new pope

I can't stop laughing . "As soon as I heard the pope was laid to rest, I said a prayer for the Holy Father's departed soul and went straight out and bought a box of condoms. Actually, I'm wearing one right now. It's been on all day and I'm loving it." That's so funny...thanks for that pip pip and see you tonight!

wouldn't it be great if it was someone really unexpected... like... um.... Elvis?

Ratz. That smoke didnt look white to me.

joseph ratzinger, ex hitler youth is now pope benedict xvii

And now we will watch as the last remaining moderate Catholics flee the Church, and the rest resign themselves to several unwanted children, backstreet abortions, and HIV infections. God bless the Vatican.

He's shifted to the right then......

Habemus Papam! God Bless Pope Benedict XVI

Unless he pulls any radial surprises, old BennyRatz will polarise the Church even more, I'm afraid. They'll just get more and more out of touch with the world. Too bad.

er, that's 'radical'. Although I guess radial might do, as well...

yes it is true As a seminarian, he was briefly enrolled in the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s, though he was never a member of the Nazi party. Under Hitler, Ratzinger says he watched the Nazis twist and distort the truth. Their lies about Jews, about genetics, were more than academic exercises. People died by the millions because of them. The church's service to society, Ratzinger concluded, is to stand for absolute truths that function as boundary markers: Move about within these limits, but outside them lies disaster. Later reflection on the Nazi experience also left Ratzinger with a conviction that theology must either bind itself to the church, with its creed and teaching authority, or it becomes the plaything of outside forces -- the state in a totalitarian system or secular culture in Western liberal democracies. In a widely noted 1986 lecture in Toronto, Ratzinger put it this way: "A church without theology impoverishes and blinds, while a churchless theology melts away into caprice." *

Although Catholic officials admit he was in the Hitler youth, they say that he didn't inhale.... [%sig%]

The Church is not a product to be adapted and marketed to the whims of the world today. I actually built a website for vocations to the priesthood in the UK and since JPII died I've seen the hits go right up. The vocations group is growing and there is a real sense of hope in the Catholic community in this country. The Church doesn't make you give it money like the government nor enforce its laws so it shouldn't really bother any non believer. What harm is it doing to you? That is why I don't understand people's hostility

...it was compulsory for young german males wasnt it? To be in the youth i mean, not to inhale. Obv.

It was near enough compulsory. The media will pick up on anything they can get their nasty little beaks into...If it had been Arinze (who used to be an ebo) they would have said he used to sacrifice chickens. If it had been Lubomyr (whose grandmother was Jewish) they would have said "Jew elected" All a bit sad really but then what do you expect from the secular press. Anyway I'm not going to let it get me down and spoil this moment when I just feel overwhelmed with joy and hope and join with millions of Catholics across the world for blessing us with Benedict XVI !

i think it became compulsory after a few years, and i think he joined after it was made compulsory...

Stoppit Jude, you're making me proper nervous talking like that.

yes, 14-year old Joseph was briefly a member of Hitler's youth organisation when membership became compulsory in 1941. He received dispensation to leave shortly afterwards because he was training in a seminary. He later enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit protecting a factory, but deserted in 1944, spending a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.

Reaction - A contraversial choice. A traditionalist in line with JP2s hard line not the modernising force that liberals want. Ratzinger could be seen as simply an extension of JP2s papacy. But then at 78 years (and he suffers ill health) it is likely to be a fairly temporary extension. This type of pope is often nicknamed a "caretaker pope". It is common to follow a long papacy with a short one because to have two long papacys with forceful personalities driving things in their unique way are more accepted when buffered with a short one in-between However this doesn't mean a short term pope cannot have a major impact on the Church. Though pope for just a few years Pope John XXIII by calling the 2nd Vatican council changed the Church forever, allowing the Mass to be celebrated in languages other than latin and religious (monks and nuns) to be allowed to wear clothes other than their habits!

it probably will be a short papacy, maybe some of the younger cardinals see him as a stop gap, and are already campaigning in a cardinal like way mind you, his performance at the funeral made him a front runner, so he might be the canny one, maybe old age runs in his family...

NEW Pope! Don't be bloody silly Martin, he's older than me. They've only given him the job cos he's so old he won't last long.

It is funny because if asked who I'd like to be Pope, Ratzinger wouldn't have featured on my list! Didn't feature on my list ... too conservative, too like JP2 and unlike JP2 he isn't loved in his home country. He has been criticised as lacking in charisma but he didn't lack charisma at the funeral of his predecessor. Must be the holy spirit at work! And now he has been elected I feel overwhelmed with happiness and though George is right he may not last long, his legacy may well do!

"What harm is the (Catholic) church doing to non-believers?" None at the moment, Jude, because they're in a small minority in Britain and can therefore act as a sort of communal social conscience. What harm COULD they do? Well, take a look at the history of contraception in Ireland - it's still less than 30 years since contraception was legally allowed to married couples, and less than 20 since they could be sold openly. The Irish Family Planning Association was continually harrassed throught the courts, women who went to Belfast for contraception had them confiscated at the border. Huge families, high levels of death in childbirth - all because of some reactionary celibate geriatric in Rome. Stupid, wicked, barbaric.

Maybe he's a trial balloon. See how the world reacts, then after he falls over, pick the exact opposite.

Yes but it is in the past. I live in the present. Still, you guys carry on ranting about the Church's understanding of sexuality or Galileo or the crusades or whatever while I'm off to join thousands of other young Catholics in celebrating our faith. Yipeeeee.

