It's a sad day when the current leader of the global Catholic Church still lives with his head in the sand. As others have said, he is not so much a conservative, as he is a reactionary. Of course, this blogger is not Catholic, nor do we believe in any kind of supernatural deity of any organized religion, and we certainly don't believe in some kid called Jesus or this Jewish hocus-pocus stuff called "the messiah". It's just here, folks, on Planet Earth, doing this best with our native intelliegence and evolving DNA. So the pope is not really the representative of anybody or anything, unless you want to see he is the representative or symobl of human's Dark Ages of Superstition.
Meanwhile, here is what some non-superstitious members of the Human Blogosphere are saying about Bene-Dick-tum the 16th:
0.1 Headline "The new Pope"
Okay, it's none of my business, really. He's not my Pope. But Ratzinger? A doctrinal hard-liner? What a lost opportunity. At a time when the deveoped countries are seen as stomping all over the third world via globalization and the heavy-handed behavior of multinationals, the choice of a third-world Pope, or a social liberal, or both, could have been a strong humanistic statement. It also could have gone far toward rejuvenating the Church, which has been -- on the ground, not from Rome -- a force for social justice in many parts of the world, and whose numbers are seriously slipping. Instead, they've chosen a man whose focus is strict doctrinal interpretation. Are they trying to fight fundamentalism with fundamentalism? I see this choice as doing nothing to bring back to the Church people driven away by scandals and the perceived lack of relevance of the Chruch to the day-to-day issues of people's lives. It seems to me this will, if anything, only increase that perception. Oh, well. It's hard to fight the zeitgeist, and hidebound fundamentalism does seem to be the order of the day.
0.2 So how does B-16 see other religions? Good questions.
He sees them as inferior and lacking.
Note: In 1997, Ratzinger called Buddhism an “auto-erotic spirituality”[Benny! Stop masturbating beneath your cloak!] that offers “transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations.”
Hinduism, he said, offers “false hope,” [and yes, Xianity offers true hope, sure, Benny!] in that it guarantees “purification” based on a “morally cruel” concept of reincarnation resembling “a continuous circle of hell.”[And Jesus on the bloody cross is an improvement, you imposter and fraud you!]
At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger, now B-16, predicted that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic church's main enemy.
QUOTE: “Ratzinger is being falsely described as a conservative, when in fact he, despite his publicly genteel manner, is a raging reactionary. Unlike many American conservatives who oppose gay sexual practices but not their legal rights, Ratzinger in 1992 argued against human rights for gays, stressing that their civil liberties could be ‘legitimately limited.’”
0.3 Pope Ratzinger believes and says this: "That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not want that bond to fail is entirely obvious" ...."We wait for the instant in which Israel will say 'yes' to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now ... which is significant for the world."
Come on Papa Ratzi, the Jews aint never going anywhere near Christ. Get over it. Wake up and smell the reality of your post-Christian idiocy!
0.4 "The world celebrates a 78-year old anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-choice, anti-euthanasia, anti-premarital-intercourse and anti-21st-Century Pope! I could go on and on about Pope Benedict XVI but Peat over at ''Peephole in my Skull'' blog types faster."
0.5 ''I don't know why you even care. Like you said, he is not your Pope. And in fact, he is nobody's Pope. There is no God, never was, there is no Messiah, never was and never will be, and the entire religous dogma that comes out of the Middle East -- all three great psuedo-religions -- is nothing but leftover history from the Dark Ages of humankind. Why even both to blog about this? Get over it, these popes represent nothing but the collapse of superstitious dogma. Order lunch. ''
0.6 Bottom line: Benny 16 is going nowhere fast. He against the Buddhists, against the Hindus, waiting for the Jews to convert en masse ("The messiah has come, the messiah has come," Moshe, don't forget to bring the Chinese take-out!"), against the Moslems, against the Shintoists, against the aggies (agnostics) and athees (atheists), and he is surely against the gays and lesbians and bisexuals of the world, not to mention women clergy, women priests and a female pope. Long live the Dark Ages of Human Silliness! God bless Benny the 16th!
