what we believe. We are not going to change these standards because others complain about them. Nor are we going to do away with our standards.” In short, he is doing what we should be doing and aren’t: He is establishing standards, declaring that they will be followed, asserting the identity that grows from this soil, and affirming that exclusion is permissible since the RC Church isn’t for everyone. This takes some backbone. LM
Brian from–: Of course perverse and twisted science and medicine had nothing to do with anything during that period. (And this twisting and perversion was vigorously fought by many in the Church.) Noone seems to want to highlight the role of science and medicine in the horrors of the Holocaust because TODAY’s scientists and doctors are demanding exemption from all moral rules to do what they wish to do–just as the Nazi doctors and scientists did.
Hitler is slowing gaining his victory through the back door as eugenic sciences trash every human sacred and moral value. And even some who abhor the Holocaust are joining in helping to create the new moral vacuum in science and medicine. What comes next?? Concentration camps for those born with Down’s Syndrome?? Forced abortions for those who don’t pass certain genetic tests??? The original Planned Parenthood was born with the slogan: “A nation of throughbreds” in a push to exterminate “defective “minority groups like Slavs and Jews in America. Now Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest beneficieries of taxpayers money to help exterminate human life.
21. Brian from T19 – the swastika was a symbol common in Greece before the time of Christ and in India, possibly linking with the conquests of Alexander the Great or Iskandar or possibly the Silk road from China through Iran to the Mediterranean all along which it was found. It was associated with good luck or felicity and plastered over many buildings.
Canon King [#16]: Did that language (e.g., “You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews”) survive Vatican II and Pope Paul VI’s 1965 encyclical, Nostra Aetate?
“The antisemitism in the above comments is clear as well.”
Please do point these instances out for our edification. Maybe my contacts are really dry and I’m just not seeing it. Personally, I think the famous Princess Bride quote is applicable here: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Brian from T19 [#21]: Joseph Ratzinger was 5 years old when Hitler came to power, 12 years old when World War II began, and barely 18 when it ended. Do you mean to imply that he sympathized with the National Socialist regime and its leader?
BTW, would you consider teenagers who belonged to the Soviet “Young Pioneers” during the 1930s responsible for the Ukraine Famine, the Great Purge, and the Katyn Forest Massacre?
Good point, Irenaeus. Also, I’m not at all confident that membership in the Hitler Youth was voluntary.
Newbie –
It was not. Young people were simply enrolled. As I remember, Josef colluded with one of his teachers to avoid actual participation, at some personal risk. He was conscriptied into the military when he came of age, and served without distinctioon until the war came close to it’s end, when he deserted his post and headed home. So yes, he did wear the swastika.
RE: “Personally, I think the famous Princess Bride quote is applicable here: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.—
LOL.
Yes . . . most of the words that progressives use don’t have the same meaning as the when traditionalists use it.
Which is why basically communication is at a stand-still.
Of course agreement that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus need to believe the Christian gospel is not anti-semitic. But Brian is a progressive, so . . .
And — needless to say — he sees that the new pope is quite a threat to the progressive agenda in the RC church and so . . .
There you are.
; > )
Next thing is that the Hopis will be accused of being antisemites.
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2000/11/21/6096.html
But I wouldn’t want to give them a free pass.
On a more serious note, there is a tension here even today due to both historical facts, such as various massacres of Jewry in Europe, along with the competing claims of the two religions. Jews literally believe that Christianity is an overblown misinterpretation of OT prophesy. Christians believe that Jews stubbornly ignore the proof of the resurrection and divinity of Christ, as witnessed in the NT. The fact that either religion might pray for the other to “see the light” doesn’t mean that a pogrom is starting tomorrow. If one was to actually look at those historical events which are characterized by ‘anti semitism’, the events were more complex than simple religious antagonism. E.g. the Spanish persecution of the Marranos was motivated both by Catholic antagonism to Jewry as well as the need of the Spanish crown for legtimacy during a period of religious turbulence and territorial expansion. Neither of these justified the Jewish persecution, but Christianity was not the sole motivating force in that particular train of events, no matter what the Inquisition reported.
