But it should be, right?
Although I bet covering up crimes isn’t illegal in Vatican Land
Paraphrasing our favorite Quaker*: “When the Pope does it, that means that it is not illegal…”
Okay, second favorite. After the guy on the oatmeal box. Oh, and William Penn. Third fav-- wait BENJAMIN FRANKLIN!
I’ll come in again.
The Vatican City State has adopted the Italian Criminal Code. If it’s a crime in Italy, it’s a crime in the Vatican.
This is a good point. His service to the Nazis shouldn’t be overlooked just because he became a rape apologist in later life.
He didn’t do any service for the Nazis. With all the things he’s done as a cardinal and as Pope to pick on, it’s a distraction and kind of a mean-spirited one to play that card.
Even current heads of state have no blanket immunity for drug-related crimes, apparently. I don’t know if crimes against humanity count, though.
The (sole) source for this claim appears to be the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State which, despite its impressive sounding name, is a private organization formed for the purpose of convening extrajudicial “trials” of people they deem to have done wrong.
They are not a news organization and they have not (yet) provided any support or evidence for their claim that the pope is meeting with the Italian president for any reason whatsoever.
Every story I have found on this issue leads directly back to the ITCC press release.
That was how it looked to me, too. They’re not very good at hiding their biases either: they can’t even swallow their bile long enough to call him by his papal name.
Enlighten us then. What ‘good’ has this person done and how does it stack up against covering up child abuse, let alone doing nothing else about the many ongoing crimes against humanity the Catholic Church routinely engages in (contraception, AIDS, homosexuality, money laundering and other financial crimes etc etc) when he was in a position to do so?
So far as I can see at most his ‘good deeds’ consists of no more than pious-sounding hot air words about a few issues.
Yea - these are a bunch of private citizens with no standing. Nothing to see there.
But being biased against a world-wide organisation that appears dedicated to doing evil is no bad thing. The CC needs more bias against it and the world needs an organisation with the guts to actually take it on.
He was in the Hitler Youth and fought in the German infantry, both reportedly by conscription, and his actual involvement my have been minimal. The reason I mentioned it is at the time he became Pope I remember a lot of people saying you can’t judge a man’s entire life by his actions when he was very young during a difficult time. And maybe that’s true. Now people like Tollhouse seem to be making the same argument about his later life and his involvement with molestation cases.
Maybe it’s a stretch, and there were a lot of decades in-between, but it seems to me there’s a man in there that spans the two scenarios that lacked the courage or conviction to challenge the status quo, no matter how heinous the status quo might have been. It’s probably not reasonable to expect a 14 year old boy to stand up to the Nazis when it could cost him everything, but it sure as shit seems reasonable to expect one of the most powerful men in the world to stand up for a bunch of innocent children when it costs him nothing, particularly when he’s the head of an organization that claims the meek shall inherit the earth.
Where did Marley23 make any claims about Benedict’s “good deeds”?
Rather, ISTM that what Marley23 was clearly saying is that there are plenty of actual not-good deeds from his cardinalship and papacy to criticize him for, rather than making up unfounded accusations of Nazism.
Benjamin Franklin was a Quaker?
Right. The next time I say anything about his good deeds will probably be the first. I did say that there are so many legitimate things to criticize him about that there’s no good reason to bring up the Hitler Youth thing.
Yes, he was reportedly conscripted in the Hitler Youth as a teenager. No, he didn’t fight with the German infantry. He was assigned to an anti-aircraft division - I’m not sure if he actually did anything other than continue his studies - and deserted after a few months.
Psst… [sub]The joke is he’s hinting at, but not actually naming, Richard Nixon.[/sub]
Sorry, Cheshire Human; while I was actually hinting at RMN, I had actually thought Franklin was a Quaker.
Now I have to wrack my brain and try to reconstruct where I got that Idea in the first place.
If you get an organization, either an actual governmental judicial organization or a private group, that has actual evidence they wish to present, I have no problem with that.
The point is that with their impressive sounding name, the ITTC news release regarding meetings with the Italian president appears to have some sort of substance. However, regardless what wonderful motives they may have, it now appears that their claim of a papal/presidential meeting is simply something they invented out of their own wishful thinking.
Actual information? Bring it out. Manufactured outrage with invented stories? meh
One word: Philadelphia.
Oh, and the hat. Whoops, that’s more than one word… I’ll come in again.