are Catholics anti-semitist?

Question

then why electing an ex-Nazi as Pope?

Answer 1

That Benedict guy cannot be regarded quite a zealous anti-semit but he sure is a racist.

His election was in fact a signal to the Catholic world (who faitfully believe that the Pope is unmistakable) that a new Crusade is launched.

The Church once again (as did in 1930s) wants the Sarazen's blood and an ex-Nazi is the right guy for the job.

Answer 2

Some Catholics may be anti-Semites, just as some non-Catholics are.

What is your basis for saying that Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) is, or ever was, a Nazi?

That he was in the Hitler Youth when he was a boy? Membership in that organization was REQUIRED, sir. Turning it down was not an option -- and mandatory membership didn't automatically turn boys into Nazis.

That he's from Germany? Isn't that a bit prejudiced and racist against Germans -- to say that someone is a Nazi (or an ex-Nazi) just because he's from Germany?

Either way, your assertation that Benedict is (or was) a Nazi is flat-out wrong. That's a fact, not an opinion.

Answer 3

Catholics are not anti-semitist and the Pope is not an ex-Nazi. He was forced to join Hitler Youth against his will. He even had family that were killed by the Nazi's. He is not or was not a Nazi. Also, Catholics don't "elect" the Pope, the bishops handle that so its not like there was an official ballot and he campaigned and all the Catholic people of the world got together and voted.

Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth as membership was legally required after December 1936. According to one of Ratzinger's biographers, the National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen, he was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings. His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, because he believed it was in conflict with their faith. In 1941 one of Ratzinger's cousins with Down syndrome was killed by the Nazi regime. In 1943, when he was 16, Ratzinger was drafted with many of his classmates into the Luftwaffenhelfer (Air Force Auxiliary) programme. After his class was released from the Corps in September 1944, Ratzinger was put to work setting up anti-tank defences in the Hungarian border area of Austria in preparation for the expected Red Army offensive. He was eventually drafted into the German army at Munich to receive basic infantry training in the nearby town of Traunstein. His unit served at various posts around the city and was never sent to the front. Ratzinger was briefly interned in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp near Ulm and was repatriated on June 19, 1945. The family was reunited when his brother, Georg, returned after being repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy.

Answer 4

First of all, Catholics are NOT anti-semitist. Catholicism sort of sprouted out of Judaism, and you can ask any good Catholic: We don't hate Jews.
Secondly, the Nazis had a way of forcing you to join the army. Not all Nazis were there voluntarily.

Mysia- The Pope didn't decide that there isn't a Purgatory; he decided there isn't a "limbo". Limbo isn't Purgatory, it's when someone like a still-born baby (who hasn't yet been baptised or sinned) dies, then they supposedly went to Limbo. Purgatory is where we go through a "cleansing process" (atonement for our sins) on the way to Heaven.

Answer 5

Pope Benedict XVI was never a Nazi. Unless you group everyone living in the the countries ruled by Nazis as Nazis.

Do you call everyone in the U.S. a Republican because the President is one?

Rabbi David Rosen, the international director of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, said the choice of Ratzinger as Pope would bring continuity to Catholic-Jewish relations. “He has a deep commitment to this issue. And his own national background makes him sensitive to the dangers of anti-Semitism and the importance of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation,” Rosen said.

Here is a biography of the Pope by a Jewish organization that does not call him a Nazi: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Ratzinger.html

With love in Christ.

Answer 6

Catholics are christians and they believe in exhile of people who do not believe in similar views to their own. They elected a nazi pope to send a message to jews that they still had not won their freedom. Personally it is quite pitiful to hate a whole group of people based on one difference and it is a rather insignificant difference at that

Answer 7

I'm Catholic and I'm not anti-very much. Pretty open minded really.

And I didn't vote for him (even if I could have :p).

Personally I'm still wondering how he can just decide one day "There's no purgatory" :p

Answer 8

He was also head of the Church office that published the forbidden book list.
So far so good though... let's give him the benefit of the doubt.