0.7 Commentary: B-16 abused as 'Nazi Pope'
By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religious Affairs Editor
April 21, 2005
WASHINGTON -- "Nazi pope a clear and present danger to the civilized world," read the reader-written headline of a reader's letter in an open reader forum of NYTimes.com, The New York Times' Web site that allows readers to post opinions online. It wasn't the worst abuse leveled at Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, a German. Type the words "Nazi pope" into the Google search line, and you will get nearly 700 mentions. "Seig Heil, hail Mary!" read one post, misspelling German word for victory, which is "Sieg." "What can you expect from a filthy Nazi?" asked one blogger quoted, with horror, by National Review Online. The blogger went on: "...Nazi bas-- wearing a dress and no doubt with a past in child-molesting." The Internet is of course the kooks' playground, where anti-German prejudices are safe to disseminate for a simple reason: unlike organizations representing blacks, Jews, Italians or the Irish, their German-American counterparts hardly ever raise a fuss. "We are somewhat reticent," Ernst Ott, chairman of the German-American National Congress known as DANK, told United Press International Thursday. "We mustn't react impulsively. The more we say the worse things become. It's much better to enlighten people." There are some German-Americans who believe that this kind of quietism has only made matters worse in the six decades since the end of World War II, and particularly after Germany's reunification in 1990. Before Ratzinger's elevation to the papacy, the worst outburst of Germanophobia in the United States occurred on July 25, 2000, when an Air France Concorde crashed in Paris, killing more than 100 passengers, mainly German tourists. Jubilant messages celebrating the "German barbecue" filled America Online's chat rooms. When this correspondent protested to AOL he received no reply, and the abuse was not stopped. Now, however, things have become even more egregious, complained Werner Baroni, former editor and publisher of Amerika-Woche, a German-language weekly. "Ever since Ratzinger has become pope I have a hard time bringing down my blood sugar level," Baroni, a diabetic, went on. A meticulous journalist of the old school, 77-year old Baroni fumes, "I don't know what upsets me more -- the insults or the historical sloppiness with which the American media treat Ratzinger's youth. "They show an old photograph of a young man in uniform claiming that was Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth. In reality, the picture showed him in the fatigues of an anti-aircraft gunner." As one who has been through similarly horrifying experiences, Baroni is outraged by the self-righteousness with which the American media treat this subject. It was, he said, yet another Nazi crime to assign children to flak positions where they would be killed or maimed by the tens of thousands. True, Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth, the paramilitary organization in which membership was compulsory after 1941. Still, he managed to drop out by insisting that it was incompatible with his life in a pre-seminary. The Jerusalem Post newspaper cleared him of any culpability and ridiculed those who suggest that pope Benedict was a closet Nazi. It mocked people accusing him of being a "theological anti-Semite for believing in Jesus so strongly that -- gasp! -- he thinks anyone, even Jews, should accept him as the Messiah." Added the Post, "To all this we should say, 'This is news?'" To the burgeoning species of Internet gasbags it clearly was news. "I bet you this neo-Nazi pope will have the Swiss guards goose stepping on St. Peter's Square in no time," predicted one blogger. Of course, it is questionable whether such attacks on the pontiff, a saintly and particularly mild scholar, are truly aimed against the German people. "They knock the Germans but they are motivated by their anti-Catholicism," Catholic League president William Donohue proposed. New York Times columnist Maureen Down seemed to prove Donohue right by stirring all the elements she considered disagreeable about Ratzinger and his church into one venomous brew: "Joseph Ratzinger, (is) a 78-year-old hidebound archconservative who ran the office that used to be called the Inquisition and who once belonged to Hitler Youth. "For American Catholics -- especially women and pro-choice Catholic pols -- the cafeteria is officially closed. After all, Cardinal Ratzinger, nicknamed God's Rottweiler' and 'the Enforcer,' helped deny Communion rights to John Kerry..." Still, this bundle of clichés at least does not include the word "Nazi pope." This term was entered America's foremost paper via the Readers' Opinion section of NYTimes.com and caused dismay at the Anti-Defamation League. "We reject that outright," ADL spokeswoman Mryna Shinebaum told UPI. Her national director, Abraham H. Foxman, had welcomed Ratzinger's election. " Cardinal Ratzinger has great sensitivity to Jewish history and the Holocaust. He has shown this sensitivity countless times," Foxman stated. Was it ethical, then, for NYTimes.com to publish a text accusing pope Benedict XVI of being a Nazi? Toby Usnik, the Times' director of public relations seems to think so. "We choose not to censor such posts unless they are abusive, defamatory or obscene. While we believe that this post stretches the truth of the pope's youth, we do not believe it violates our policies," he informed UPI. "This calls for another insulin shot," fumed Baroni. "It would clearly be abusive if you labeled a black man with the 'N word,'" he said. "But in the Times' mindset there's evidently nothing defamatory about calling a German pope a Nazi -- in other words a member of a species guilty of a genocide."
