"There is no pope."
(Gertrude Stein)

Yo Shimmy,
You forget the Pope of Greenwich Village?
Mickey

The premise you base this entire article on is tenuous. Keep in mind that he was not the brilliant scholar he is today while serving, but rather a child. Young Ratzinger deserted the German army before the end of the war, which shows some level of gradual moral cognizance of the situation. No one knew the extent of the evil of the Nazis until the war was over.

Hi Wilson,

You claimed that "...no one knew the extent of the evil of the Nazis until the war was over."

That can hardly be true. Surely the Nazis knew. More accurately, at least some high-ranking Nazis and the relevant functionaries knew. The question whether Ratzinger was in a position to have caught wind of what -- or some of what -- was going on in his name remains open.

More importantly, Lance's chief point stands, namely that Ratzinger the adult, fully formed moral agent, and aspiring hot-shot was eventually, and remains, in the position of reflecting on what he was a part of -- however unwittingly he was a part of it. The suggestion being made here, it seems to me, is that once one has developed the capacity for hindsight and moral reflection, one owes some recognition of the gravity of that sort of involvement in wrongdoing, let alone in the radical evil with which Ratzinger was complicit. It's well to remember, too, that no one has denied yet that he was complicit with it. That by itself is a large part of the point, I think.

Wilson:
Actually, he was 18 while still in the army. Hardly a child, but rather a young man as I said. And he deserted after Hitler had killed himself, so hardly at a point when it made any difference. More importantly, it is not true that the holocaust was unknown. The Pope says himself that he knew, and indeed, the existence of the camps was fairly widely recognized at the time.

I'd urge you to look again at what I wrote. I didn't blame him for not realizing all this at the time. I blame him for now not accepting the extent of his collaboration, and for discounting the remarkable sacrifices of those who did resist, including some in his home town with the same information he had.

Mark Lance

Lance -

You have spent far too long in the insular, academic world to understand reality.

The Pope is a corageous man and a man of principles. You have principles, but I encourage you to step foot outside of your classroom and office and do something other than criticize someone who has and will do more for the world than you will ever do.

To "monday morning quarterback" history in such a manner is a disgrace to your profession. It is disgraceful to pin the powerful currents of history on a teenager who now happens to be the pope.

Also, I would like to see a quote where he degrades resistance or calls it impossible in a generalized sense.

The tone of the article suggests that your are manipulating the currents of history to score subjective and political points.

PS - this statement "I am no more than an ordinary, fallible human" reeks of anti-Catholicism and insincerity.

Also, the following argument reminds me of the neo-conservative case for invading and occupying Iraq:

"The idea that they can do nothing in the face of organized evil — that resistance is impossible, that it is acceptable to respond to threats with collaboration"

Does anyone else find this ironic - especially considering that the last two popes opposed the Iraq war as unjust...

John:
Since you have no idea what I do outside the academy, it is odd that you feel entitled to make these assumptions. I really see nothing else here that makes any contact with what I said.

Brett, aside from the baseless allegations -- that I'm scoring subjective points -- mis-readings -- that I pin anything on teenagers -- and weird interpretations -- noting that I claim less authority than the pope "reeks of anti-Catholicism" -- you ask for quotes. The Pope has said on several occasions that resistance at the time was impossible. Google the issue and articles will pop up from numerous newpapers. It is also in authorized biographies.

Mark Lance

Mark, I asked for quotes from Benedict that claim promote a *general* disapproval of the resistance to evil, not quotes from my scribblings.

And, since you admonish the pope in this regard, what is your plan to eliminate "organized evil" from the world??? Do you have any suggestions for the neo-conservatives?

Anarchism, perhaps?

Yes! Another off the wall Mark Lance opinion! Excellent! Yes! The Pope! That bastard! Capitalism! Devil product of the West! Democracy! Who Needs It! Traditional Morality! How Antiquated! Republicans! Demon Scum!

Yes! I love how every few weeks my school brings out such a representative and empowering voice! Shout it from the roof tops! Another unique and incisive attack upon the foundations of the World's Old Boy's Club in whatever form it takes!

Yes! Feed it to me! Let me lap it up! How right you are Lance! How wrong those fools in the Catholic Church! In Middle America! In the White House! Even in the classroom, if they dare go against the prevailing consensus of Modernity in all its beauteous forms!

Yes! Yes!

Lance -

I feel ashamed to have been graduated from a school that employs you. You are a joke and must feel ashamed that you focus your life on belittling those who are better than you.

Obviously the Pope made peace with God for his past sins - in confession (a private sacrament of the Holy Catholic church). God had a higher calling for this great man, and he accepted, despite his hesitations. I hope someday you learn to better yourself and not criticize those above you and do more in life than your meaningless job.

Paul:
So I gather you graduated. Did no one along the way ever suggest to you that the intellectually responsible way to deal with an argument is to respond to what is said? Instead you call me names. (Would my job be meaningless if I agreed with you? Is the same job done by Jesuits meaningful?) And you announce that the Pope is better than me.

