Word: holocaustal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...failed to mention anti-Semitism, instead contending that "ultimately" the Nazis' motive in killing Jews was to "tear up the taproot of the Christian faith." And although he claimed to speak as a "son of the German people," Benedict seemed to downplay any ordinary-German implication in the Holocaust. Instead, he placed blame on a "ring of criminals [who] rose to power by false promises ... through terror ... with the result that our people was used and abused as an instrument of their thirst for destruction and power...
...they innocent dupes throughout the process. And the idea that Hitler killed 6 million Jews to get at Christianity approaches the perverse. When Jewish groups complained, Benedict devoted a general audience to condemning anti-Semitism--although he revisited neither his church's nor his homeland's role in the Holocaust...
...that message sufficient? Rabbi David Rosen, the Jerusalem-based chair of the umbrella International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, says the Williamson affair is an "absolute gift" because it enabled the Pope to reiterate his affection for the Jews. Yet while Benedict may have been unaware of Williamson's Holocaust-denying interview, the Pope--who has been trying to pull the SSPX back into the fold for decades--must have been aware that anti-Semitism was something of an SSPX calling card. Says Eugene Fisher, a former Jewish-affairs expert for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who generally lauds...
...understanding of Benedict's subtle disengagement from Jewish questions begins in his youth. Joseph Ratzinger served a brief, mandatory stint in Hitler's Wehrmacht, but both Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center and the former East German secret police closed investigations into that part of his history without detecting any enthusiasm for Hitler's regime. Ratzinger's family was solidly anti-Nazi. But unlike John Paul, Ratzinger had no childhood Jewish playmates. His older brother Georg told German philosopher Raphaela Schmid, "I didn't know what a Jew was." That changed when their family moved from a small Bavarian village...
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Pope's point man for Christian-Jewish affairs, says Benedict believes "Germans have a special obligation to do something more for the Jewish-Christian relationship." But it's not apparent that the Pope views the Holocaust with a sense of personal remorse. Wolfgang Benz, head of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin, notes that generalized remorseful feelings "started with [Germans] about 10 years younger" than the 82-year-old Pope. Members of Benedict's generation tend to judge themselves strictly on the grounds of personal culpability. Moreover, the Pope identifies heavily with...