0.8 The B-19 nickname of new pope gains popular currency. Do a google search. Many headline writers and bloggers are using this cute term for Benny the 16th. For example:
More and more media outlets are using the nickname of B-16, or B16, for the new pope
-- a nickname that was first coined on this blog, by the way.
Jonah Goldberg's column in some conservative website was headlined:"B-16 in the house... and how we got there"
The Minnesota Daily opined "What is the short-form of Pope BenedictXVI? "B-16" is an option, but it sounds too much like a WWII bomber.and"... we are really into silly nicknames, such as "J-Lo" and "Dubya."Why not have a little fun creating a hip short-form of Pope BenedictXVI? "B-16" is an option..."...
''Ratz becomes B-16''This B-pope-16's reign may resemble a B-movie, compared to thecharisma of JP2. In terms of policy, B-16 will be at least asreactionary as JP2, www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1733878.php
A Small Victory -- Five Other Names Considered by the Pope... PopeB-16?? Now, I'm worried, every old Catholic living in Florida knowsthat the "B's" only go up to 15!Jonah Goldberg: B-16 in the house... and how we got there...Liberal US catholics dismayed at choice of Pope... Catholics onTuesday expressed dismay at the choice of a conservative new pope anddoubted he will ... B16's doctrinal "conservatism" surprises people?...There's a new Pope!... (ala - John Paul II = JP2), the new Pope,Benedict XVI, shall be known as Pope B16! ... Or we** could call himPope Bomber (for the B-16 Bomber). ..."Even though I've already asked the cats what they think of Pope B-16,I guess I ought to say what I think. "
Meanwhile, here is what some non-superstitious members of the Human Blogosphere are saying about Bene-Dick-tum the 16th:
0.1 Headline "The new Pope"
Okay, it's none of my business, really. He's not my Pope. But Ratzinger? A doctrinal hard-liner? What a lost opportunity. At a time when the deveoped countries are seen as stomping all over the third world via globalization and the heavy-handed behavior of multinationals, the choice of a third-world Pope, or a social liberal, or both, could have been a strong humanistic statement. It also could have gone far toward rejuvenating the Church, which has been -- on the ground, not from Rome -- a force for social justice in many parts of the world, and whose numbers are seriously slipping. Instead, they've chosen a man whose focus is strict doctrinal interpretation. Are they trying to fight fundamentalism with fundamentalism? I see this choice as doing nothing to bring back to the Church people driven away by scandals and the perceived lack of relevance of the Chruch to the day-to-day issues of people's lives. It seems to me this will, if anything, only increase that perception. Oh, well. It's hard to fight the zeitgeist, and hidebound fundamentalism does seem to be the order of the day.
0.2 So how does B-16 see other religions? Good questions.
He sees them as inferior and lacking.
Note: In 1997, Ratzinger called Buddhism an “auto-erotic spirituality”[Benny! Stop masturbating beneath your cloak!] that offers “transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations.”
Hinduism, he said, offers “false hope,” [and yes, Xianity offers true hope, sure, Benny!] in that it guarantees “purification” based on a “morally cruel” concept of reincarnation resembling “a continuous circle of hell.”[And Jesus on the bloody cross is an improvement, you imposter and fraud you!]
At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger, now B-16, predicted that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic church's main enemy.