Well, maybe he is. Maybe he made peace with God, confessed sins, and there is a good reason why he continues to say what he does to people. Would it be so hard to explain that to us joke mortals with the meaningless jobs? He hasn't. He never said "I sinned in the past and made peace with God." Rather he says that he did nothing wrong and that resistance was impossible. (If he does think he sinned, then is he lying when he makes these pronouncements?)

As I said, I claim no special moral powers. I'm just trying to understand. Apparantly my doing so threatens you in some way. Perhaps that too deserves to be examined.

As for the post above Paul's, well, really. If you don't want to deal with what I said, you could ignore it rather than simply make yourself look like a 2 year old having a tantrum. Oh, but of course you are hiding behind the cloak of the internet. So all is safe. Very sad.

Mark Lance

Hi Mark:

Its your old internet friend the former choir-boy, daily communican capitalist! Fresh my an Opus Dei convocation.

Despite my stripes, I agree with you. I respect the Pope as a major force of good in the world and a man of deep religious and moral convictions (and a believer in the existance of absolute truth with the caveat that such truth is generally unknowable).

Just the same, I dont think there is anything wrong with someone who found himself serving a murderous regime denouncing the regime and making a public penance. I think (without claiming to know) that it would be good for his soul and good for the soul of the Chruch he serves.

I also respect that when a man is the CEO of the world's oldest institution, worlds largest instution, and a moral authority for almost a billion, you can tend to be risk averse and public apologies are risky. But while that makes his silence understandable, it doesnt make it excusable.

Let not your heart be troubled. We'll fight next week.

Saxon Gillis

Professor,

I personally take offense to your opinion. The majority of Germans 60 years ago were not evil people (are all Muslims terrorists...should they all apologize for what the vocal minority is doing today? Obviously not).

Remember, most of Germany lived in small towns and villages with limited communications and press, and even less unfiltered press.

All Germans deeply regret and are ashamed of what happened in the past.

I do no expect an apology higher than what the Pope has already stated. He has lived with this guilt for over sixty years now.

Please step off of your moral soap box and get a life.

Sir Lance:
Wow, my job is meaningless because I teach a course on a particular political tradition. Right. If you ever get the idea that you should know what I teach, or what anarchism is, I invite you to take the class. You might find that the anarchist tradition requires a bit more than name-calling if you did.

Katie:
I find your response a bit odd. I didn't say a word about Germans in general and honestly can't imagine how you could be personally offended. I didn't ask the Pope to apologize for anything other than what he did, certainly not for all Germans, or for you. I said that there was guilt associated with being complicit with the holocaust which is something the Pope does not deny. And if he, as one of the Germans you presume to speak for, is ashamed of what happened and his role in it, he certainly has not indicated this with his protestations that there was nothing he could have done.

Beyond that misrepresentation of what I wrote, you don't really respond to anything I said. You just announce that you don't care and tell me to get a life. Obviously there is no more possibility for rational discourse in response to that than there is in response to the "sir lance" comments.

Folks: does anyone out there have any interest in actually engaging with the issue? I'm happy to just stipulate that a bunch of you think I'm a moron, don't deserve a job, am morally corrupt, etc. With that out of the way, any thoughts on the issue, or on what I said?

Mark Lance

Professor,

I’m rather embarrassed by some of these comments that are apparently coming from some of my fellow students. I personally only have a familiarity with the current Pope’s life during WWII, but as far as I can tell most sources attribute the “resistance was impossible” quote to his brother Georg. Minor point perhaps, but nevertheless. I don’t want to get into a who-said-what debate and then start trying to explain “what they actually meant” as you do (paragraph five), as I don’t consider myself adequately informed to make knowledgeable contributions to the debate. However, I do have a question regarding the content of your article; it’s purely curious and not intended to provoke, excuse, or condemn anyone. You write that the Holocaust was “the most evil project of the most evil regime ever to exist on this earth,” and later, imagining a statement from the Pope, write that it was “the greatest evil in the history of this world.” That the Holocaust was one of the greatest evils in the history of this world is unquestionable, but considering all the evils in human history, do you think it is legitimate to categorize some evils as being “worse” than others? (To stay in the twentieth century, other evils that we can consider that affected millions of people include what happened under Stalin [purges, deportations, Holodomor…], the Khmer Rouge period, and the Rwandan Civil War and genocide.) I haven’t studied much philosophy, but I find something distasteful about “ranking” such evils.

First, thanks for writing something that actually engaged with what I wrote. It is enormously refreshing. On the quote, the specific "resistance was impossible" quote that has been mentioned most often in this debate was from Georg, but I've seen three reputable papers say that the pope explicitly endorsed this comment. And in any event, he has said many things indicating the same idea, that there was no reasonable way to engage in resistance.

I completely agree with you about ranking evils. My statement was a bit of rhetorical excess. Certainly some evils are obviously more serious than others, but I frequently urge people not to get into debates about whether, say, slavery was more or less evil than the holocaust. Utterly unhelpful. And this was unhelpful rhetoric.

Let's leave it at "the most clearly evil project of one of the most clearly evil regimes in human history." I think that is uncontroversial.

Mark Lance

Thanks for the clarification, professor. I'm going to look more into the Pope's comments regarding his past, as your article does suggest that it hasn't been addressed sufficiently. (And if anyone is wondering, I speak as a Catholic who can recognize valid criticism of the Church.)

