a triumph of rebranding

[kindkit]

So, the Catholic Church has gone from a pope who joined the Hitler Youth as a young man in order to get a scholarship to attend the seminary, to one who was actively complicit in the murders committed by the Argentinian military regime of the 1970s and early 1980s. He not only turned a blind eye to the murder of liberal priests, but reportedly hid political prisoners in his holiday home so that they couldn't be found by an international human rights commission.

But hey, he's named himself "Francis," so he must be all right really!


(Also, his much-touted "support for single mothers" consists of having reprimanded some Argentinian priests for refusing baptism to infants whose parents weren't married. I'm not a theologian, but I don't see how reprimanding what sounds like an obvious theological error [punishing children for their parents' sins] constitutes "support" or any kind of progressivism.)

I'm appalled that the mainstream media coverage, including that in the Guardian (which I read yesterday and which gave me five minutes of thinking "he might not be so bad") has omitted so much of crucial importance. I guess their critical faculties have been dazzled away by visions of dear St. Francis of Assisi surrounded by cute animals.

Comments

[hagsrus]

Watching the stories come and go courtesy of Sully http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/

[mergatrude]

Given the generation of men they've got in the pool and the selection process for Cardinals, there was little chance they'd find someone who wasn't an utter bastard for some reason or other.

/reason #2985703487509283475 I left the church yonks ago.

[kindkit]

I agree, but there's "utter bastard" and then there's "war criminal." (Which isn't exactly the right term, because what happened in Argentina wasn't a war, but if there's a word for "someone who is complicit in the politically-motivated torture and murder of thousands of their fellow citizens," I don't know what it is.)

[mergatrude]

It must have been only ten minutes after I posted my comment that I had a long chat with one of the academic staff here who hails from that region. He said he was completely unsurprised that the first thing that arose after F1's appointment was his alleged complicity in the activities of the junta. His attitude was that there was definitely a split in the Catholic church at the time between those who actively resisted the regime and those who...didn't. And that with those who didn't, it's not easy to tell who were supporting the regime, those who were just keeping their heads down, and those who were working behind the scenes to protect people. He said there have been claims that F1's involvement led to the exposure of at least two Jesuit priests who were arrested, but that equally, there are people who insist the wouldn't be alive if it weren't for F1's intervention. He feels we are unlikely to ever learn the whole truth. But whatever may be the case, F1 is still conservative, misogynist, homophobic, etc, etc. And the kind of work for the poor these people do enforce rather than resolve the conditions of poverty (for their own aggrandizement *cough* Mother Theresa *cough*) (oversimplification,I know, but *shrugs*).

[(Anonymous)]

I believe joining the Hitler Youth was mandatory.

-mllesatine

[kindkit]

Some people refused. Ratzinger didn't.

If we were talking about an ordinary person, I wouldn't judge them for that. I certainly don't know if I would have the courage to resist in such circumstances.

But we're talking about the (ex-)pope, the man whose title was His Holiness, the spiritual leader of millions, whose very office required him to be a moral authority. Someone in that position needs to have shown more moral courage than ordinary people, and he didn't.