# Joey the Rat (aka Benedict XVI) and His Latin American Fairytale **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 15, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234 "2007-05-15T20:58:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/1 "2007-05-15T20:58:48Z")
Y’know, even in my early-1960s elementary-school education about the discovery of America, the textbooks didn’t bother to hide the fact that the Spanish conquest of Latin America was a story of swords, slaughter, and slavery. Pope Joey the Rat (i.e. Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger) [re-tells the story as follows](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070513_conference-aparecida_en.html) (words his, bolding mine): > [@](#): > > 1. The Christian faith in Latin America > > Faith in God has animated the life and culture of these nations for more than five centuries. From the encounter between that faith and the indigenous peoples, there has emerged the rich Christian culture of this Continent, expressed in art, music, literature, and above all, in the religious traditions and in the peoples’ whole way of being, united as they are by a shared history and a shared creed that give rise to a great underlying harmony, despite the diversity of cultures and languages. At present, this same faith has some serious challenges to address, because the harmonious development of society and the Catholic identity of these peoples are in jeopardy. In this regard, the Fifth General Conference is preparing to reflect upon this situation, in order to help the Christian faithful to live their faith with joy and coherence, to deepen their awareness of being disciples and missionaries of Christ, sent by him into the world to proclaim and to bear witness to our faith and love. > > **Yet what did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions.** Christ is the Saviour for whom they were silently longing. It also meant that they received, in the waters of Baptism, the divine life that made them children of God by adoption; moreover, they received the Holy Spirit who came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them and developing the numerous seeds that the incarnate Word had planted in them, thereby guiding them along the paths of the Gospel. In effect, **the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture.** Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, but they are open, or better still, they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, **hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life and with elements that can lead to a new synthesis, in which the diversity of expressions is always respected as well as the diversity of their particular cultural embodiment.** > > Ultimately, it is only the truth that can bring unity, and **the proof of this is love**. That is why Christ, being in truth the incarnate Logos, “love to the end”, is not alien to any culture, nor to any person; on the contrary, the response that he seeks in the heart of cultures is what gives them their ultimate identity, **uniting humanity and at the same time respecting the wealth of diversity, opening people everywhere to growth in genuine humanity** , in authentic progress. The Word of God, in becoming flesh in Jesus Christ, also became history and culture. > > The Utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbian religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal Church, would not be a step forward: indeed, it would be a step back. In reality, it would be a retreat towards a stage in history anchored in the past. > > **The wisdom of the indigenous peoples fortunately led them to form a synthesis between their cultures and the Christian faith which the missionaries were offering them.** Hence the rich and profound popular religiosity, in which we see the soul of the Latin American peoples: > > ``` > - love for the suffering Christ, the God of compassion, pardon and reconciliation; the God who loved us to the point of handing himself over for us; > - love for the Lord present in the Eucharist, the incarnate God, dead and risen in order to be the bread of life; > - the God who is close to the poor and to those who suffer; > - the profound devotion to the most holy Virgin of Guadalupe, the Aparecida, the Virgin invoked under various national and local titles. When the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to the native Indian Saint Juan Diego, she spoke these important words to him: “Am I not your mother? Are you not under my shadow and my gaze? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not sheltered underneath my mantle, under the embrace of my arms?” (Nican Mopohua, nos. 118-119). > > ``` > > This religiosity is also expressed in devotion to the saints with their patronal feasts, in love for the Pope and the other Pastors, and in love for the universal Church as the great family of God, that neither can nor ever should leave her children alone or destitute. All this forms the great mosaic of popular piety which is the precious treasure of the Catholic Church in Latin America, and must be protected, promoted and, when necessary, **purified**. Yeah: the Conquistadores and the missionaries showed up one day, and they and the Aztecs, Incas, etc. had a warm and pleasant cultural exchange, in which the native peoples welcomed the Good News of Christ, and peacefully welcomed the Gospel, and those other aspects of Western culture they felt worthwhile, into their own culture. At no point did anybody _impose_ anything on anyone. Just sweetness and light all around. It’s not quite Holocaust denial - I’m sure some Vatican spokesman will step out to say the Holy Father isn’t claiming that nothing bad happened when the Spanish and Portuguese came to the Americas - but he’s sweeping pretty much the entire essence of the 15th and 16th century European-American encounters under the rug, and sprinkling the rug with sugar. Isn’t there a commandment about bearing false witness? Joey, you are truly vermin in Pope’s robes. I feel sorry for all the perfectly decent Catholics who have to put up with a slimeball like you as their putative leader. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/2 "2007-05-15T21:00:45Z")