So perhaps the Christian sects (RCs too) need to recognize how their forebearers exhibited nasty anti semitic behaviours. But the form of the RC Mass isn’t a requisite part of such recognition.
Hey, some guy over at Get Religion is accusing the Catholic Church of being the greatest killer of Jews in history; granted, we took 2000 years to do it, but Hitler? A piker! Those Russian pograms? Amateur hour!
You know, I’ve been Catholic 20 years and haven’t killed a Jew yet. Obviously, I’m a slacker and better get to work.
NEW POPE DEFIED NAZIS AS TEEN DURING WW II
Associated Press, April 23, 2005
http://bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/topics/new_pope_defied_nazis.htm
TRAUNSTEIN, Germany (AP) — Blinds drawn, windows closed, Joseph Ratzinger huddled with his father and older brother around a radio and listened to Allied radio broadcasts, volume on low.
It was a small and risky act of defiance in this conservative Bavarian village deep inside Adolf H!tler’s Germany. But the father wanted his sons to know the truth about the Nazis and World War II, says Georg Ratzinger, who like his brother drew strength from the Catholic Church.
”It was strictly forbidden. Anyone who was caught would be sent to the concentration camps, so we did it secretively,” Georg Ratzinger told The Associated Press. ”The German news was not true and he wanted to hear from the foreign services what was really happening.”
The clandestine sessions were just one of the passive acts of resistance, evasions and escapes by the future Pope Benedict XVI, whose choices then — enrolling in the H!tler Youth as required and the Army when drafted as he approached age 18 — allowed him to survive.
People who knew the Ratzingers said they were never willingly part of the Nazi machine. …
Renate Augerer, 75, remembered the brothers from the town’s school, where they were both known as being serious, scholarly, pious and kind — two Catholic priests in the making.
”He was very certainly not for H!tler,” Augerer said of Joseph Ratzinger. ”Absolutely not. They couldn’t do anything about it. … You can’t forget the times.”
Max Fiedler, 77, said he also was compelled to join the H!tler Youth when the Nazis took over the Catholic youth group he was in and merged it into their organization.
”It was automatic,” said Fiedler, who had joined Augerer at a reception in the small Traunstein town hall following a Mass in Ratzinger’s honor last week.
Some 80 to 90 percent of Germans joined the H!tler Youth and refusing to sign up could mean being sent to a youth ”reeducation camp,” akin to a concentration camp, said Volker Dahm, director of Nazi-era research for Munich’s Institute for Contemporary History.
”You could try to avoid it but it was very, very difficult,” Dahm said. ”It was a bit easier to avoid it if you lived in a big city where you could hide yourself in the crowd, but in the countryside it was nearly impossible because everyone knew you.” …
In Germany, opportunities for outright defiance were limited — and dangerous. Those who did resist met horrible fates, such as two famous student leaders in Munich, Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were caught distributing anti-Nazi leaflets in 1942 and executed by guillotine.
Pope Benedict, 78, has not tried to hide his enrollment in the H!tler Youth at age 14, addressing his brief membership in his autobiography, ”Salt of the Earth.”
”We weren’t in it to start with, but with the beginning of the obligatory H!tler Youth in 1941 my brother was enrolled as was required,” he recalled. ”I was too young but later was enrolled into it from the seminary.”
Benedict implies it was the school that did the enrolling, but he doesn’t make it clear.
He said he tried to avoid H!tler Youth meetings, creating a dilemma. He needed proof of attendance to get a tuition discount, which his father — a retired policeman — badly needed. So he finessed it, according to his book.
”Thank God, there was a math teacher who understood. He was himself a Nazi party member, but an honest man who told me, ‘Just go so we have it,”’ he recalled. ”But when he saw that I simply didn’t want to, he said: ‘I understand, I’ll take care of it.’ And so I was free of it.”
With so little active resistance to the Nazis, small gestures of defiance were telling, said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial in Berlin.
”The color of resistance is not black and white, it’s a scale of gray,” Tuchel said. ”It was not a single decision, not a single choice — you don’t just say one day ‘I resist.’