Also (just to speak to fellow Hoyas and other commenters), since Mark Lance is willing to engage everyone who responds to his articles in discussion, how about giving him the respect of posting something that actually contributes instead of resorting to personal attacks? If you'd like Prof. Lance to change his opinion I presume you'd have a better chance at achieving this result through logic rather than insults. I can't help but wonder what prospective students think of Hoyas' collective reasoning abilities when they read this paper online and see such ridiculous comments. It reflects pretty poorly on us, guys.

Professor Lance,

If the current pope truly believes that resistance would indeed have been futile, wouldn't any apology be empty and to some extent offensive? If he does not believe what he did was wrong, then what is the point in pressuring him for an apology? One might question whether he is truly capable of being a leader of a major world religion if he does not realize that assisting in the Holocaust was wrong. The issue that should be taken into consideration is whether every German soldier must be branded with the sins of the Holocaust. Personally, I think that it would be unfair to put a lifelong mark on the young men who fought for Germany in World War II. Blaming conscripts for fighting an unjust war and expecting them to stand up to the military giving them orders does not sit right with me. They were just pawns in a murderous game being played by the higher ups. I understand that this sounds like the reasons given at the Nuremberg trials (i.e., "I was just following orders."), but it is easy for an outside observer to say that a young man should have bucked the chain of command and put his life at risk. Ratzinger was not directly involved in the commission of war crimes, nor were thousands of other German soldiers. Asking cannon fodder to stand up and face execution may be asking too much. I can understand your desire for a world leader to atone for what you see as a sin that he committed, but if he believes that he did no wrong, then any apology would be meaningless and unnecessary unless he was to come to believe/realize what he did was wrong. The argument can be made that he rightfully believes that he did no wrong as a minor member of the German army. As a result, the need for an apology might not be as clear cut as you believe it to be. Of course, I could be wrong, but I hope that I have at least laid some groundwork for an argument that the apology you are calling for is not necessary. If, however, Ratzinger knew what he was doing was wrong and continues to claim the alternative, then there would be a serious problem. To quote Homer, "Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another."

I am a GU grad from 1966 (SFS) and have become increasingly disenchanted with my alma mater over the past couple of decades after years of being an enthusiastic alumnus and interviewer for applicants overseas. Mark Lance's comments about the young Josef Ratzinger are off base from my perspective and serve to deepen my dislike for the school. I do not see that Josef R. committed any crimes or is guilty of anything needing an act of contrition or plea for forgiveness. Certainly nothing that is public knowledge to Prof. Lance or myself. He did not apply for the Hitler Jugend and resisted it but was eventually "volunteered" by a teacher, evidently to spare the boy grief from the Nazis. He was drafted into the army in the final months of the war and did not fire a weapon but was put to work in a non combattant role. It is so easy to make judgments 63 years later from the safety of Georgetown about the actions of an 18 year old living in a total dictatorship. Josef Ratzinger has never disparaged the heroism of those who performed heroic deeds during that horrible time. This criticism smacks to me of liberal backstabbing.

You have said that the holocaust in germany back then was the greatest evil in the history of the world? I disagree. The greatest evil is with us now in the form of abortion.

As for what happened to the boy Ratzinger. It is best you not judge him. He has not been accused of any crimes and you have no right to do so. If he has confessed any sins of his past, those are between him and God. You have no proof of any "nazi leanings" in his writings or words therefore you sin against justice when you make such accusations.

You wrote,
"....from one who claims to speak authoritatively about moral truths..."? He does have the authority. It was conferred upon him by God. If you don't like that truth, that man, and the Holy Mandate that he holds. tough. It is what it is and no amount of whining about his past is going to change that.

Your animus is against the Catholic Faith, pure and simple.

Prayers for your immortal soul, a "talk to the hand" to your above article.

James: You say "If he does not believe what he did was wrong, then what is the point in pressuring him for an apology?" The point is to convince him that he is wrong. That is why we reason with anyone we disagree with. And if he won't change -- or more likely never sees this -- then the point is to convince other people not to listen to or agree with him on this issue. If they do, they will themselves see no imperative to resist in the face of state evil and that is a very bad lesson indeed.

Should every German soldier "be branded with the sins of the holocaust?" perhaps not. (Though the level of knowledge about what was happening was much broader than people like to admit today. And at the least everyone knew that Germany was launching aggressive wars on its neighbors.) But one who laid tank traps as he watched Jews being shipped to camps knew about it and was complicit in it. He was not canon fodder, and by his own account he knew what was happening. He has frequently spoken of the whole war effort of Germany as wrong. Again, his public defense has not been to deny that he helped with an effort he knew to be wrong -- he also spotted Allied planes, sending information to anti-aircraft batteries -- but rather is proud of the fact that his family knew it to be wrong, while insisting that resistance was impossible.

Arnold: You are ashamed of your university because it has people who argue for views you disagree with. Perhaps you need to re-consider the meaning of 'university'.

On the rest of your letter, I wonder if you actually read my article. The Pope laid tank traps (and spotted against allied planes). These are combatant roles. He watched Jews being shipped to camps past his position. That is knowledge. As for it being easy to judge from a university what happened to a young man, again, did you read what I wrote? It is indeed and I explained exactly what I think that entails. What is at issue, and what I criticize, is the way a mature man dealt with the times when he was young.

