New Pope II

There has been a lot of unfair criticism of Pope Benedict XVI in the press. Please, let's stick to fair criticism, and give the guy a chance to be himself. In my previous post I used the phrase Panzer Pope - and I apologize. That's a bad echo. After all, if we must have military nicknames, why not Pope B16?

The best nick I've seen so far is by the copyrighting geniuses at the Sun who dub him "Papa Ratzi". Unfortunately, the same article's headline in full reads "From Hitler Youth... to Papa Ratzi". That's misleading, as even the same article says at the very end "He was 14 when forced to join the Hitler Youth. He later manned a German anti-aircraft battery — before deserting."

But that's the Sun. Even some respectable news outlets - like the Guardian - have referred to his joining the Nazi youth group as a reason to doubt him. Oh please...

On the other hand, perhaps they were using the term "Hitler Youth" in the same way as one would use "Concentration Camp", as in a forced punishment.

Of course, now that he's been chosen, the world - Catholic and non-Catholic - can return to ignoring papal instructions.