”Every day you had to decide if you were going to go with the Nazi system or step aside. To resist is a long-term decision,” he added.
The Ratzingers moved to Traunstein in 1937. The father was anti-Nazi and had to move from the town of Tittmoning to Auschau in 1932 after clashing with local Nazi party supporters. …
In 1943, at age 16, Joseph Ratzinger was called up along with his entire seminary class to work as a helper for anti-aircraft batteries, which defended a BMW plant and later an aircraft factory at Oberpfaffenhofen, where the first German jet fighters were produced.
In 1944, he was forced into the country’s compulsory civil service and sent to dig anti-tank ditches on the Austrian-Hungarian border.
He recounts his work group being awakened in the middle of the night and pressured to join the Waffen SS, the combat units of the Nazi Party’s elite guard. ”An SS officer had each one come forward and tried, by parading each one in front of the group, to force ‘volunteer’ enlistments,” he wrote in another autobiographical book, ”Memoirs 1927-1977.”
Some signed up in ”this criminal group. I had the luck to be able to say that I had the intent to become a Catholic priest. We were sent away with scorn and insults.”
He was drafted into the Army in December 1944 and stationed near Traunstein. With the German army collapsing and the end of the war just days away, he deserted in April or May of 1945 — he said he can’t remember the exact date. He knew he could be killed by SS fanatics, who continued to shoot or hang soldiers found out of uniform up until the end of the war. …
Because Benedict acknowledged his past and because of the circumstances of his involvement, most people, including Jewish groups in Germany and Israel, have been understanding.
”He was a very young person when this happened, it was hardly a matter of choice, and what counts is what he’s done in the last 30 years in Jewish-Catholic dialogue,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office. At the right time, she suggested, the pope may share more of his past. …
The true anti-semites are those who play at being Christian, but don’t really give a rip whether the Jews accept Jesus or not.
So what’s next?
Calls from Mr Foxman to remove the 9th-11th chapters of Romans from the New Testament? You know, the ones which are glued together, which we may not read nor pay attention to.
Remember? All Israel shall be saved?
Oh, I’m sorry. We don’t preach on that text anymore.
And Jesus came TO the Jews, his mission was to bring the Kingdom of God TO the Jews, his ministry was TO the Jews (with rare exceptions–the widow and the Samaritan woman), and the presumption of the Apostles was, after His Ascension, that it was the Jews who would form the Church.
So go ahead. Do not pray that the Lord will send forth laborers into the harvest. Do not ask that the Gospel, which is that Messiah has come, be proclaimed with full force to the descendants of Abraham. And be prepared to face the music for your disobedience.
The Jew first, then the Greek. I read that somewhere.
Just because the majority of the Jews of the time of Jesus refused His coming does NOT disqualify any of the Jews of this present age. It just does not work that way.
Besides, the Gospel which I believe came, in its entirety, through the Jewish people and books written by and for the Jews.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article382076.ece
April 17, 2005
Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth
Justin Sparks, Munich, John Follain and Christopher Morgan, Rome
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 enforcerâ€, “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.
Although there is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities, his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II, who took part in anti-Nazi theatre performances in his native Poland and in 1986 became the first pope to visit Rome’s synagogue.
“John Paul was hugely appreciated for what he did for and with the Jewish people,†said Lord Janner, head of the Holocaust Education Trust, who is due to attend ceremonies today to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“If they were to appoint someone who was on the other side in the war, he would start at a disadvantage, although it wouldn’t mean in the long run he wouldn’t be equally understanding of the concerns of the Jewish world.â€
The son of a rural Bavarian police officer, Ratzinger was six when Hitler came to power in 1933. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move home several times.
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.â€
Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. “It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,†she said. “The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice.â€
In 1937 another family a few hundred yards away in Traunstein hid Hans Braxenthaler, a local resistance fighter. SS troops repeatedly searched homes in the area looking for the fugitive and his fellow conspirators.
