is it true the Pope was once in an organisation supporting Nazis?

Question

our relgion teacher who is a FORMER nun......told us this then went on to say that everyone makes mistakes????

SURELY the POPE who is the closest thing on earth to GOD didnt once support HITLER????? who murdered thousands of innocent people??


i hope this isnt true can anyone tell me?

thanks guys x

so, should i still believe in the Pope? did he do bad things?? i dont know wether to support him now.........?

Answer 1

yes he was - in a different time and i a different era - during the reign of hitler and start of the nazi-ism he had to become a member of the hitler youth - kids then didn't have choices like kids today. ta lot of the kids inthe program didnt support hitler and got out as soon as they either found a way or could.

Answer 2

This is really something that gets on my nerves these days. The unforgiving, unsure, unintelligent (no offence) western culture that we seem to live in today.

You believe in a religon that preaches forgivness, loving your enemy, and turning the other cheek. DO IT THEN!

Hitler indocridated people into his way of thinking, he brainwashed, terrified, bullied and manipulated people into doing all kinds of horrific things. I don't know much about the Pope, but if he once was a member of a group supporting Nazism, then I am not going to hold it against him.

He like thousands of others was taken in by Hitler's lies, but the fact that he is now POPE should show you that he obviously repents, and regrets what he did. No matter how terrible a sin, no-one should be beyond redemption...Surley you know this?

It doesn't matter wether he was or wasn't. He is the Pope for a reason, that reason being that he has shown utter devotion to God and love to all of his creations. If the Vatican don't hold it against him, I doubt you should.

*Edit*
Ok so apparently he was a member of the Hitler youth. If you had any knowledge of history at all then you would know what that involved. Brainwashing young kids before they had any chance to develope, indocridation...They were like robots by the time he was finished with them. Also joining the Hitler youth became mandatory after a few years of Hitler's reign, therefore the Pope would have had no choice, but to go along...

He was forced, he obviously doesn'y agree with it know. Please find it within your heart to forgive this man for living in a country that was under the most vicious dictatorship modern history has ever seen, and for adearing to it's rules instead of loosing his life.

Answer 3

sure and no. He joined the HJ in 1941, and went on to operate an anti-plane gun at a BMW plant later contained in the warfare. He became certainly an lively soldier contained in the German military throughout the time of international warfare 2. no doubt about that. He has suggested so himself. became he a Nazi? No way. He did not position self assurance in contained in the Nazi time table. His relations became forced to flow various situations even as he became youthful because of their resistance to the Nazi party. quite a lot each and every white youngster between 10 and 14 in Germany throughout the time of that aspect became in contact contained in the HJ. It became surely needed. You were both HJ or a instantly up resistance fighter. Which got here with a lifespan measured in days not years. Now question me if i imagine he's a effective guy or a good human being. Nope. in basic terms not a Nazi.

Answer 4

no he was not, he was a member of the hitler youth movement at a time before hitler became the meglomanic dictator that he later emerged to be.
this movement was akin to the boy scouts movement i.e ,a healthy boys adventure, as hitler became more and of a war monger many left this movement including pope benedict and many too like him entered the seminary.
your former nun (teacher) needs to do a little revision.

Answer 5

As far as I have heard he was a member of the Nazi youth. Also, Pope Pius during the war supported Hitler, which was one reason why the Vatican was never touched, and they have evidence that many of the Nazi war criminals got to South America on Vatican passports. It makes sense. Hitler was only doing what his predecessors has done. Killing everyone that didn't say their prayers in Latin.

Answer 6

He was a member of the Hitler Youth. But in Nazi Germany you had to join it was forced upon you. But popey hates jews Hitler hated jews all relay for the same reason that they killed some magician 2,000 years ago. This religion malarkey has just gotten out of hand it has to stop. Say no to jesus.

Answer 7

I believe his family ran from such organizations and he was a priest early on his life. If it is true look at the apostles they were
not your model citizens in the day yet look how their lives turned around very often the lord choose people who are lowly so we become a witness to that change that God could have only changed

Answer 8

The pope grew up in Germany. He was drafted against his will for the Hitler Youth program. He ran away as soon as he could, not wanting to fight for the side that was killing innocent people and slaughtering Jews. He gave his life for Christ and has never hid his past. IT's public knowledge, if you care to look it up.

Also found this:

Was Cardinal Ratzinger a Nazi?
Good grief. No, Virginia, Cardinal Ratzinger was not a Nazi.

The Ratzinger Fan Club normally doesn't indulge in the muck and mire of such rumors, but you'd be suprised how many people write inquiring about this malicious rumor.


The story that Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth is true. It's a biographical fact that seems to have circulated on many a mailing list, and seems to surface at precisely opportune times when the Prefect finds himself in the media's spotlight. From the way it has been presented, one might assume this is one of those skeletons the Cardinal keeps tucked away in his closet (next to his executioner's axe and the token heads of Hans Kung, Matthew Fox, Leonardo Boff & Charles Curran).

The truth is that as Ratzinger mentions himself in Milestones: Memoirs: 1927 - 1977, he and his brother George were both enrolled in the Hitler Youth (at a time when membership was compulsory), and discusses family life under the Third Reich in chapters 2-4 of his autobiography.

Likewise, John Allen Jr., journalist for the National Catholic Reporter and author of 2002's biography of the Cardinal The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, -- supplies the historical details sorely lacking in one of his many articles on the Cardinal ("The Vatican's Enforcer", National Catholic Reporter, April 16, 1999):

As a seminarian, he was briefly enrolled in the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s, though he was never a member of the Nazi party. In 1943 he was conscripted into an antiaircraft unit guarding a BMW plant outside Munich. Later Ratzinger was sent to Austria's border with Hungary to erect tank traps. After being shipped back to Bavaria, he deserted. When the war ended, he was an American prisoner of war.

Under Hitler, Ratzinger says he watched the Nazis twist and distort the truth. Their lies about Jews, about genetics, were more than academic exercises. People died by the millions because of them. The church's service to society, Ratzinger concluded, is to stand for absolute truths that function as boundary markers: Move about within these limits, but outside them lies disaster.

Later reflection on the Nazi experience also left Ratzinger with a conviction that theology must either bind itself to the church, with its creed and teaching authority, or it becomes the plaything of outside forces -- the state in a totalitarian system or secular culture in Western liberal democracies. In a widely noted 1986 lecture in Toronto, Ratzinger put it this way: "A church without theology impoverishes and blinds, while a churchless theology melts away into caprice."



See also:



Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't Believe It! by Sam Ser. Jerusalem Post April 18, 2005 - written in response to an article that appeared in the Sunday Times (London) on April 17, 2005.

Commentary: Benedict abused as 'nazi pope', by Uwe Siemon-Netto. UPI Religious Affairs Editor. April 23, 2005. A critical look at the latest liberal hysteria over this issue.

New Pope Defied Nazis As Teen During WWII, by the Assoc. Press. New York Times April 23, 2005.

Jewish leaders say pope's past cause for optimism, not concern, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. June 13, 2005.



For more details of the Cardinal's life, click here.

http://www.popebenedictxvifanclub.com/faq.html

Answer 9

he was made to join hitler youth, wasn't his fault. "SURELY the POPE who is the closest thing on earth to GOD" the pope is NOT, he is just the same as every other man, everyone is equal when it comes to God.

Answer 10

It's true. Any search engine will give you results on this. Just take the time to punch it in and educate yourself.
Love & Light
Sharon
One Planet = One People