[color=darkblue:nzv6p2i1]I wondered if any of you have heard this foolishness too and so I went and found this editorail from the Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? … 78&apage=1

JPost.com » Opinion » Article

Apr. 20, 2005 23:13 | Updated Apr. 21, 2005 5:38
Pope Benedict XVI

It is a shame that some Israeli newspapers, along with some newspapers elsewhere, sensationalized the Catholic church’s choice of a new pope with headlines like, “White smoke, black past” and “From Nazi Youth to the Vatican.” Our own headline, “New pope hailed for Jewish ties,” we must say, would seem more fair and accurate.

[b:nzv6p2i1]Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is the first German pope in 1,000 years. In a 1997 book, Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger explained what happened when he was 14 years old: “When the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941 … I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance in the Hitler Youth.” Ratzinger prevailed on a sympathetic professor, who had asked him to attend just once to obtain the necessary document, to spare him even this fleeting connection with a group he evidently wanted nothing to do with.

We do not see why the pope should be judged unfavorably for such a past. On the contrary, the new pope, like his predecessor, would seem to be acutely sensitive to the ravages of totalitarianism that he personally witnessed.
[/b:nzv6p2i1] ([i:nzv6p2i1]Bolding mine[/i:nzv6p2i1])
It has been pointed out that the selection of a German pope is perhaps even more momentous than was the choice of a Pole in 1978. As Charles Moore wrote in the Daily Telegraph, “Much of Polish society retained its Catholic integrity under Communist persecution. Most of German society succumbed to Hitler, compromising itself.”

Coming from a place where Catholicism was so compromised, it is perhaps not a coincidence that Ratzinger has been known for his fierce defense of traditional Catholic doctrine against all comers, including his fellow clergy. Indeed, and also like his predecessor, Benedict XVI is expected to continue the Church’s fight for the principle of moral truth in the face of the modern world’s moral relativism.

In the homily he gave just before the conclave that chose him for the papacy, Ratzinger said, “The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves ‚Äì thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. … Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism … looks like the only attitude [acceptable] to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

Jews, it would seem, can recognize such a spirited case for religion, a case not unlike that Judaism has made for itself throughout history.

We should not, of course, pretend that the new pope is advocating anything but his own religion. In fact, he is credited with authoring the 2000 Vatican document “Dominus Jesus,” stating: “This truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out, in a radical way, … the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another.'”

It should be no surprise, but also no concern, that the leader of any religion prefers his own creed to another, particularly when Benedict XVI is so personally identified with John Paul II’s expressions of respect for Judaism, Jews, and Israel.

We hope and expect that the improvement in Catholic-Jewish relations will continue under his papacy. A German pope could be in a unique position to go even further than his predecessors in facing the Vatican’s troubled and not fully revealed role during the terrible era that he lived through as a young man. That role remains of obvious and great concern to the Jewish people.

There’s the truth…from people who would very much know and be concerned about such a thing. Thank God for honest Jews.
Pax vobiscum,[/color:nzv6p2i1]