pope benedict the XVI

how can you "used to be catholic". once you are baptised in the catholic church, you always will be one, even if you dont practice it.

 

Cardinal Ratzinger has been a traditionalist in the past, but he took the name of a pope who concentrated on conciliation - so maybe this choice of new name means that all you catholics can start eating red meat on fridays, and wearing rubbers and ---- all the pregnant nuns will no longer be executed

 

I think that is what they should do all along---have the last Pope's closest underling be the next pope as he will have had the most knowledge of the Pope's wishes, and the wishes of the Catholic Church. Pope's really ought to come up with contingency plans in case of their untimely demise.

 

i might have been baptised and all, but i just dont feel it in my heart. I'm not a catholic, i dont agree with their doctrine, i dont live my life by catholic faith, in fact i doubt about the existence of a god altogether, so how could i claim to still be a catholic? I'd be a very hypocrite one hehehehe.still, I respect other people who are (my family for example) each to their own i guess.

edith an as far as baptism goes, i was too young to decide whether I wanted to be part of it all, no-one asked me if i wanted to be baptised, but as soon as I had the choice to decide, i chose not to be one. it's just symbolism for me, nothing more than that.

 

Im not a practicing catholic by any means, but I still consider myself one. unless you were baptised into another church, you are still catholic.

 

That's an ignorant statement. A person has a choice when it comes to religion. You can't say that someone is still catholic just because they were once baptised. It would be like saying that I am still Christian because I was baptised at an early age, even though I don't believe a word of the bible now. You talk of Catholicism as if it were a form of slavery in which you are bound to life. I personally could care less about the new pope. I'm agnostic.

 

i have no clue what these ppl are thinking. they are going to have to go all through this again in like 10-15 years. and they say the pope is a " once in a life time thing to see" yeah right. we will se another pope get elected and the news says we are only going to be able to see once in our life. pope john paul was like 40 when he was elected. or i think he was older then that.

 

religion pisses me off, even though I do believe in god.... go figure

 

wrong, he was in his mid 60s. Ive been through 4 popes now. no one claims that it is a once in a lifetime thing to see.... it doesnt come around very often though, I mean, its not like electing a president which happens once every 4 years, this happens whenever a pope dies. its not as predictable

 

According to the paper the new pope was "forced" to join the hitler youth as a kid and later served in an anti aircraft squadron with the nazis.

and here he is being sworn in or whatever you call it on hitlers birthday.

 

Why did you place forced in quotations? Are you trying to say that as a young child he had the intelligence to actually understand all the politics behind what the Nazi's were doing at the time, and make an intelligent decision about what type of role that he wanted to play in the whole affair?

 

It would depend, I guess, on your definition of "forced".

Looking at it that way it would be just as fair (and I'm not saying it's not) to say all the hitler youth were forced into joining, in which case using the word would be redundant.

Underlining the fact that he, in particular, was "forced" insinuates that he was especially reluctant (compared to the other kids) to take part in it, which is something we have no way of knowing.

I put it in quotation marks because I think it's a bit presumetous to claim to know what the pope's (as a boy) feelings were about it and I didn't want to co-sign the hype.

 

Oh..well that's too bad. I thought that you had the same theory as me, which is that Pope Benedict is going to continue where Hitler left off in his plan for world domination/jew killing.

 

On the other hand I can understand the position the reported who covered the story was in: Putting emphasis on the"forced" aspect would be, as I said, redundant and skirt the edge of editorialising, which is something a reporter isn't supposed to do (otherwise it falls under the heading of propaganda).

But, for the benefit of the readership who for the most part would have only a superficail familiarity with the history, and who would probably just react to the info with "Oh my God! He was a nazi!!", it would to some extent be necesary to awknowledge that he didn't really have a choice (in that he hadn't reached the age where he could make those kinds of choices for himself) if for no other reason than courtesy.

 

I'm not ruling that out.

 

He is just another stuffy white guy who wants to oppress women, destroy Islam, and lots of other desirable characteristics. At least I think he is the one that especially wants to eradicate Islam from the face of the earth. Just another stuffy white bastard who is intolerant.

 

oppress women? how?? and how did john paul II oppress women? I dont get it. if they oppressed women, there wouldnt be any nuns.

 

all men oppress women by being born men and making them feel inferior.

 

The one hundredth and twelfth pope (Benedict is only 111) will be the False Prophet spoken of in Daniel and Revelation.

 

where do you get that number from? and please dont say "the bible" or some weird code... just give me the chap. and verse(s)