SYMMETRY

My impression is that these two completely agree on the WHAT.

And that they completely disagree on the WHO.

Anyway, both have their hands in a "something to hide" position.

Models of monarchy, they represent the good old days when men weren’t afraid to dress-up a little.

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DID POPE KILL ALLIES?

According to Wikipedia he was in an anti-aircraft unit of the Wehrmacht then in some infantry unit. This AP whitewash published in 2005 emphasizes that while J. Ratzinger, Jr, indeed was a member of the Hitler Youth and then Hitler’s Army, he was always unenthusiastic.

Not mentioned is any instance of any sanction he received for doing anything other than participate loyally in the two organizations.

Also not mentioned are the future pope’s actual duties in the German Army. Did he ever actually fire a gun or cannon or missile or ack-ack at any Allied soldiers or airmen?

If so, did he ever hit one of them? Maybe kill a British or Canadian or American soldier? Or two, or three?

I grew up on stories of early Christian martyrs devoured by lions for refusing to place the pinch of salt. We were taught that death is not bad, sin is bad.

According to the AP article, the young Ratzinger couldn’t resist the Nazis in any way because there would have been negative consequences.

Now Ratzinger in his role as Pope is honoring the death of an Austrian man who was beheaded for refusing to join Hitler’s army. Here’s the Yahoo/AP lead, story here.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI approved recognition of martyrdom for an Austrian who was beheaded by the Nazis for refusing to serve in Hitler's army, a step toward possible sainthood.

This leaves young people with contradictory models. When faced with the requirement to join the army of a genocidal madman bent on world conquest, should one:

A) Refuse, like Franz Jaegerstaetter, and become headless, or

B) Comply, like Josef Ratzinger, and become Pope?

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CARPENTER, NOT ARCHITECT

We have mentioned that the role of the Church as interpreter of Divine Scripture is necessitated by the inarticulateness of God.

There are things that God wanted us to know, so he dictated the Bible. But for some reason, God wasn’t able to explain things in a way that humans could easily understand.

Omnipotent in every other way, God needs help from really smart humans, Catholic priests, to figure out what He was trying to say in the Bible.

Baltimore Catechism #2, Question 10.

Q. How shall we know the things which we are to believe?
A. We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us.

So, why is it that Catholic priests, headed by the Bishop of Rome, have the sole authority to interpret the Bible? Well, the Bible says so, at least according to the Pope.

Jesus supposedly said the peter/rock/church thing in Matthew 16. This is where Jesus said the bound-on-earth/bound-in-heaven thing. I’m sure Matthew just forgot to write down the except-for-Galileo part.

For its first three hundred years the Church was disorganized and disagreed on even the most basic question, Who was Jesus? Readers of Gore Vidal’s Julian, or of Wikipedia’s entry on “Arianism,” (not Aryanism), know that for the first three centuries there was violent disagreement about the trinity. Arianism asserted that God created Jesus.

If Jesus is truly God, he always existed, that is, he pre-existed Adam and Eve. Since Jesus’s role of redeemer wasn’t necessary until after the Fall, that means the Fall was predestined.

It’s a problem.

Things got so messy that the Roman Emperor had to step in and force an agreement. The question still isn’t settled, at least for Unitarians.

So God is unable to communicate clearly with us. And God isn’t very good at establishing a church. Even after two thousand years doctrinal and jurisdictional disputes within Christendom just won't go away.

When you throw in the blood shed in wars between his followers, Jesus, whatever He might have been, wasn’t much of a Messiah.

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