“When he was betrayed and the Nazis came for him, Braxenthaler shot himself because he knew he couldn’t escape,†said Frieda Meyer, 82, Ratzinger’s neighbour and childhood friend. “Even though they had tortured him in Dachau concentration camp he refused to give up his resistance efforts.â€
Despite question marks over Ratzinger’s wartime conduct, the main obstacle to his prospects in the conclave — the assembly of cardinals to elect the new pope — is the conservative stance he has adopted as guardian of Catholic orthodoxy since John Paul named him to head the congregation for the doctrine of the faith in 1981.
His condemnations are legion — of women priests, married priests, dissident theologians and homosexuals, whom he has declared to be suffering from an “objective disorderâ€.
<b>He upset many Jews with a statement in 1987 that Jewish history and scripture reach fulfilment only in Christ — a position denounced by critics as “theological anti-semitismâ€.
Chris Molter
But are these Jews complaining about “I am the way� Are they complaining about the multiple sermons laying blame on Christ’s death at the feet of the hardhearted Jewish leaders? AND WHO CARES IF THEY ARE? They are in blindness, they are in darkness.
Brian- what is your punchline here? Using up Kendall’s bandwidth with copy-pastes?
Irenaeus & Brian:
Interesting history lesson. However, I really don’t think it adds or detracts form this article. Now I understand the ADL might think so, but IMO they could learn something from one of Aesop’s Fables for always ending a sentence with and exclamation point, even at the smallest issue only serves to desensitize the public.
So they’re up in arms about a traditional prayer for one day out of the year in a language no one understands … well maybe the Catholic League can get on this case then we can have dueling press releases each accusing the other of defamation.
Tom and KAR
This is precisely what the article is about. Look at its title. The question is whether this move is a ‘blow to Jews,’ so the issue of motivation (both Christianity’s historic antisemitism and the Pope’s past) is central to determining whether there is intent to make anti-Jewish statements or if it is simply benign. Many posters on this and other threads refise to acknowledge the history that they are a part of or claim that since they haven’t done any actual killing or torture thay do not bear collective guilt. As the article mentions, even the Pope refuses to acknowledge collective guilt. It is a sad comment and is why relations with the Jewish people are so strained today.
And CStan actually demonstrates my argument in regards to history (nothing personal CStan, yours is just the best articulation of this argument):
I would offer that a bigger blow is denying the Messiah who is Jesus the Christ
Why exactly do we insist that Jesus was the Messiah? The very concept of the Messiah (actually the 2 Messiahs) was never meant as a ‘God on Earth’ but as earthly rulers who brought about not spiritual salvation, but rather a time of peace. Isn’t it possible that Jesus was God without being the Messiah prophesied to the Jews? The New Testament writers certainly wanted to distinguish him as the Messiah and to expand the ewish understanding of that role. But look at this in a purely logical way assuming that God keeps His promises. If indeed God promised a Messiah (or Messiahs) to Israel, who better to know that than Israel? They are the recipient of the gift! Yet not only do we steal the idea of the Messiah from them, but we change it to fit our understanding AND we even name are religion Messiah-ianity. How arrogant and anti-Jewish is that? I know that no0 one will agree and that you will all think this is crazy, but if you are able, think of how the Jews must feel about this.
Why exactly do we insist that Jesus was the Messiah?
Oh, I don’t know, because He said so? The NT states this idea over and over, it’s the foundation to the Christian faith. Exactly what I was talking about the ADL attempting to change RCC.
You really should tone down your Anti-Catholicism, it’s kind of like attempting to fight racism by being racist but such is life as a liberal I suspect.
RE: “Brian- what is your punchline here?”
Tom Roberts, the punchline is this line in Brian’s pasted article: “One liberal theologian,when asked what he thought of a Ratzinger papacy, was more direct: “It fills me with horror.—
; > )
KAR
I am not anti-Catholic or even anti-Papal. I do believe that this Pope is not qualified to hold the office. As for what Jesus said, I have read what the writers of the NT said He said and I am certainly convinced thar He is Gof. I just don’t believe He needed to be the Messiah to be God.