Barb:
Fine. If you feel abortion is more evil, can we at least agree that the holocaust was a pretty seriously bad thing? It hardly changes the point of my article.

As for the "boy [18] Ratzinger," see above.

As for your announcement of what I believe, you must have some impressive powers yourself to be able to discern hidden motives and beliefs that have nothing to do with what I wrote. Of course it is much easier to insulate your own views from criticism if you simply attribute hostility and evil to anyone who dares challenge them. "Oh, he's an evil professor who hates Catholics so I can caricature his argument and dismiss him." Congratulations. You have found a way to forever hold onto exactly what you believe at the moment.

And your final sentence does not merit response.

Mark Lance

I don’t know anything about Professor Lance’s religious beliefs or affiliation, but I have the impression he is not Catholic. His discussion of how the current pope might deal with his youthful association with the Nazi regime thus comes from outside the Catholic tradition. (This is not to say it is foreign to or inconsistent with the traditional role of the members of a Catholic university community like Georgetown. See Patricia McGuire’s piece in today’s Post.)

Perhaps Lance’s status as an outsider raises the defensive hackles of some within the tradition and makes it difficult to engage his argument. I want to take a tentative stab at recasting the argument in traditional Catholic language and see where that takes us.

Early on the morning of the day Jesus would be executed, the first pope found himself in a position where resistance to evil was futile: Jesus was going to be publicly humiliated and gruesomely tortured to death, and nothing Peter might do or say had the slightest chance of preventing it. It would have served no apparent purpose for Peter, when queried about his accent while warming himself at the fire in the court of the high priest, to acknowledge his friendship with Jesus. Yet we are told that, on account of his failure to do so, Peter wept bitter tears of repentance; and neither he nor any of his successors nor any of their followers have had any difficulty admitting that Peter’s failure to acknowledge Jesus when it might have cost him his life and not prevented Jesus’ death was terribly wrong.

Why are we so hard on the first pope? Most of us in the same position would certainly have acted as he did. Nonetheless, our criticism is valid and proper because the standard to which Peter, like other Christians, must be held is not what most of us would do but rather what is required by the morality preached by Jesus.

Jesus, after all, is the teacher whose main quarrel with the Law of Moses was that it was too lenient. (E.g., he criticized the law’s permitting men to divorce their wives.) He insisted that to be his followers we must be prepared to take up the cross, that is, we are actually required to embrace the same fate Jesus was suffering when Peter denied him. That is an awfully strict morality.

That’s the morality Benedict, as Peter’s successor and Jesus’ vicar, is called to model and teach. And Benedict’s complicity with the Nazis’ crimes, slight though it may have been, seems to have been significantly greater than Peter’s complicity (if it can even be called that) in the torturing and killing of Jesus. It therefore makes sense to ask whether it might be appropriate for Benedict to engage in the same sort of public self-criticism Peter did.

The impossibly strict moral code Jesus preached is made livable only by the fact that he also preached the infinite mercy of God. He taught us readily to acknowledge our moral failings with complete confidence that God’s love is stronger than all the evil we can devise. In the Christian view we do not achieve salvation by justifying or excusing our youthful errors and other wrongdoing but by acknowledging them for what they are and leaving the job of justification to God.

Perhaps it would make sense for the pope to see his youthful brush with fundamental evil as an opportunity to teach the gospel by example.

Incidentally, I understand Hoya columnists do not compose the headlines for their articles. Professor Lance did not claim the right to demand atonement from Benedict, and I don't think the editor(s) who wrote the headline should make such a claim either.

Barb wrote:

"It is best you not judge him. He has not been accused of any crimes and you have no right to do so. If he has confessed any sins of his past, those are between him and God. You have no proof of any "nazi leanings" in his writings or words therefore you sin against justice when you make such accusations."

So are we not meant to criticize what we feel is wrong, simply because some higher power has not become visibly involved in the issue (or a government)? Life is very much about interpretations and researching into things to understand them better; and I think you've misread the professor's statement (which I do not entirely agree with but that's not what I am writing about). I don't see him accusing the Pope of Nazi leanings, only of having culpability for participating in the Nazi forces. There is a distinct difference, but you seem to miss that.

"Your animus is against the Catholic Faith, pure and simple."

This statement epitomizes several of my problems with Georgetown. I am a current student, by no means a Catholic nor a truly practicing Christian (I am baptized Eastern Orthodox but my family never really has gone to church). Why should all professors necessarily impart to us tenets of the Catholic faith? Why should they be required to conform to certain aspects of it? We are free thinkers, we are at a university which promotes freedom of thought and diversity. I assume you are an alumnus who is quite disillusioned with Georgetown nowadays, just as the poster before you is, because it has moved to liberalize its teachers (liberalize not POLITICALLY but in the breadth of what it teaches). To be honest, I don't find myself regretting the possibility of you not supporting Georgetown or its professors in the future, because close-mindedness seems to be one of your traits (which the Catholic faith, nor any Christian sect I believe, doesn't promote).

