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04/19/2005:
"Arch-Conservative German Ratzinger Elected Pope"
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Arch-conservative German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope on Tuesday in a surprise choice that delighted traditionalist Roman Catholics but stunned moderates hoping for a more liberal papacy.Ratzinger, 78, the Church's 265th pontiff, will take the name of Benedict XVI.
He is expected to defend Pope John Paul's strict orthodox legacy and reject changes in doctrine, raising fears that divisions in the Church left by the Polish pontiff will widen.
Ratzinger is the oldest man to be elected pope for three centuries and the first German pontiff for a millennium.
The speed of the election, on only the second day of a secret cardinals conclave, and its result were both a surprise.
Many Vatican experts had said Ratzinger, John Paul's tough doctrinal watchdog for 23 years, was too divisive and too old to become pope.
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
Ratzinger was 'unwilling participant' in Hitler Youth
BERLIN (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI, the former German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has said he was an unwilling participant in the Hitler Youth movement during World War II.
"As soon as I left the seminary, I did not go straight into the Hitler Youth," Ratzinger said in an interview with German journalist Peter Seewald.
"And that was difficult because in order to qualify for the reduction in schooling fees that I needed, you had to prove you had paid a visit to the Hitler Youth."
When membership of the movement became compulsory in 1941, Ratzinger's older brother Georg joined and the future Pope Benedict XVI was then enrolled, against his will, he has said in a number of interviews.
According to the website of the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, in 1943, with World War II at its peak, Ratzinger and the rest of his seminary class were drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps, the Flak, although he was still allowed to attend classes at high school in the southern city of Munich three times a week.
In September 1944, having reached military age, he was released from the Flak and returned home, only to be drafted into a labour detail commanded by men he described as "fanatical ideologues", the website said.
In November 1944, he underwent basic training with the German infantry but due to illness he was allowed to skip the most physical aspects of military training.
As the Allied advance drew nearer, Ratzinger deserted the army and returned to the southern town of Traunstein where he had studied at the seminary.
When the US troops reached the town, they used Ratzinger's house as their headquarters.
Full Article: news.yahoo.com
And subsequently recruited for the OSS to join the vanguard of the global anti-communist (read fascist) movement? O well, they picked an old one who won't be around for long. I'm sure the guy waiting in the wings is even more ghastly, a Catholic Netanyahu.