Pray, Brian, where in this article does His Holiness “refuse to acknowledge collective guilt?” I’ve read it and reread it, and all I see is a recounting of his well-known mandatory enrollment in Hitler’s wartime activities, and a he-said-she-said on whether or not resistance was futile. (I notice that John Allen, hardly a partisan, refers to the Pope as an ‘unenthusiastic participant,’ though you chose not to put that in boldface.)
I’ve worked my way through all of his major writings and many of his public speeches and sermons: please point out to me where he refuses to acknowledge collective guilt for anti-Semitism. He has been widely praised for his leadership on reconciliation with Jews by such groups as the Anti-Defamation League and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and such people as the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican. The ADL website, in fact, quotes him as saying: “Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah (Holocaust) was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.” And it posts a link to his Christmas reflection for 2000, “The Heritage of Abraham: The Gift of Christmas.” The ADL praised his election, as did the Chief Rabbi of Rome and several major Jewish groups here in America.
I’ll tip my hand here and say that I don’t think you’ll be able to prove your assertion, Brian, because His Holiness has not only repeatedly acknowledged our collective gult for anti-Semitism, he has been widely known as a leader in Jewish-Christian relations. He helped author John Paul’s public apology for anti-semitism; he worked with Jewish leaders both in Munich and in Rome to bring about healing in those communities; he co-authored and edited “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past,†a document that acknowledged the Church’s errors in its past dealings with Jews.
So show me, if you can, where he has failed to acknowledge our collective guilt.
Anglicanum
It helps to read all the way to the end:
The Pope also sparked bewilderment when he made no mention of anti-Semitism, or the fact that the Nazis killed millions of people because they were Jewish, in a speech last year at Auschwitz. He also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people.
I am not anti-Catholic or even anti-Papal. I do believe that this Pope is not qualified to hold the office.
So do you contradict yourself in back-to-back statements often?
As for your exegesis of the NT … well as one who claims to be wiser than the conclave and exerts himself over RCC structure as if his opinion matters … I guess I should expect the same for your hermeneutics [*Sigh*].
So, you have an article from the Times, the parish newsletter for the Labor Party, in which we are told what the pope *didn’t* say, but not what he *has said* in other venues. I had hoped you could do better than that.
———
[i]So Anglicanum, why don’t you send us a link or post a link here in the comments if you have a good link to what Pope Benedict wrote or said. We’re not omniscient and we don’t blog full time. We’re helping cover for Kendall while also trying to juggle a real job and various ministry responsibilities. Contrary to appearances sometimes we’re not online 24/7 and we don’t read every newspaper or website that is published in the world. You are always free to post RELEVANT links in the comments. Very often, something linked in the comments becomes a top-level post. –elfgirl[/i]
[i]his service may be contrasted by opponents with the attitude of John Paul II…[/i]
Who was, in his time, accused of not doing enough for the Jews. It’s just too precious when the anti-Catholic bigots (most of all the liberal Catholics) harken back fondly to the man they slandered for 26 years.
People, someone who posts this:
[iThe fact remains that the single driving force in both religious and racial antisemitism has been Christianity.[/i]
is not amenable to rational argumentation. As I recall, this Brian dropped his swill out here when the Holy Father was elected. Slanderers live to slander, and decent people don’t attempt to interact with them.
Elfgirl: Brian said that the Holy Father has done nothing to acknowledge our collective guilt for anti-Semitism. I asked him to prove it and cited several examples of the Holy Father doing precisely the thing he said he hadn’t done. No one accused you of omniscience or having less than a full-time job, so I don’t see what you’re getting at.
Anglicanum, generally reappraisers are shown much more leniency and than those who hold traditional teaching. Though Brian did manage to get himself banned by Kendall himself, I do not know the offense, but apparently it was a dozy … for it was quite a while before he was allowed back.
Yes, unequal standards are being applied and if #53 is correct, Brian might make next the 2007 Anti-Catholic Report for his venom towards the pontiff.
Brian wrote:
“I do believe that this Pope is not qualified to hold the office.”
Well, fortunately for him, he is pope of the Catholic Church and not “the Church of Brian.” Securus judicat orbis terrarum.
Well, broadly speaking, I’m with Brian.