From "The Sinners Guide" by the Venerable Louis of Grenada

"Detraction is committed when we tell another's real faults; calumny, when the fault we mention is not real, but the invention of our malicious lies."

"Those who are addicted to detraction and raillery do not confine themselves to what they know, but indulge in suppositions and rash judgments. When they no longer find matter to censure THEY INVENT EVIL INTENTIONS, MISINTERPRET GOOD ACTIONS. forgetting that Our Saviour has said: "Judge not, that you may not be judged; for with what judgment you judge you shall be judged." (Matt, 7:1-2) Here also the offense may frequently be a mortal sin, particularly when we venture to judge in a matter of grave importance upon very slight evidence. If it be only a suspicioun, not a real judgment, it may only be a venial sin, because the act has not been completed. Even by suspicion however, a mortal sin can be comitted by SUSPECTING VIRTUOUS PERSONS OF ENORMOUS CRIMES."

The title of your article says it all really. We all have our sins to atone for. His atonement for past sins are no more your business than yours are to me. Your article is just rife with the sins mentioned by Venerable Louis of Grenada. You have published them. You call for "discussion" of what you have written, I give it.

Your motives are not hidden. You declared them.

John:
Thank you very much for this. That is precisely the sort of argument I was making. Indeed, I'm not Catholic, but I think this Christian lesson is just the right one. (Indeed, this approach to human weakness is one of the great moral lessons of the tradition. it is exemplified as well by the early Christians who were martyred by the Romans, or by latter-day heroes like the Berrigans and others who accept jail rather than participate in state crimes. Such people were among my early political mentors.) I take this lesson in a secular manner, holding that the goal of virtuous persons should be to always recognize our complicity with evil, to do our best to struggle against it, and to forgive our own and each others' failings. But the lesson is the same, I think, whether seen theologically or not. I very much appreciate your "translation".

GC. Yes, there is a serious dispute over the nature of a university here. Georgetown is a Catholic university in the sense that it goes to great lengths to ensure that the various -- yes there are many -- Catholic views and traditions are represented in all debates. And it requires of all of us that we respect those views, but not that we agree with them. This distinguishes GU from typical secular universities -- which don't care if the Catholic tradition is present at all - and exclusivist Catholic educational institutions which require doctrinal agreement. I can't imagine how Catholicism or the intellectual climate in general would be served by turning Georgetown into the latter. It would mean that Catholic positions were utterly ghettoized, and ignored in serious intellectual circles and it would mean that non-Catholic students and scholars would have no chance to learn from a rich tradition. But it is what is demanded by many of those critics who write in to snipe about my daring to disagree. Thankfully, the administration has never agreed with them, and I am proud to be a part of a Jesuit institution that would refuse - as it has for 17 years - to do anything to silence someone like me.

Barb:
As John notes, and I thought everyone knew, columnists don't write the headlines. I suggested a very different one, and do not endorse this one. As for "discussion," I'm afraid that is not what you are doing. You are simply accusing me of bad motives, and declaring that I'm wrong and evil. You have not addressed a single thing I said in a remotely fair or rational way. Frankly, your comments are just mean-spirited abuse at the very idea that someone could criticize the Pope. That's fine. You are welcome to type out abuse of anyone you like. But don't think it isn't clear what you are engaging in; don't think it is going to be taken seriously by anyone who doesn't already agree with you; and don't think I am going to engage further with it.

Mark Lance

Prof. Lance-

While discussing this article with some friends, we ultimately came upon this thought experiment: What if the young Ratzinger were to find out all the good that would come out of his life of service if he kept silent and survived the Nazi regime. (Let us also assume that his life in the Church has had overwhelmingly positive effects). Would he still be obligated to act? I'm not sure how to answer the question and am curious to hear what you think.

I also take some issue with your use of the word "complicit." I'm sure you'll agree that the words we choose are important, and the choice of "complicit" seems to me particularly damning. When I hear "complicit," I think of its derivative "accomplice." Accomplices aid and abet crimes and are willing and deliberate participants. I'm not sure if I think this would accurately describe what Ratzinger did. It seems clear that he was not a contributor to the Holocaust, but instead erred in his inaction. Like all Germans of the period (and many non-Germans that allowed the evil of the Holocaust to go on unprotested) I believe Ratzinger is in some way responsible, in the same way that negligent parents are in some sense responsible for the actions of their wayward children, but I believe complicit may be another rhetorical excess.

You are still missing the point. His past sins are none of your business. They are no one's business. He does not need our forgiveness.

Your article contains the accusation clear as day: "But for all this,the crimes of the young Ratzinger should not be our focus. Crimes they were."

You assume to know what went on in his heart while he lived those days. You were not there, and you are not God to demand forgiveness or atonement.

The Holy Father will be addressing the problems of "higher education" which has lost it's moorings in truth and has embraced that tyranny of relativism that he is currently battling. This article of yours is just another example of a "preemptive strike" against him.

As for your charge of "abuse" against me. You seem to have a strange definition of the word. It's alright. I will stand by the writings of Venerable Louis of Grenada over your writings any day.

Oh my! What a reversal!

You state now: "I also take issue with your use of the word "complicit".....etc"

First you do indeed accuse him of crimes. Now you are backing off from that accusation. That is good.

