[Vision2020] Pope Benedict XVI: One Giant Step Backwards for Humankind

[Andreas Schou]

> OK, you're gunna make me argue this one aren't you. Holding him out as a
> "Nazi sympathizer" for what he was conscripted into doing 65 years ago is
> nonsense.  Else we should be holding Robert Byrd out as a Klansman.

I'll bite.

No, you're absolutely right. Robert Byrd's constituents should
remember that he's a Klansman until the day he dies or is unelected,
because -- fair or not -- that's not the type of mistake the voters in
a democracy should entirely forgive. Your wife, yes. The voters, no.

Robert Byrd's in particular. He's an odd duck -- somewhere between
Huey Long, Cicero, and Foghorn Leghorn. He's a consumate politician.
He knows which side his bread is buttered on. He's not a Klansman
anymore. But I have my suspicions about what he calls black people
when he's at home

So, what goes for Senators goes double for Christ's representative on
Earth, the moral exemplar for the entire world. I have reasonable
standards. I don't ask that he be perfect. However, I do ask that he
not have been on the wrong side of the worst atrocity in human
history. I don't believe this is an unreasonable standard.

That being said, this was a tougher moral decision than most people
have to make. If I had to make the same choice he did, I would most
likely have been conscripted, and, when the "does this get me killed"
calculus started tipping toward "desert," I would have deserted the
German Army. Resistance in that sort of extreme situation requires a
moral fortitude that not a lot of people have. I don't think I do.

I don't sweat it much, because moral fortitude is not my day job.
Moral fortitude is, however, the Pope's day job. I hold Popes, Lamas,
Ayatollahs, philosophers, and other major moral exemplars to a higher
standard than anyone else.

As for the other section, I don't object to his having the theology he
has. He's free to have any theology he likes. However, when God
chooses to endorse a political candidate, I am eminently certain that
He will make his vote clear and not rely on mortal substitutes to
help. He has angels. With trumpets. I suspect they're louder than a
bitter little 78-year old man.

-- ACS