There are unpleasant things within the NT itself. This is because the NT writers, themselves mostly Jews (probably excluding Luke), failed to carry the mass of the Jews with them. John’s Gospel is particularly unpleasant in this regard. And Paul, himself a Jew, on occasion appeals to anti-Jewish sentiment when writing to Gentiles. I know why it is so difficult for some Christians to acknowledge these things, but I still think they should. Jimmy Dunn, in ‘Jesus Remembered’, has at one point a very fine phrase: something like: ‘the tendency should be acknowledged – and disowned’.
As a liberal Christian, I’m afraid I have no desire that ‘the Jews’ en masse should be converted. Like Jonathan Sacks as was, I believe in ‘the dignity of difference’. I fully accept that orthodox Christians do have this desire. Then, for me, it remains an important question what language is used. In the light of history, praying for Jews to be delivered from darkness is just too near the bone.
Brian,
“Christus” is the Greek word for the Hebrew “Messiah” (“Moshiac”). When Peter declared: YOU are the Messiah, the son of the living God”, Jesus did not deny it, but praised Peter, saying “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in Heaven has revealed it to you!” Sounds pretty much like acceptance of the title to me.
Or how about John 4:25-26, with the Woman at the well?
“Sir, I know that when the Messiah comes, he will reveal all things to us”
Jesus replied: “I who speak to you now am He!” (or “I am, the one who speaks to you!” — footnotes)
Again, seems clear that Jesus is claiming the title of Messiah.
I find it unsurprising in the least that Universalists think that praying for the conversion of non-Christians to be useless as well as offensive, as it is antithetical to their particular heresy.
Maybe I am a Universalist but it is striking and eloquent that so few Evangelical/Orthodox Christians actually make any effort to convert Jewish people. I think pretty well all of us – wherever we situate ourselves on the Christian spectrum – in practice agree on this. I stress ‘in practice’, because as this thread, like others, makes clear, the issue remains a stick with which ‘the orthodox’ can berate their liberal fellows. But it’s a broken stick.
#54, thanks for the clarification. Apologize for the confusion. In reading #52 I thought you were addressing us in terms of the news stories we had posted on the Tridentine Mass. Was working too quickly I guess.
–elfgirl
Hey, that’s okay. Like you said, you don’t blog 24/7 and you’re not omniscient. And rereading what I wrote, I see that I should have addressed Brian directly. So that’s my fault, and I apologize for not being clearer.
Pax vobiscum.
And to add to John Scholasticus’ point re: NT writers, they were under significant pressure by outside society to distinguish themselves from the Jews.
Te one up above who sought to compare the Resistance activities of Karol Wojtyla with those of Josef Ratzinger: do recall that Wojtyla was already a grown-up when the war began, and by the second year of the war was also entirely familyless, whereas Ratzinger was a seventh-grader! Grown ups with no hostages to fortune can do a lot more than little kids can.
Karen
Cardinal Ratzinger was still in the 7th grade when he was 17? He seems much smarter.
No, he was 12 when the war started, not 17. [Not that you didn’t already know that, though]
So Brian thinks Jesus is God but needed be the Messiah. I wonder how the Jews would undestand that logic, for if they saw him as God I can’t imagine them hesitating to recognize Him as Messiah. What would be the point of having [i]someone else[/i] as a “messiah” when [b]God in the flesh[/b] has come down to earth.
Oops. Silly me. I was expecting logic.
Never mind.
Hey Brian, in the US all under 18 are minors thus deemed legally not to comprehend full accountability, this is two years stricter that the LORD held the nation of Israel accountable for not trusting in His ability to help them take the promised lands.
April 16, 1927 — Joseph Alois Ratzinger is born.
Jan 30, 1933 – Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany
June 30, 1934 – The Night of Long Knives
Aug 2, 1934 – German President von Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Führer.
Aug 19, 1934 – Hitler receives a 90 percent ‘Yes’ vote from German voters approving his new powers.
Feb 10, 1936 – The German Gestapo is placed above the law
Aug 1, 1936 – Olympic games begin in Berlin.
Nov 9/10, 1938 – Kristallnacht – The Night of Broken Glass.
Sept 1, 1939 – Nazis invade Poland.
