Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Cardinal Retzinger Elected to serve as Pope,
I was in the Hopeless Union Building today, and a student passed by and said he'd heard that Ratzinger got elected Pope. He has chosen the name Benict XVI, welll I am takeing comfort in a few things. Yes, he's a LOT more conservative than I'd like, but he's basically consistant, there's a chance he'll spare us all the cognitive dissonance. Remember a Catholic conservative isn't the same thing as an American who thinks he or she is conservative. The other thing to say for him is he might be less conservative than some one from Africa or Latin America or Asia might have been. Some of the cardinals in Latin America have been powerful advocates for the poor,but many of them have not been anything like advocates for the poor.
One in particular, the Bishop of San Salvador kind of is an example, putting 'personal salvatiion' ahead of doing something about social conditions. I think it is necessary to do BOTH. If that is bad of me, well too bad, but people who are starved, impovereshed and ruled by tyrants have a very hard time doing the right thing. They can, but it's harder. I do believe one person can make a difference even in terrible places, but I also believe one elevates the condition of the entire society as a means of furthering Salvation, of makeing it more likely.
It's kind of like yes, I believe when you are ill you should pray, but you should as well take appropriate medical actions, God gave us our rational minds for a reason, so we could use them to help ourselves. Both prayer and rationality I view as gifts from the Almighty, that asprin you took to cure a headache, or even just after you think you felt symptoms of heart attack or stroke is as much a Divine intervention as anything else.
I think this may be a really interesting Pope, no one expected him, and umm so much for the Prophesies of St. Malachi! Those predicted an Italian pope.
Anyway there's good reason to think the predictions are a forgery...
Actually I'm glad the process wasn't too drawn out, that's kind of bad. The bad news is that a lot of liberal Catholics are not thrilled, the good news is it could have been way worse. I wish him well, I hope he's able to do a good job. That's up to him and of course the REAL BOSS.
One in particular, the Bishop of San Salvador kind of is an example, putting 'personal salvatiion' ahead of doing something about social conditions. I think it is necessary to do BOTH. If that is bad of me, well too bad, but people who are starved, impovereshed and ruled by tyrants have a very hard time doing the right thing. They can, but it's harder. I do believe one person can make a difference even in terrible places, but I also believe one elevates the condition of the entire society as a means of furthering Salvation, of makeing it more likely.
It's kind of like yes, I believe when you are ill you should pray, but you should as well take appropriate medical actions, God gave us our rational minds for a reason, so we could use them to help ourselves. Both prayer and rationality I view as gifts from the Almighty, that asprin you took to cure a headache, or even just after you think you felt symptoms of heart attack or stroke is as much a Divine intervention as anything else.
I think this may be a really interesting Pope, no one expected him, and umm so much for the Prophesies of St. Malachi! Those predicted an Italian pope.
Anyway there's good reason to think the predictions are a forgery...
Actually I'm glad the process wasn't too drawn out, that's kind of bad. The bad news is that a lot of liberal Catholics are not thrilled, the good news is it could have been way worse. I wish him well, I hope he's able to do a good job. That's up to him and of course the REAL BOSS.
# posted by Katja R. @ 1:12 PM 
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Once a Hitler Youth, always a Hitler Youth. But then, given his age, it probably will not be long before the cardinals have to make a proper decision.
In his case he was forced into it.
My family knew a woman who had to be 'de-Nazified' She was our neighbor in San Francisco, her first name was Pat. She was married to an American, she'd been a 'war bride'
Pat was a Hitler maid, anyway she was in Auschwietz, and one day gave a chocolate bar to a Polish inmate. The reason she did this was that she was reminded of her brother, who was on the Eastern Front. Anyway she gave this inmate one chocolate bar and another Hitler maid saw and reported the incident. She was drummed out of the Hitler Youth and was forced to flee in nothign but her slip and an old coat. In the drumming out ceremony, they tore off first her awards, then the military type buttons, then bit by bit the actual clothes until she was left with nothing but here slip, her underwear, and her stockings.
She fled, and some British soldiers gave her a ride, and counseled her to flee west because of Soviet advance, they passed her on to other British and these guys passed her on to some Americans, one of whomn fell in love with her and married her.
They were stuck in Germany a long time after the war, while she underwent the process of 'de-Nazification' and she, her husband and their first son went to live in San Francisco. She ws still learning English when my family met her, she learned her English by watching TV, and after my mother figured out that she was imitating TV advertising to learn English, my mother began to help her. My mother was like me, multi-lingual. So Pat learned good English. Believe me, my dad could smell a Nazi a mile away and would not have wanted to live next door to her if she had remained a person of Nazi sympathies, nor would my mother have been friendly.
She, her husband, and her boys were regular guests for coffee, lunch, or dinner. I remember them comeing to see our bullfight movie that had Carlos Arruza.
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My family knew a woman who had to be 'de-Nazified' She was our neighbor in San Francisco, her first name was Pat. She was married to an American, she'd been a 'war bride'
Pat was a Hitler maid, anyway she was in Auschwietz, and one day gave a chocolate bar to a Polish inmate. The reason she did this was that she was reminded of her brother, who was on the Eastern Front. Anyway she gave this inmate one chocolate bar and another Hitler maid saw and reported the incident. She was drummed out of the Hitler Youth and was forced to flee in nothign but her slip and an old coat. In the drumming out ceremony, they tore off first her awards, then the military type buttons, then bit by bit the actual clothes until she was left with nothing but here slip, her underwear, and her stockings.
She fled, and some British soldiers gave her a ride, and counseled her to flee west because of Soviet advance, they passed her on to other British and these guys passed her on to some Americans, one of whomn fell in love with her and married her.
They were stuck in Germany a long time after the war, while she underwent the process of 'de-Nazification' and she, her husband and their first son went to live in San Francisco. She ws still learning English when my family met her, she learned her English by watching TV, and after my mother figured out that she was imitating TV advertising to learn English, my mother began to help her. My mother was like me, multi-lingual. So Pat learned good English. Believe me, my dad could smell a Nazi a mile away and would not have wanted to live next door to her if she had remained a person of Nazi sympathies, nor would my mother have been friendly.
She, her husband, and her boys were regular guests for coffee, lunch, or dinner. I remember them comeing to see our bullfight movie that had Carlos Arruza.
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