http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damia ... edict-xvi/



Another semi-related blog post:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damia ... -criminal/

I'm aware some might see this as an obituary, but I think Hitchens is prominent enough to be featured in this section.

The obituary rule is so idiots wouldn't post whenever someone they know dies, and expect the internet to care and comfort them. And I thought he was calling the pope a criminal for being, you know, part of "that group" in his earlier years?

And dear lord, the comments gave me a headache. Well, so did the article. Both of them, in fact.

I don't see what's bad about the blog. And, well... comments on articles about religion in the Grauniad and the Daily Telegraphs are always rancorous. It's best to avoid reading them, because the bulk of it is kooky.

I didn't expect it, moreso because of the New Atheist drama of calling for an arrest of the Pope on the claim of crimes against humanity, which is not only silly because the Pope is a head-of-state, but also because he is legally innocent. Even if he did cover it up, he is no more guilty of crimes against humanity than other people who have enacted cover-ups. Probably he'd be less guilty than those, since at times those cover-ups have constituted many, many murders.

Regarding the Hilterjugend, actually one of Dawkins's references to the canonisation of "Pope Nazi" had been interpreted by the media as referring to the current Pope. It is silly, because canonisation can only happen after death and he was thus clearly referring to Pope Pius XII. That is not to say his remark was justified; Piux XII was certainly no Nazi collaborator except in the eyes of the most biased "historians".

But yes, his participacy in the Hitlerjugend is a stock insult against Pope Benedict XVI, even though he was an involuntary member. Membership was mandatory for teenagers after all.

This is his article in Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... ens-201009