Sept 3, 1939 – England and France declare war on Germany.
June 22, 1941 – Nazis invade the Soviet Union
Dec 11, 1941 – Hitler declares war on the United States.
June 6, 1944 – D-Day: Allied landings in Normandy
May 7, 1945 – Unconditional German surrender signed by Gen. Jodl at Reims.
Ratzinger was basically 6 when Hilter came to power, 12 when the war began, unlucky to be soon 16 when Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels issued a German declaration of “Total War,” and 18 when Berlin fell to the Soviet Union.
Now that we have our dates, your post seem like a bunch of noise from an angry person with a hatred of the pope. Oh well, it’s a pity.
oops (for real)
“needed” should have been needn’t. It sounded similar in my head and my hands typed what I was “hearing” instead of what I was thinking. My left brain didn’t know what my right brain was doing. 🙂
The pope is a good theologian and I will listen to him on that basis. I don’t know his history but note the explanations given.
Christopher
You should study the Jewish idea of Messiahs throughout history and the expectations of those Jews who believe that a future Messiah or Messiahs will come. God on Earth is not contradictory.
Now that we have our dates, your post seem like a bunch of noise from an angry person with a hatred of the pope. Oh well, it’s a pity.
Not angry. Not anti-papal. I have said it many times and will say it again: This man should not be Pope. It seems that no matter how many times I say it, you are incapable of seeing beyond your own hatred and prejudice. Oh well, it’s a pity.
No matter how many times people attempt to engage you that you seem think the conclave was in error and you are somehow wiser and I doubt you are even Catholic. You seem very judgmental of others and seem to be incapable of seeing beyond your own hatred and prejudice. Oh well, it’s a pity
So, Brian: why shouldn’t Joseph Ratzinger be pope? (You may have addressed this elsewhere, but I don’t know that I’ve read it.)
To contrast Pope John Paul II vs. Benedict XVI because one is Polish and one is German only highlights the power of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church. For who at the end of WWII would ever even phantasize that a few decades later a Pole who aided the anti-Nazi underground and a German who had been pulled into the Hitler Youth would be relating to each other as true Christian brothers and working together to guide the Church through immensely turbulent times. Their example created a situation where the “Polish pope” was extremely popular in Germany and now the “German pope” is warmly regarded in Poland. It it is this sort of reconciliation which is the mark of the spirit at work.
Anglicanum
For the same reason that Moses was barred by God from entering the Promised Land. I am not saying he shouldn’t be a Cardinal or even the highest ranking Cardinal. There is only one job that a person who wore a swastika should not be allowed to hold, and that is Pope.
The Cardinal-Electors of the Holy Roman Church thought otherwise, and so, Roma locuta, causa fnita.
I see. Are you Catholic? Anglican? (Please don’t think I’m baiting you; I really just want to understand your earlier posts.)
I’ve been wondering what’s so irritating about Brian’s bile. Obviously just another self-righteous bigot, right? Yet… he irritates me. And then it hit me. He is, essentially, picking on a teenage boy caught up in the most evil, controlling regime imaginable. Brian, you are a bully… simply a bully come along 60 years too late.
Re: #78,
Born Catholic, became Anglican, returned to Catholicism August 13, 1979.
For the same reason that Moses was barred by God from entering the Promised Land
As I said, two years younger than even the LORD, you really are self-righteous, not above the Cardinal-Electors of the Holy Roman Church but even to a standard above the LORD. Wow, that is some “righteousness” :exclaim:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that grace part that Brian is withholding. Peter denied knowing the Son of God, Paul had his hand in murdering Christians, Augustine was a leach, all above any age of accountability when they committed their sins. Somehow The LORD chose to use them all, I’m sure he didn’t check with Brian before deciding.
However, being drafted to man AA guns of the BMW factory at 16 does not make the list of sins listed in Timothy as a disqualifier.
