Jews Welcome New Pope

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As it turns out, Jewish observers of the Vatican say, world Jewry can breathe easy knowing that German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was chosen as the 265th pope.

“As far as Jewish people are concerned, Cardinal Ratzinger is a friend,” said Gary Krupp, president and founder of the Pave the Way Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit organization that promotes religious understanding. “He is going to be as effective, if not more, than John Paul II” in furthering Catholic-Jewish relations. “He’s not going to backtrack. I think he’s going to be advancing these causes even further.”

“He is the architect of the policy that John Paul II fulfilled with regard to relations with the Jews. He is the architect of the ideological policy to recognize, to have full relations with Israel,” Singer said. “He was the ideologist behind the last pope — the theologist and the ideologist.”

As a teen, Ratzinger reportedly was a member of the Hitler Youth. At the time, boys his age — Ratzinger was 6 years old when Hitler came to power — were pressured, though not required, to join the group. (Does this seem to allude to Ratz being 6 y/o when he was pressured? He was 14 when he joined Hitler Jugend in 1941, I hope the other boys didn't beat him for his reluctance.)

Ratzinger served in the German army during World War II, but deserted after a short period. His policeman father reportedly engaged in anti-Nazi activity. ("reportedly" an Austrian cop going against Hitler, bet there weren't a lot of those.)

“For the Jewish community, it is extraordinary that the pope has personally experienced the evils of Nazism and the horrors of racism and prejudice,” said David Elcott, U.S. director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee. ("Extraordinary"? Hey guys, we have Black Americans who know all about the evils and horrors of racism and prejudice, but just couldn't get the sympathy.)

Still, German Jews expressed some concern over Ratzinger’s election.

“A few people who know him say he is not bad. He has good relations with some Jewish persons,” Nathan Kalmanowicz, head of religious affairs for the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a member of the Munich Jewish community, told JTA. “But the vast majority is afraid of what will happen. He is opposed to reform and not as familiar with Jewish issues” as the last pope, “and as far as we know he is not interested in promoting them — issues like the Holocaust.”

(Promotion, the politics of religion, where anything is possible. Didn't we spin history for the murdering, incestous, corruption of Lucrezia and her simony daddy Pope Alexander VI…promoting her as a pious art lover who helped banish the Dark Ages? Do we not spin pedophile priests and herpetic rabbis as anomalies rather than the rule? Jews and Catholics need not be afraid, we're in the era of blame the Arabs/Muslims anyway.)