"What harm is it doing to you? That is why I don't understand people's hostility." Jude, you should really ask yourself questions like that. You're the one who started a thread on AA being a harmful cult.

Have a grate time tomorrow everyone. Only wish I could be there. Would be great to put faces to names. *Sulks*

Good point JT. I shall leave my friend to AA. It is his choice and not my problem.

hallelujah. a new 78 year old disciplinarian is in control of one the world's biggest churches. let's see how he shapes up against the mullahs in reshaping society for theocratic purposes, regardless of the cost in human lives. yippee.

Jude, I am hostile to a 'doctrine' that forbids contraception, especially in impoverished parts of the world where one more mouth to feed is really one too many, where the consequent abortion is forbidden and thus forces impoverished women to use coathangers and die of infection or haemorrhage, where the only sexual relationships 'allowed' are those within the 'traditional marriage' (although buggering little boys in the confessional seems to be acceptable to many of the priests), and condoms are forbidden as a protection against HIV/AIDS, which is steeply on the rise in heavily Catholic countries. Your Catholicism may be emotional, which many people's is, and I respect spiritual beliefs, but spiritual beliefs that forbid someone else the right to a self-determined life, a SAFE life, are simply wrong, whatever the 'doctrine' says.

to be fair the catholic church isn't to blame for starving children, there was a report recently about how much food, we as westerners waste, we are eating well while they starve... the contraception/abortion/aids issue are just a few of things which drove this ex altar boy away from the faith...

Well, the starving children bit is more about the choices a woman has in her own sexuality; a woman who has no agency over her own childbearing (e.g. her husband can't use condoms, nor can she use birth control, even though they already have more children than they can afford) lends itself to more hungry children, regardless of how much food we waste. A woman who is continually pregnant, nursing, or weaning children has a much shortened lifespan and is at much higher risk of childbearing difficulties, which then leaves the fifteen children with a dead mother, a poor father, and no food on the table. It's a question of available resources in the country of origin. The 'rich guilt' argument is a fallacy; while we shouldn't waste food on principle, sending all our table scraps to northeastern Brazil will not solve their problems with poverty and starvation.

Yes martin. But you would agree that they are not starving as a consequence of the food we waste? But mainly as a consequence of complex demographical and Sociological circumstances.

hah! I Se you type faster than me ag.

Can anyone answer me the question: why do the popey people consider condoms wrong? Just curious.

no they are not starving as a result of the food we waste, more as a result of world debt policies ,and corrupt regimes...

Because.. There are Jews in the world. There are Buddhists. There are Hindus and Mormons, and then There are those that follow Mohammed, but I've never been one of them. I'm a Roman Catholic, And have been since before I was born, And the one thing they say about Catholics is: They'll take you as soon as you're warm. You don't have to be a six-footer. You don't have to have a great brain. You don't have to have any clothes on. You're A Catholic the moment Dad came, Because Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.

great film that! Re the Church and Doctrine, I'm not going to repeat what I've said on many other forums now. As I said you guys do what you like and I'll go off and be happy. Today is just too good for arguments!!!

I don't see a correlation between Catholicism and AIDS rates whatsoever.

I wonder if there is a correlation between AIDS rates and stupidity?

Or a correlation between Catholicism and stupidity

ok this will rile you guys (of course I am against "Liberation theology") In May 1985, Ratzinger notified Franciscan Fr. Leonardo Boff that he was to be silenced. Boff, a Brazilian, was a leading figure in liberation theology, a Third World theological movement that seeks to place the church on the side of the poor.* Boff accepted Ratzinger’s verdict and withdrew to a Franciscan monastery in Petrópolis, outside Rio de Janeiro. Essentially, the conservative wing of the Catholic Church has formulated two criticism against Liberation Theology. First, the use of marxist analysis and other theories that in the end, it is said, defeat the cause of the poor; Monsignor Ratzinger once stated that one cannot examine injustice in Marxist terms without tacitly endorsing the philosophy's denial of the spiritual world and of God. Second, the questioning of the Church's hierarchy and authority lines. Ratzinger contends that Liberation Theology undermines the Church leaders' influence over the laity. *but in my opinion is simply trying to hide left wing political ideals beneath the altar cloth and ultimately does nothing for the poor

God, I'm glad I'm an atheist.

Why are you telling a God you don't believe in that you don't believe in Him?

Jude you are beginning to sound like this Christian I once met... "Doesn't matter what you say cos I am going to Heaven (and you are not)" Well it was at their fellow Christian's stag night ( I was a colleague from work). He also had his pre-Christian school pals there who spiked his drinlk all night. So can you imagine his state when we made the Indian Restaurant later that evening... by this time his fellow Christians had abandoned him in his hour of need... tut..tutting in the corner. Can you also guess which of the three groups, The Christians, the Lions (his old pals) and the neutrals (me included), insisted on mean spiritedly ordering separately from the rest? Err.. which just goes to show that discouraging contraception as well as being against abortions (which I can sympathise with) seem to me to be in practice incompatible positions.

I met a Christian once. Had silly hair. Christians are all rubbish.

Jude, it was meant to be amusing. Christ, I give up.

Is there a God of atheism?

He can't possibly be telling God if he doesn't believe he exists. He's tellinig us.

God works in mysterious ways Radio... he has fucked up your spelling and thwarted your post.

No, there's a rational explanation for my errors. I'm stupid.