# Pope Ratzi **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 19, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086 "2005-04-19T17:22:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/141 "2005-04-19T20:38:04Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I don’t believe your friends, by the way. Celibate my ass. **Dio** thinks self-control is impossible? Stunner. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/142 "2005-04-19T20:39:14Z")
Perhaps you don’t know that I’m gay, **fiercesheep**. Or maybe you’re unaware of the pronouncements from the church that I’m part of a anti-family culture of death because of that fact. It could be that you are unaware of the Church’s insistence that [same-sex](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html) relationships are an attack on marriage and that adoption by gays does violence to the kids. > [@](#): > > IV. POSITIONS OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS > WITH REGARD TO LEGISLATION IN FAVOUR > OF HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS > > 1. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favour of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications. > > When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral. > > When legislation in favour of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, “could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality”, on condition that his “absolute personal opposition” to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided. This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment. Fuck the church. ---
**Author:** ![Aagramn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Aagramn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aagramn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/143 "2005-04-19T20:39:57Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I find it hard to blame the Catholic Church for AIDS in Africa. AIDS is the problem it is there because people are poor and uneducated, not because they are Catholic. And they are poor and uneducated because of the despotic governments there. If a guy is going to have extramarital sex, often with a prostitute, I doubt that the Church’s position on condom usage is an issue. Part of the reason that they are uneducated is because the Catholic church is opposed to the use of contraception. It is a considerable barrier to the social acceptance of safe sex. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/144 "2005-04-19T20:40:58Z")
By the way, Joseph Card. Ratzinger was the _Prefect_ for that piece of work. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/145 "2005-04-19T20:41:26Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Oh yes, there is. Read that CCC excerpt that **stpauler** so kindly presented us. If you aren’t doing it at least in part with the intention of conceiving, you’re violating the teachings of Mother Church. Thank you - I am extremely familiar with the Cathecism. There is no requirement that there be any intent of conceiving. Period. “Good, sweaty fun” can be the only motivation for sex. The only requirement is that there be no artificial barriers to conception. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/146 "2005-04-19T20:42:15Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > I’m not blaming the Church for AIDS. I simply want people to stop blaming the disease on extramartial sex with prostitutes and waving off any solution; because it goes against Church rules, especially when he could have just as easy gotten it from blood on an immunization injection, still go home and infect his wife. > > What’s the answer for that? Someone tell me the answer, cause all I see is a bunch of guys claiming to believe in the Word, casing judgements on people they shouldn’t be judging. You may not be, but others sure seem to think there is a connection. Why is AIDS even a subject in a thread about the Pope…? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/147 "2005-04-19T20:42:50Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > You know if religion didn’t exist, the Pit would be pretty damn quiet. Like Depeche Mode, I would “enjoy the silence”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/148 "2005-04-19T20:44:56Z")
On the plus side, for people who don’t like this guy, he gives a lot of targets: his last name has “Rat” in it, and his Papal name has both “dic” and “sic” in it. So everybody who’s unhappy is happy, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/149 "2005-04-19T20:45:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You’re absolutely right. If everyone listened to the Church’s teachings on sexual morality, there would not be an AIDS crisis, or at least, it would be vastly reduced. Here’s the thing: **nobody is listening.** They haven’t listened in the past, they aren’t listening right now, and they aren’t going to start listening any time real soon. Stupid question: If they aren’t listening regarding abstinence, why would we think they will listen regarding condoms? FWIW, I think the church made a poor choice, but am intregued by **Andros\_X** ’ hypothesis. If the church is going to survive, it needs to attract more priests. It is loosing ground in Central America to protestant sects which have many, many more ministers to spread around than there are priests. One big way to fix this would be to allow priests to marry and women to become priests. Does anyone know **Pope Benny** ’s position on these issues? ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/150 "2005-04-19T20:47:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Thank you - I am extremely familiar with the Cathecism. > > There is no requirement that there be any intent of conceiving. Period. “Good, sweaty fun” can be the only motivation for sex. > > The only requirement is that there be no artificial barriers to conception. Isn’t there another requirement about not “spilling your seed”? Oh, and I don’t see this mentioned as of yet: [Joseph Ratzinger is a former Hitler Youth](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html) > [@](#): > > The Sunday Times - World > > 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 enforcer”, “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.” > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/151 "2005-04-19T20:50:21Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#): > > That aside, I think that what it boils down to for a lot of people is that we have trouble understanding how the Catholic Church, with all of its vast resources, is not doing everything that it can do and spreading all of the knowledge that we have to save lives. Because the Catholic Church, as a matter of doctrine, believes that condom use is evil. And they also believe that doing something that’s evil, even if it’s to prevent something else that’s evil, isn’t a moral act. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/152 "2005-04-19T20:52:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I know a man who claims it’s impossible for him to be monogamous. He loves his girlfriend, but he can’t stay faithful to her. He loved his ex-fiance, but couldn’t stay faithful to her. > > Is it inhumane and cruel to demand fidelity of him? Firstly, this is a disingenuous question. Asking a person not to cause pain in a sexual relationship is not the same as demanding that person deny himself any sexual partners or love relationships at all. It is exceedingly cruel to to tell a person that his or her yearning for an emotional partner is evil and that he/she must remain alone. It is NOT cruel to ask people to be responsible _within_ those relationships and to avoid lying or causing undue pain in others. Having said that, if all partners are aware and accepting of the circumstances, then I think it would be _unfair_ to demand monogamy in a person who doesn’t feel capable of it. To me, the sin of infidelity is the emotional betrayal, not the sex itself. If there is no betrayal, there is no harm. I wouldn’t call it cruel or inhumane to the same degree as asking gay people to be celiebate because I think that denying _all_ love relationships and asking a person to remain alone in his life is tangibly more hurtful and causes more pain than asking a person to limit his love relationships to one person at a time. It’s the difference between telling a man dying of thirst that he can’t have any water and telling a man who already has one bottle of water that he can’t have a second. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/153 "2005-04-19T20:53:48Z")
> [@furt](#): > > **Dio** thinks self-control is impossible? Stunner. There is a monumental difference between “self control” and complete denial of one’s human need for sexual intimacy and the longing for physical relations with a person whom you love. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/154 "2005-04-19T20:58:01Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > Oh, and I don’t see this mentioned as of yet: > > [Joseph Ratzinger is a former Hitler Youth](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1572667,00.html) Even within your own cite, that is dismissed as meaningless. It wasn’t like joining the Boy Scouts or something. The Hitler Youth was not a volunteer organization. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/155 "2005-04-19T20:59:17Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Because the Catholic Church, as a matter of doctrine, believes that condom use is evil. And they also believe that doing something that’s evil, even if it’s to prevent something else that’s evil, isn’t a moral act. Which contradicts the teachings of Jesus by placing the sterility of written law above both practicality and compassion. Jesus made a point of breaking laws to serve a greater good. It was “evil” for him to heal on the Sabbath, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/156 "2005-04-19T20:59:57Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > Even within your own cite, that is dismissed as meaningless. It wasn’t like joining the Boy Scouts or something. The Hitler Youth was not a volunteer organization. Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t say it was meaningful then, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/157 "2005-04-19T21:00:10Z")
> [@spectrum](#): > > There is a monumental difference between “self control” and complete denial of one’s human need for sexual intimacy and the longing for physical relations with a person whom you love. If that need is stronger than than your belief that the Church is, in fact, the true Church established by Christ and teaches infalliably on faith and morals… then you probably shouldn’t be a Catholic. I don’t see what’s so complicated about this. If you believe that the Church is, in fact, the true Church established by Christ and teaches infalliably on faith and morals, then you must conform your desires to the path taught by that Church. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/158 "2005-04-19T21:00:45Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t say it was meaningful then, isn’t it? Then why post it if you thought it had no meaning? ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/159 "2005-04-19T21:01:46Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > Then why post it if you thought it had no meaning? Hmm, because it might be of interest to someone. Besides, I wanted the Godwin trophy. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086/160 "2005-04-19T21:02:37Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > Even within your own cite, that is dismissed as meaningless. It wasn’t like joining the Boy Scouts or something. The Hitler Youth was not a volunteer organization. Others objected to the cause and were willing to stand up for it. > [@](#): > > 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 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pope-ratzi/300086.md?page=9)