The wartime past of Pope Benedict XVI threatened to overwhelm his peace mission to the Holy Land as the Vatican issued a denial that the pontiff had served in the Hitler Youth.
“The Pope has said he never, never was a member of the Hitler Youth, which was a movement of fanatical volunteers,” Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said — contradicting statements the Pope has himself made about his involvement with the group. The Vatican denial came as Benedict’s trip sank deeper in controversy and recrimination, eclipsing the message of peace and reconciliation he has been pushing during his pilgrimage
Mr Lombardi said the Pope, as Joseph Ratzinger, a 16-year-old seminarian, served in an auxiliary air defence squadron “that had nothing to do with Nazism or Nazi ideology”. Venting frustration with the relentless focus on the Pope’s war years — a highly sensitive subject on a visit to the Jewish state — Mr Lombardi insisted that the Pope “never was in this movement of young people ideologically linked to Nazism”. The spokesman said that he felt compelled to respond “to the lies written by the media here and internationally”.
However, in a series of interviews in the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, the Pope, then still a cardinal, said that he had been drafted into the Hitler Youth, like so many other young Germans.
“When the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young but later, as a seminarian, I was registered in the HY. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back,” he said at the time.
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sorry mate, before you start your rantings against the Pope, you should get your facts right. like many other people, you get your facts from the media, which you by should know, it's a brainwash. how many times do you read the Pope's speech? how many times do you try to understand the Pope's motivations? do you even know what's behind the Pope's trip to the middle east? of course you don't, my friend. unfortunately, you and many people don't know nothing about the Pope or the Catholic Church and therefore all you do is undermining it...that's exactly what the illuminati wants and the media as well.
ReplyDeletesad to see someone who says he's seeking the truth, but in the end, he's just brainwashed by the media...
worst than this is the fact that you ate contributing for others to be deceived and braiwashed !!!
Luis, I take it therefore that you are a committed catholic?
ReplyDeleteThe catholic church and religion in general have been the perpetrators of some of the biggest lies and oppression of humanity thoughout the ages. Stealing the wealth of the masses, keeping them in fear, performing torture and committing acts of war all in the name of your GOD. Your Priests committ unbounded abuse of children in particlual and society in general and then try to cover it up to maintain your power and wealth. so don't try and lecture me on being brainwashed, it's the sheeple who believe in your version of the one being and the control you try and maintain theough your dogma that is one of the core scourges of humanity!