QUOTE: “Ratzinger is being falsely described as a conservative, when in fact he, despite his publicly genteel manner, is a raging reactionary. Unlike many American conservatives who oppose gay sexual practices but not their legal rights, Ratzinger in 1992 argued against human rights for gays, stressing that their civil liberties could be ‘legitimately limited.’”
0.3 Pope Ratzinger believes and says this: "That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not want that bond to fail is entirely obvious" ...."We wait for the instant in which Israel will say 'yes' to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now ... which is significant for the world."
Come on Papa Ratzi, the Jews aint never going anywhere near Christ. Get over it. Wake up and smell the reality of your post-Christian idiocy!
0.4 "The world celebrates a 78-year old anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-choice, anti-euthanasia, anti-premarital-intercourse and anti-21st-Century Pope! I could go on and on about Pope Benedict XVI but Peat over at ''Peephole in my Skull'' blog types faster."
0.5 ''I don't know why you even care. Like you said, he is not your Pope. And in fact, he is nobody's Pope. There is no God, never was, there is no Messiah, never was and never will be, and the entire religous dogma that comes out of the Middle East -- all three great psuedo-religions -- is nothing but leftover history from the Dark Ages of humankind. Why even both to blog about this? Get over it, these popes represent nothing but the collapse of superstitious dogma. Order lunch. ''
0.6 Bottom line: Benny 16 is going nowhere fast. He against the Buddhists, against the Hindus, waiting for the Jews to convert en masse ("The messiah has come, the messiah has come," Moshe, don't forget to bring the Chinese take-out!"), against the Moslems, against the Shintoists, against the aggies (agnostics) and athees (atheists), and he is surely against the gays and lesbians and bisexuals of the world, not to mention women clergy, women priests and a female pope. Long live the Dark Ages of Human Silliness! God bless Benny the 16th!
0.7 Commentary: B-16 abused as 'Nazi Pope'
By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religious Affairs Editor
April 21, 2005
WASHINGTON -- "Nazi pope a clear and present danger to the civilized world," read the reader-written headline of a reader's letter in an open reader forum of NYTimes.com, The New York Times' Web site that allows readers to post opinions online. It wasn't the worst abuse leveled at Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, a German. Type the words "Nazi pope" into the Google search line, and you will get nearly 700 mentions. "Seig Heil, hail Mary!" read one post, misspelling German word for victory, which is "Sieg." "What can you expect from a filthy Nazi?" asked one blogger quoted, with horror, by National Review Online. The blogger went on: "...Nazi bas-- wearing a dress and no doubt with a past in child-molesting." The Internet is of course the kooks' playground, where anti-German prejudices are safe to disseminate for a simple reason: unlike organizations representing blacks, Jews, Italians or the Irish, their German-American counterparts hardly ever raise a fuss. "We are somewhat reticent," Ernst Ott, chairman of the German-American National Congress known as DANK, told United Press International Thursday. "We mustn't react impulsively. The more we say the worse things become. It's much better to enlighten people." There are some German-Americans who believe that this kind of quietism has only made matters worse in the six decades since the end of World War II, and particularly after Germany's reunification in 1990. Before Ratzinger's elevation to the papacy, the worst outburst of Germanophobia in the United States occurred on July 25, 2000, when an Air France Concorde crashed in Paris, killing more than 100 passengers, mainly German tourists. Jubilant messages celebrating the "German barbecue" filled America Online's chat rooms. When this correspondent protested to AOL he received no reply, and the abuse was not stopped. Now, however, things have become even more egregious, complained Werner Baroni, former editor and publisher of Amerika-Woche, a German-language weekly. "Ever since Ratzinger has become pope I have a hard time bringing down my blood sugar level," Baroni, a diabetic, went on. A meticulous journalist of the old school, 77-year old Baroni fumes, "I don't know what upsets me more -- the insults or the historical sloppiness with which the American media treat Ratzinger's youth. "They show an old photograph of a young man in uniform claiming that was Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth. In reality, the picture showed him in the fatigues of an anti-aircraft gunner." As one who has been through similarly