Apologies for that, got you mixed up with someone else with that last post. This thing is getting quite long, but still interesting.

This argument is still being made within a historical vacuum which discounts many factors that influenced attitudes and fears of the time - including the very aggressive advance of communism (as close as Hungary and Bavaria in the 1930s).

Service in the German army could be sold to the people as necessary for survival and, in fact, combating the "true" and god-less evil that would consume millions of lives across Eastern Europe...

This is not related to Benedict; however, it is related to the one-sided picture that the professor presents i.e. “the most evil project of the most evil regime ever to exist on this earth.”

Evil, as you state above, is not so clear cut - neither is the actions of people caught between such forces.

Perhaps the professor is an acolyte of Leo Strauss?...

So Brett thinks the Nazis aren't so bad because they were fighting communism, though he notes this has nothing to do with the case in point, and then offers silly speculation about my motives.

David: You and your friends raise good questions. I think "complicit" is quite correct and not the same as "willing accomplice". Complicity comes when one participates actively, provides support for, and in some way profits from wrong actions. All of this applies. I made clear in the article that I didn't consider this willing. There was a context of coercion. But again, the main issue is the radical difference between the behavior of young Ratzinger and the behavior of those who resisted, who went underground, who deserted, who protested. Despite the coercion, the gap between those is profound, and failing to take the morally better step in this case constitutes complicity. As a person with such authority, he would do the world a great good if he would hold up those other ideals as ideals to humanity.

Interestingly I think this judgment would survive even your thought experiment. Let us stipulate that the Pope's life was a major force for good, a far greater one than any harm he did in the war. If so, and if he could have known that, a consequentialist morality would say that it was right of him to do what he did. That is quite contrary to traditional Catholic morality, but I don't reject that form of moral reasoning. But I still think there is what moral philosophers call a "moral residue". Here's an analogy. SUppose you promise to come to a birthday party for a friend who's been going through tough times. You know it is important to him. But on the way, your child comes down with acute appendicitis. Of course you rush your child to the hospital and miss the appointment. But something remains. You did the right thing, but still broke a promise, and left a friend hanging. this calls for apology, for explanation, for genuine regret. Well, I think the same here. Even if one knew that joining the resistance would not help, that one could do far more for good by supporting the Nazi war effort and the holocaust, and that in the long run this was the right way to go -- mind you, I don't know that any of this is true, but let's suppose -- it would still remain that one had collaborated with Nazis. that calls for genuine moral regret, even if it was the right thing to do. (And of course as I said, all this is irrelevant to a Catholic point of view that would never condone as morally acceptable laying tank traps for Nazis so as to preserve a life that would later be morally useful. That sort of consequentialism is contrary to Catholic thinking on the matter which is much more deontological.)

Anyway, thanks for this question. If, just to plug serious work on this, anyone would like advise on what courses to take to think about this sort of thing more seriously, I'm happy to advise. We have really good faculty who work on these issues, from both Catholic and non-Catholic perspectives.

Mark Lance

" Far more importantly, so do the masses of ordinary people today who look to Pope Benedict XVI for moral leadership. The idea that they can do nothing in the face of organized evil — that resistance is impossible, that it is acceptable to respond to threats with collaboration — is a lesson that flies in the face of all that is noblest and best in human history. It teaches a lesson of despair."

This comment shows ,I think , that Mark Lance is woefully ignorant of the writings of Pope Benedict XVI eg.Spe Salvi

Laying tank traps for your army during a war isn't a crime. It never has been. We have no idea what Ratzinger knew back then, nor can we declare from this "wonderful hindsight" what he "should have known". None of us can read hearts and hence it is best we steer clear of making such judgments. We can however judge what we are witness to ourselves.

This article clearly accuses the Holy Father of crimes. The word "crime" appears many times. The professor who wrote it admits that he has no proof of such crimes and yet he still makes the accusation. He goes even further and insists that the Pontiff should seek pardon for said crimes.

Who does he say he should seek pardon from? "people of the world"? The "people of the world" back then did not demand an apology from those in his position for a reason.
Now here come "the people of the world" of today who make silly demands that their grandsires would blush to even consider making.

As for the title of the article, my statement still stands. The title encapsulates perfectly what the entire content of the article says. You should have lauded the one who made the title for expressing the content perfectly. The professor does indeed seem a bit shy and defensive when it comes to my criticism of his work and yet he is all gung ho about criticizing the pope. Go figure.

Barb:
One last try since you are so determined. The Pope has said himself that he knew what was going on, that he saw Jews being taken to the camps past the positions at which he was laying mines. No reading hearts, just reading words. He acknowledges all this and says that it was ok because there was no effective means of resistance. Even if you won't take what I write seriously, I'd think you'd take the Pope's writing seriously.

And yes, I think defending death camps from allied liberation is a moral crime, and probably a legal one as well. Even prior to Nuremburg there were international agreements with the binding force of law concerning things like the holocaust and the launching of wars on one's neighbors.

As for no one demanding apologies at the time, you are simply ignorant Barb. Try reading Arendt, or Buber, or Wiesel, or any of hundreds of accounts written by those who resisted. Recall the Nuremburg trials? Have you heard of the concept of a "Good German" and the idea that "just following orders" is not an excuse?