Also for your comparisons, Karol Józef WojtyÅ‚a (Pope John Paul II) was born May 18, 1920, thus 18 when his nation invaded, nearly 23 when “Total War” was declared {though Poles and Dutch were more used in factories} and just about 25 when Berlin fell — just maybe he was a little longer in the developmental cycle to make such mature decisions. Don’t forget Joseph Ratzinger did have a cousin murdered by eugenics, so I’m sure his fever was not real high when impressed into service.
More of the Vatican’s lack action and inaction:
Polish priest slammed for anti-Semitsm
——————————————————————————–
Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 12, 2007
——————————————————————————–
Two major American Jewish organizations are urging the Polish government and the Vatican to publicly condemn the latest anti-Semitic remarks made by a powerful Polish priest who heads a right-wing Catholic radio station that has a long history of anti-Semitic diatribes, the groups announced Thursday.
The priest, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who heads the controversial Radio Marjya, reportedly accused the Jews of greed in a potential government compensation deal on confiscated property, and denounced Polish President Lech Kaczynski as a “fraudster who is in the pockets of the Jewish lobby.”
The comments, which were made in a private meeting in April that was taped and leaked to the Polish press last week, were certain to renew Jewish concerns over lingering anti-Semitism in Poland.
The separate calls urging public repudiation and punishment for the priest were made by the New York-based Anti Defamation League and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“This is far from the first time Father Rydzyk or other broadcasters on Radio Maryja have made incendiary and hateful remarks about Jews,” said ADL leaders Glen S. Lewy and Abraham H. Foxman. “Anti-Semitic content broadcast on Radio Maryja continues to include ugly stereotyping, conspiracy theories, claims that Jews were responsible for communist-era repression and accusations that Jews are using the Holocaust to leverage compensation payments from Poland.”
“He is sort of a Goebbels with a collar,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Hier has written to the head of the Warsaw bishops’ conference and to the head of Rydzyk’s religious order at the Vatican, demanding that the priest be punished.
“Father Tadeusz Rydzyk is not merely an individual – as a priest he speaks for the Catholic church and it is the church that must discipline him,” Hier said.
Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, are political allies of Rydzyk. Both have appeared on the radio station, which strongly supports the government.
Earlier his month, Radio Maryja held a large Mass celebrating its 15th anniversary attended by the Polish prime minister and deputy prime ministers.
“You know what this is about: Poland giving $65 billion to Jews,” Rydzyk said on the tape, according to the Polish news magazine Wprost, which published excerpts of the comments. “They will come to you and say, ‘Give me your coat! Take off your trousers! Give me your shoes!'”
The controversial priest has not denied making the comments, but suggested that they were doctored.
In a letter to Prime Minister Kaczynski, the ADL urged the Polish government to speak out against Rydzyk’s remarks and cited a recent poll of anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland, which found that 45 percent of Polish respondents believed that three our of four anti-Semitic stereotype were “probably true,” and 39% said they considered Jews responsible for the death of Christ.
“The attitudes revealed in our polling, reinforced by the extremism of Radio Maryja and the comments of Father Rydzyk, demonstrate the need for Poland’s political leadership to speak clearly and directly to condemn all manifestations of anti-Semitism,” the ADL said in a statement.
Both the president and the prime minister have sought to downplay the comments, saying they needed to be absolute certainty the tapes were authentic before commenting on them.
The comments, made as ties between Israel and Poland continue to flourish, come as the Polish government is working on a bill dealing with Holocaust compensation, which could be passed by the end of the year.
A draft bill currently before the Polish parliament has passed its initial reading and would pay 15% compensation to former property owners – both Jewish and non-Jewish – whose properties were seized during World War II.
Polish officials estimate that the Jewish-owned private property makes up nearly 20% of the total property in question.
The total value of seized property is estimated to be $21-24b., according to Polish groups working to attain the compensation.
Anglicanum
Raised an Evangelical Protestant (in PCUSA) and converted to Anglicanism in college
Soooo … why do you care if the pope ‘wore a swastika?’ You obviously don’t accept the claims Roman Catholics make for the papal office, so why is his having been conscripted into the Hitler Youth a problem for you?
We elves are not convinced that there is any fruitful discussion still going on here. It seems like folks merely beating up on one another at this point. It’s all become very personal. Perhaps time to call it quits?