horrifying experiences, Baroni is outraged by the self-righteousness with which the American media treat this subject. It was, he said, yet another Nazi crime to assign children to flak positions where they would be killed or maimed by the tens of thousands. True, Ratzinger was in the Hitler Youth, the paramilitary organization in which membership was compulsory after 1941. Still, he managed to drop out by insisting that it was incompatible with his life in a pre-seminary. The Jerusalem Post newspaper cleared him of any culpability and ridiculed those who suggest that pope Benedict was a closet Nazi. It mocked people accusing him of being a "theological anti-Semite for believing in Jesus so strongly that -- gasp! -- he thinks anyone, even Jews, should accept him as the Messiah." Added the Post, "To all this we should say, 'This is news?'" To the burgeoning species of Internet gasbags it clearly was news. "I bet you this neo-Nazi pope will have the Swiss guards goose stepping on St. Peter's Square in no time," predicted one blogger. Of course, it is questionable whether such attacks on the pontiff, a saintly and particularly mild scholar, are truly aimed against the German people. "They knock the Germans but they are motivated by their anti-Catholicism," Catholic League president William Donohue proposed. New York Times columnist Maureen Down seemed to prove Donohue right by stirring all the elements she considered disagreeable about Ratzinger and his church into one venomous brew: "Joseph Ratzinger, (is) a 78-year-old hidebound archconservative who ran the office that used to be called the Inquisition and who once belonged to Hitler Youth. "For American Catholics -- especially women and pro-choice Catholic pols -- the cafeteria is officially closed. After all, Cardinal Ratzinger, nicknamed God's Rottweiler' and 'the Enforcer,' helped deny Communion rights to John Kerry..." Still, this bundle of clichés at least does not include the word "Nazi pope." This term was entered America's foremost paper via the Readers' Opinion section of NYTimes.com and caused dismay at the Anti-Defamation League. "We reject that outright," ADL spokeswoman Mryna Shinebaum told UPI. Her national director, Abraham H. Foxman, had welcomed Ratzinger's election. " Cardinal Ratzinger has great sensitivity to Jewish history and the Holocaust. He has shown this sensitivity countless times," Foxman stated. Was it ethical, then, for NYTimes.com to publish a text accusing pope Benedict XVI of being a Nazi? Toby Usnik, the Times' director of public relations seems to think so. "We choose not to censor such posts unless they are abusive, defamatory or obscene. While we believe that this post stretches the truth of the pope's youth, we do not believe it violates our policies," he informed UPI. "This calls for another insulin shot," fumed Baroni. "It would clearly be abusive if you labeled a black man with the 'N word,'" he said. "But in the Times' mindset there's evidently nothing defamatory about calling a German pope a Nazi -- in other words a member of a species guilty of a genocide."
0.8 The B-19 nickname of new pope gains popular currency. Do a google search. Many headline writers and bloggers are using this cute term for Benny the 16th. For example:
More and more media outlets are using the nickname of B-16, or B16, for the new pope
-- a nickname that was first coined on this blog, by the way.
Jonah Goldberg's column in some conservative website was headlined:"B-16 in the house... and how we got there"
The Minnesota Daily opined "What is the short-form of Pope BenedictXVI? "B-16" is an option, but it sounds too much like a WWII bomber.and"... we are really into silly nicknames, such as "J-Lo" and "Dubya."Why not have a little fun creating a hip short-form of Pope BenedictXVI? "B-16" is an option..."...
''Ratz becomes B-16''This B-pope-16's reign may resemble a B-movie, compared to thecharisma of JP2. In terms of policy, B-16 will be at least asreactionary as JP2, www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1733878.php
A Small Victory -- Five Other Names Considered by the Pope... PopeB-16?? Now, I'm worried, every old Catholic living in Florida knowsthat the "B's" only go up to 15!Jonah Goldberg: B-16 in the house... and how we got there...Liberal US catholics dismayed at choice of Pope... Catholics onTuesday expressed dismay at the choice of a conservative new pope anddoubted he will ... B16's doctrinal "conservatism" surprises people?...There's a new Pope!... (ala - John Paul II = JP2), the new Pope,Benedict XVI, shall be known as Pope B16! ... Or we** could call himPope Bomber (for the B-16 Bomber). ..."Even though I've already asked the cats what they think of Pope B-16,I guess I ought to say what I think. "
posted by DANIELBLOOM at 2:08 AM
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