The fundamental dispute here is simple. You claim that I have no right in principle to criticize the Pope. His issues are for him and God. But at the same time you aren't a consistent moral relativist, one who thinks no one should criticize anyone. It is fine to criticize non-Catholics, to condemn them in fact (along with mocking, caricaturing, name-calling, etc.) All that is great fun. But the very idea that the Pope could have done something that calls for reassessment -- respectful, careful argument criticizing his stance - is beyond the bounds.

As I said before: a very convenient attitude, one that insulates you forever from any possibility of intellectual change. At least it is a step up from showing me the instruments of torture because I dare challenge scientific dogma. But the principle is the same. Attack, denounce, bluster, but by all means don't take what anyone else says seriously. Protect our team at all cost.

Barb, you know what would really be interesting, since you clearly have me pegged as a heathen unworthy of respect? Why don't you respond to John Quinn above? He is clearly a Catholic and puts an argument to you from within the tradition? Maybe you can bring yourself to take that seriously.

As for myself, I assure you that I do have things to do other than respond to people who have no interest in taking me seriously. I think the fact that I wrote this article in the first place shows I'm not so shy, and I think I've been far from defensive with you. Indeed I have been far more patient and polite than you merit given the tone of your comments. This really is all the time I intend to devote to your comments.

I am glad that you at least said something in reply. If my replies were considered abusive as you claim, why are they still posted? I read the rules of this forum, and I have been adhering to them faithfully. Nowhere in the rules does it mention that a poster's "tone" meet any requirements.

The quote I used from Venerable Louis of Grenada begins with the word "detraction". Please read that catholic definition very carefully. The pope is not required to meet any creatures approval after he has taken the office. The mandate is Divine and therefore above human judgments. I realize that as a non-catholic you cannot and will not accept that fact. No suprise there. His past was surely taken into account BEFORE his ascent to the throne of peter. God wants Ratzinger as pope, therefore he is. If my belief regarding the Divine Mandate of the Papacy is considered by the echelons of academia as a form of "close-mindedness" I am happy to be so accused.

The pope does not need to beg the forgiveness from "the people of the world". His sins, both past and present are no one else's business. He does not owe "the people of the world" anything beyond what he has already given of his own free will on the subject. We catholics have a wonderful sacrament called confession. Sadly it is neglected and even abused by many catholics today. That is where we catholics go to for forgiveness. The priest acting "in persona Christi" has the Divine Mandate of forgiving and retaining the sins of those who so confess. We do not apologize to "the people of the world". We apologize to God through his duly appointed representative.

Now I am certain that the pope has availed himself of this wonderful sacrament over all these years, after all, he speaks continously and highly of it.

You say that I do not take you seriously? I wouldn't be discussing this with you if I didn't take it seriously. You have accused the Holy Father of crimes and you say he should apologize to this apparently strange "god" you call "the people of the world". You further admit that there is no proof of nazi ideology in the Ratzinger household. If there is no nazi ideology apparent even to this day, There is no reason to suspect him of such today. His moral leadership stands intact and I for one will not question it. That in itself seems to bother you.

The fundamental dispute, as you put it, is that you have no right to call upon him to seek forgiveness from the world for any sins real or imagined that he may or may not have committed. That isn't your place anymore than it is mine.

You have a strange notion of patience as well it seems. You say I have you pegged as "a heathen unworthy of respect". Those aren't exactly patient words there. I never wrote such a thing and I never claimed such a thing. I cannot control how you judge my "tone" and I will not apologize for defending the honor of the supreme pontiff. You took on a subject involving the Catholic Church and then get impatient when a catholic disputes with you?

One can always count on Professor Mark Lance to offer an anti-Catholic argument. He is certainly not a Catholic--although he would make a good Pharisee. He usually uses his ivory tower position to advocate for acceptance of the gay agenda and attacks traditional Catholic teachings. Nobody was shocked to see this attack on Pope Benedict right before his visit. Any wonder Pope Benedict is NOT visiting Georgetown and instead the Catholic University of America? The Vatican is no fan of America's oldest Catholic University...for good reason.

As for Mark Lance's false claims on the Pope, where, pray tell are his sources? I am sure he missed it, but last night Fox News did a one hour special on Pope Benedict and completely debunked the claims Mark Lance made. He should do us all a favor and watch it. Of course, Fox News is probably a little too pro-American and pro-religious for Mr. Lance.

Veritas:
Every specific claim about what the Pope has done or said comes ultimately from his authorized biography or public statements he has made. (I read them first in the Washington Post, Times of London and other media sources.) Fox news did not even dispute any of my historical claims, and none of them are controversial. Neither did I "attack" the Pope. It is truly distressing when so many people are so insecure in their beliefs that they have to treat any suggestion that they or theirs might be wrong about anything as an "attack". I was polite, respectful, made arguments, did not caricature or mock.

All in direct contrast to you, veritas, and other posts of the same sort. You engage in all the tediously common name-calling -- "Gay agenda" "anti-Catholic" "ivory tower," "pharisee"(!) -- which serves marvelously if your goal is never actually to have to think about opposing views. Well done.

