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The infallible Pope asks a question

Elind

Philosopher
Elind
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OSWIECIM, Poland May 28, 2006 (AP)— Pope Benedict XVI visited the Auschwitz concentration camp as "a son of the German people" Sunday and asked God why he remained silent during the "unprecedented mass crimes" of the Holocaust.
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"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?"
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Seems kind of like an odd question, sacreligious even, for someone like the Pope to be asking of God, of all beings. Why now, why this Pope? Don't they all have a direct line to God?

Is this what is called a political scewup in the heat of a human moment?
 
Geez, the Pope of all people should know the standard answer to that type of question is "the Lord works in mysterious ways."
 
Elind said:
Seems kind of like an odd question, sacreligious even, for someone like the Pope to be asking of God, of all beings. Why now, why this Pope? Don't they all have a direct line to God?

Is this what is called a political scewup in the heat of a human moment?
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He's deflecting attention from a better question: "why did the Vatican remain silent?"

There is a movement afoot to get Pius XII canonized, and critics want to stop it on the grounds that he shares a great deal of responsibility for the ascendence of the Reich.
 
Elind said:
Seems kind of like an odd question, sacreligious even, for someone like the Pope to be asking of God, of all beings. Why now, why this Pope? Don't they all have a direct line to God?

Is this what is called a political scewup in the heat of a human moment?
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The quote is a little out of context - asking such questions and then answering them is a pretty common practice in oratory. Did he do that?

Or maybe it's more like an advertisement - Why did God let the Holocaust happen? Find out this Sunday!
 
Good point, perhaps, but I read several news quotes of the same comment. He offered no answers from God in any, although I'm sure we can all imagine what they would be. If he had done as you suggest it would not have been news I suppose; so, screw up?
 
I think that to the Catholics the Pope is infallible in the sense that they don't believe he could lead the church 'astray'. Not infallible in the sense that he never forgets where his socks are.

It was good of him to visit the camp, and took some courage.
Before Pope Benedict's visit, some Jewish groups had said a German Pope speaking the language of the Nazis would insult the memory of the million or more Jews murdered there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5024324.stm
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Anyway, talking to God is not particularly crazy, believing a God talks back to you is.

The Pope is mistaken on bigger things than this, so -shrug-.

He has come out strongly against secularism because he cannot conceive of a morality not based on an Absolute Truth.

Does not compute: Morality and ethics function more like an ecosystem where things only seem objective or absolute from our pov, but in a larger sense are ultimately subject to circumstance.
 
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Can't wait hear the fundy outcry "aboot" this one.
Most of them don't class Catholics as Christain don't ya knew.
 
Kopji said:
I think that to the Catholics the Pope is infallible in the sense that they don't believe he could lead the church 'astray'. Not infallible in the sense that he never forgets where his socks are.

It was good of him to visit the camp, and took some courage.

Anyway, talking to God is not particularly crazy, believing a God talks back to you is.

The Pope is mistaken on bigger things than this, so -shrug-.
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I doubt that you are so so nice to GWB when he puts his foot in it, regularly.

The point here is that the Pope is not a "guy" who does something "good" a few generations late, or shows "courage" for the same. He IS the Catholic church representing a billion or so people.

If his question had been; "...please forgive US for allowing this to happen" or something similar, then I would be inclined to shrug like you.

In this case he appears to actually lay the blame on God. I think that is really weird, or at the very least a foot in mouth subconscious screw up.
 
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In my haste to point out the irony of an ex-Hitler Youth pope questioning God about the Holocaust, I forgot to point out that in Catholic doctrince, the pope isn't infallible in everything. He's only infallible when speaking ex cathedra,and that's only to clear up matters of doctrine. The much touted papal infallibility has only been used once, IIRC, and then it was to settle an argument about the Virgin Mary.
 
Correct, but I have not mentioned "infallibility" here and don't think it has to be applicable. The guy seems to think that God is responsible for people's acts; when convenient of course.
 
Kopji said:
I think that to the Catholics the Pope is infallible in the sense that they don't believe he could lead the church 'astray'. Not infallible in the sense that he never forgets where his socks are.
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'Papal infallibility' eliminates debate about what is appropriate Catholic belief, because the Pope has the final word, and it will be honoured in heaven.

This is why the Vatican can change its mind, and there's no panic about what happened to the souls who respected the older canon.
 
I'm a Protestant (don't worry, I won't bite), so let me share what the minister in my church talked about yesterday morning. (Probably not the same opinion as the Catholics, but it's an answer.)

The minister grew up in Great Britain, and he talked about the Battle of Dunkirk. As the battle turned towards the Axis, there was apparently a day of prayer in England, and afterwards the Allies successfully escaped. If they had been successfully attacked, the British would have suffered a crushing blow, and the war could have turned out differently.

The lesson? God works subtly (different from working mysteriously) to turn the tide of battle, but he doesn't interfere directly and obviously, supposedly because doing so would eliminate the need for faith, would destroy free will, and, most importantly, would free man from his responsibility to recognize such atrocities as the Holocaust. In short, if God crushed Hitler himself, it would eliminate the identity of both God and Man.

I'm not a fundamentalist by any standard, far from it- I'm just putting this out there. That might have been the point the Pope was making.
 
One other thing- did you ever consider that the Pope might not know? Not everything religious officials do is aimed towards trickery and deception. The Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church, but he's not expected to be God Himself. Any intelligent individual would have to give a moment's thought to why so much suffering exists in the world if there is a benevolent supreme being.
 
Admiral said:
The lesson? God works subtly (different from working mysteriously) to turn the tide of battle, but he doesn't interfere directly and obviously, supposedly because doing so would eliminate the need for faith, would destroy free will, and, most importantly, would free man from his responsibility to recognize such atrocities as the Holocaust. In short, if God crushed Hitler himself, it would eliminate the identity of both God and Man.
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Sorry, but I see no difference between what you say and saying that God (assuming the existence) doesn't interfere at all. What you call subtle is just justifying your belief, IMHO.
 
Admiral said:
One other thing- did you ever consider that the Pope might not know?
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Of course he doesn't "know" the answer, assuming he thinks it a valid question.

The point here is that the events in question were quite obviously overlooked by people who had alternative courses of action available. The Catholic church is plenty guilty in that regard as is well documented and I don't know where the Pope comes off asking God why he allowed it. Sounds like a cop-out to me.
 
Admiral said:
I'm a Protestant (don't worry, I won't bite), so let me share what the minister in my church talked about yesterday morning. (Probably not the same opinion as the Catholics, but it's an answer.)

The minister grew up in Great Britain, and he talked about the Battle of Dunkirk. As the battle turned towards the Axis, there was apparently a day of prayer in England, and afterwards the Allies successfully escaped. If they had been successfully attacked, the British would have suffered a crushing blow, and the war could have turned out differently.

The lesson? God works subtly (different from working mysteriously) to turn the tide of battle, but he doesn't interfere directly and obviously, supposedly because doing so would eliminate the need for faith, would destroy free will, and, most importantly, would free man from his responsibility to recognize such atrocities as the Holocaust. In short, if God crushed Hitler himself, it would eliminate the identity of both God and Man.

I'm not a fundamentalist by any standard, far from it- I'm just putting this out there. That might have been the point the Pope was making.
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This is an akward example, because we have records of why, exactly, the Germans avoided capturing these two armies of the British Expeditionary Force, and allowed the troops to withdraw. This was not a last-minute decision, but a contingency scenario planned up to a year in advance during the German wargames that developed the French invasion plan, and argued for by Guderian himself.
 
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