Pope glorifies Christianity news at 11. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/3 "2007-05-15T21:36:01Z")
Not supporting the Conquistadores or anything, but the Aztecs _needed_ destroying. Good riddance. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/4 "2007-05-15T22:01:13Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Pope glorifies Christianity news at 11. [/QUOTE] There’s a difference between glorifying and whitewashing, though. It’s not like he couldn’t be honest about some bad shit from _five centuries ago_, at least to the point of making passing mention of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/5 "2007-05-15T22:33:05Z")
The pope – any pope – is committed to the idea that Christianity is **universal,** the One True Faith for **all** people regardless of cultural background. You can’t reasonably expect him to do anything less than glorify the conversion of non-Christians to the faith, at whatever cost to their lives or their indigenous culture. If nice ol’ JPII had made a speech on the subject – would it have been any different? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/6 "2007-05-15T22:37:26Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Not supporting the Conquistadores or anything, but the Aztecs _needed_ destroying. Good riddance. [/QUOTE] That’s as may be, but within a decade after the Spanish conquest, war, slavery and disease had reduced the population of Mexico by an estimated nine-tenths. (Source: [_The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition,_](http://www.amazon.com/City-Mind-Notes-Urban-Condition/dp/0743227239/ref=sr_1_4/104-9877726-4934363?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179268577&sr=1-4) by James Howard Kunstler, in the chapter on Mexico City – a chapter which emphatically does **not** defend or sentimentalize the Aztec culture.) ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/7 "2007-05-15T23:22:10Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Isn’t there a commandment about bearing false witness? Joey, you are truly vermin in Pope’s robes. I feel sorry for all the perfectly decent Catholics who have to put up with a slimeball like you as their putative leader. [/QUOTE] Maybe I’m brainwashed, but I wasn’t getting that vibe at all from his speech. He was focussing on the benefits of the Latin America region accepting Christ, not giving a historical lecture on the brutal actions of the Conquistadors. Why should he have to make a disclaimer in his speech to the point that, “yes I know what happened was terrible and the missionaries often did terrible terrible things.” That wasn’t the point of the speech in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/8 "2007-05-16T00:16:17Z")
That as may be, but the Church has been a force of much opposition to the slaughter that goes on even now in Latin America-Oscar Romero, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/9 "2007-05-16T00:26:06Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] That as may be, but the Church has been a force of much opposition to the slaughter that goes on even now in Latin America-Oscar Romero, anyone? [/QUOTE] Somehow, I’m not expecting Oscar Martyr to be canonized during the current papal reign. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/10 "2007-05-16T00:47:35Z")
**RTFirefly** Should they canonize the oppression that occurred during that time? Not ever talk about the positive aspects of the religion? From now on should every speech a pope ever gives be an apology to people who died before he was born? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/11 "2007-05-16T01:42:28Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. The Christian faith in Latin America > > Faith in God has animated the life and culture of these nations for more than five centuries. From the encounter between that faith and the indigenous peoples, there has emerged the rich Christian culture of this Continent, expressed in art, music, literature, and above all, in the religious traditions and in the peoples’ whole way of being, united as they are by a shared history and a shared creed that give rise to a great underlying harmony, despite the diversity of cultures and languages. At present, this same faith has some serious challenges to address, because the harmonious development of society and the Catholic identity of these peoples are in jeopardy. In this regard, the Fifth General Conference is preparing to reflect upon this situation, in order to help the Christian faithful to live their faith with joy and coherence, to deepen their awareness of being disciples and missionaries of Christ, sent by him into the world to proclaim and to bear witness to our faith and love. > > Yet what did the acceptance of the Christian faith mean for the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean? For them, it meant knowing and welcoming Christ, the unknown God whom their ancestors were seeking, without realizing it, in their rich religious traditions. Christ is the Saviour for whom they were silently longing. It also meant that they received, in the waters of Baptism, the divine life that made them children of God by adoption; moreover, they received the Holy Spirit who came to make their cultures fruitful, purifying them and developing the numerous seeds that the incarnate Word had planted in them, thereby guiding them along the paths of the Gospel. In effect, the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbian cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture. Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, but they are open, or better still, they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life and with elements that can lead to a new synthesis, in which the diversity of expressions is always respected as well as the diversity of their particular cultural embodiment. > > Ultimately, it is only the truth that can bring unity, and the proof of this is love. That is why Christ, being in truth the incarnate Logos, “love to the end”, is not alien to any culture, nor to any person; on the contrary, the response that he seeks in the heart of cultures is what gives them their ultimate identity, uniting humanity and at the same time respecting the wealth of diversity, opening people everywhere to growth in genuine humanity, in authentic progress. The Word of God, in becoming flesh in Jesus Christ, also became history and culture. > > The Utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbian religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal Church, would not be a step forward: indeed, it would be a step back. In reality, it would be a retreat towards a stage in history anchored in the past. > > The wisdom of the indigenous peoples fortunately led them to form a synthesis between their cultures and the Christian faith which the missionaries were offering them. Hence the rich and profound popular religiosity, in which we see the soul of the Latin American peoples: > > - love for the suffering Christ, the God of compassion, pardon and reconciliation; the God who loved us to the point of handing himself over for us; > - love for the Lord present in the Eucharist, the incarnate God, dead and risen in order to be the bread of life; > - the God who is close to the poor and to those who suffer; > - the profound devotion to the most holy Virgin of Guadalupe, the Aparecida, the Virgin invoked under various national and local titles. When the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to the native Indian Saint Juan Diego, she spoke these important words to him: “Am I not your mother? Are you not under my shadow and my gaze? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not sheltered underneath my mantle, under the embrace of my arms?” (Nican Mopohua, nos. 118-119). > > This religiosity is also expressed in devotion to the saints with their patronal feasts, in love for the Pope and the other Pastors, and in love for the universal Church as the great family of God, that neither can nor ever should leave her children alone or destitute. All this forms the great mosaic of popular piety which is the precious treasure of the Catholic Church in Latin America, and must be protected, promoted and, when necessary, purified. He learned this in the Hitler Youth Summer Ethnic Fest. Oh, yeah, that beautiful purification! With fire! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/12 "2007-05-16T01:43:49Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] He learned this in the Hitler Youth Summer Ethnic Fest. Oh, yeah, that beautiful purification! With fire! [/QUOTE] Ever heard of the Prophecy of St. Malachy? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/13 "2007-05-16T01:54:16Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] That as may be, but the Church has been a force of much opposition to the slaughter that goes on even now in Latin America-Oscar Romero, anyone? [/QUOTE] Leftist priests have been politically muzzled by the church since about 1980. Father Drinan, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/14 "2007-05-16T02:00:19Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Pope Joey the Rat (i.e. Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger) . [/QUOTE] Fuck you, asshole. And, even though it is sooooo anti-PC, I agree 100% with silenus. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/15 "2007-05-16T02:05:50Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Ever heard of the Prophecy of St. Malachy? [/QUOTE] [This](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecies_of_St_Malachy#Petrus_Romanus) one? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/16 "2007-05-16T02:12:50Z")
Rodent references aside, **RT** has a point about the whitewashing of Latin American history by the Pope. It should be possible to refer to beneficent aspects of Christianity without completely overlooking the devastation accompanying its introduction into the region. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/17 "2007-05-16T02:37:30Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Not supporting the Conquistadores or anything, but the Aztecs _needed_ destroying. Good riddance. [/QUOTE] Only because they had no root beer, though… ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/18 "2007-05-16T02:37:52Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] [This](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecies_of_St_Malachy#Petrus_Romanus) one? [/QUOTE] Yeah, that’s the one. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/19 "2007-05-16T04:42:42Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] And, even though it is sooooo anti-PC, I agree 100% with silenus. 🆒 [/QUOTE] I’m not sure I get the apparent personal animosity from **silenus** and **DrDeth** towards the Aztecs. Did the Aztecs kill you guys’ dogs? Or did you get thrown off campus at San Diego State University in a panty raid gone awry? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2007, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234/20 "2007-05-16T04:51:57Z")
I think they’re objecting to the [human sacrifice thingy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture), although AFAICT the Aztecs were not unique among Mesoamericans in that regard. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joey-the-rat-aka-benedict-xvi-and-his-latin-american-fairytale/404234.md?page=2)