Mark Lance

There is no need to assault Prof. Lance personally here. The biographical evidence, compared against the legal and philosophical standards relevant to culpability or assistance in intrinsically evil acts such as the persecution of others, is enough to shame his arguments.

It is difficult from Prof. Lance's post to determine if he is "examining" this question from his own professional discipline, philosophy, or from the standpoint of theology or law. He glides, it seems, from one vantage point to the next, never pausing long enough to give a considered, scholarly reflection as to what any of disciplines might actually SAY about the core concepts of "complicity," "participation," and "crime" that buttress his claim of the Pope's alleged complicity and participation in the crime of the Holocaust.

I will, for the most part, aim to be the good cobbler who sticks to his last, in this case, the law.

A scholar engaged in genuine intellectual pursuit of these questions in the life of young Ratzinger would start from this premise: surely there must be international or even domestic legal standards for determining when one is complicit with or has participated in the persecution of others.

As, of course, there are. Indeed, a copious literature of statutes, case law, legal commentary and other materials, plus the decades-long work product of the Office of Special Investigations in the Department of Justice, are easily accessible to those seeking to explore such questions. This is not to say that the questions themselves are easy, nor the decisions in individual cases, but the standards do exist.

In the case of young Ratzinger, they point clearly to one conclusion: he did not "participate in," nor was he "complicit with," the persecutions of the Nazi regime.

The issue arises in international and domestic law relating to the concept of "persecution." Briefly put, both international and domestic law offer protection to the victims of persecution, and to those who establish a likelihood, or even a "well-founded fear" that they would be subject to persecution in their home countries on account of specified grounds such as religion, nationality, or political opinion.

These protections, however, are not available to those who, in the U.S. version of the exclusion, have "ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated" in the persecution of others on such grounds. To take the easy question first, the Nazi regime's depradations clearly constituted "persecution" with a "nexus" to a defined ground. So the question then becomes, did young Ratzinger "participate" in such persecution.

As it happens, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon re-visit this issue, in the case of an Eritrean who was impressed against his will into service as a guard at a prison camp where prisoners were kept standing for hours unprotected from the elements, and deprived basic hygiene. Negusie v. Mukasey, No. 07-499 (cert. granted, Mar. 17, 2008). Twenty-seven years ago, in the Fedorenko decision, the Supreme Court rejected the claim of a Ukranian man captured as a POW by the Nazis, and compelled to serve as a camp guard at Treblinka, that he had not "participated" in the persecution of others because he had not done so voluntarily, but under pain of death. The applicant's motivation and intent, the Court held, were not relevant under the governing legal standards.
It seems unlikely that the Supreme Court in deciding Negusie will do an abrupt turn-about on the issue of voluntariness, i.e., find that "participation" can be excused if the alleged persecutor acted under compulsion. It may, however, find distinctions from Fedorenko on the facts -- Negusie actively resisted participation in more heinous acts of persecution, and was himself harmed for that resistance.

But, on the question of "voluntariness," score another round for Prof. Lance. A young Ratzinger (had he assisted in persecution of others) would not be able to defend against the charge on grounds that he acted under compulsion.

A third point also may be conceded: Ratzinger knew the evils of the Nazi regime. But this is not, as Prof. Lance implies, a question of "he must have known." No, the irrefutable evidence is that he DID know, knew early on, and engaged consistently in acts of passive resistance precisely to distance himself from the depradations of the regime. It is here -- and on the critical question of what constitutes "participation" in persecution, that Prof. Lance's case unravels.

In Fedorenko, the Supreme Court addressed the difficulty of assessing whether one has "participated" in persecution in the following passage:

"[A]n individual who did no more than cut the hair of female inmates before they were executed cannot be found to have assisted in the persecution of civilians. On the other hand, there can be no question that a guard who was issued a uniform and armed with a rifle and a pistol, who was paid a stipend and was regularly allowed to leave the concentration camp to visit a nearby village, and who admitted to shooting at escaping inmates on orders from the commandant of the camp, fits within the statutory language about persons who assisted in the persecution of civilians. Other cases may present more difficult line-drawing problems but we need decide only this case." Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490, 514 (1981).

Note the supposition here: both the hypothetical hair-dresser and uniformed guard are present in the concentration camp, in close contact with prisoners slated for death. A brief review of young Ratzinger's wartime service puts him nowhere near a concentration camp, and nowhere near any activity on his part remotely connected with the persecution of anyone.

It's helpful to recall the precise facts of that service, which occurred in three stages, most of which was not in the German army.

Prequel: "Hitler Jugend". Contrary to Prof. Lance's insinuation, young Ratzinger "accepted" his position in Hitler Youth essentially as a condition of being able to complete his ongoing seminary studies. (The alternative was to be shipped off to a jevenile concentration camp.) He chose not to attend meetings, finding a sympathetic teacher (himself a member of the Party) who essentially marked his student "present" at Hitler Jugend meetings that he did not, in fact, attend. There is absolutely no evidence, anywhere, that young Ratzinger was anything but an utterly passive member of Hitler Jugend, indeed, one who would huddle in the nighttime darkness to listen, with his father and brother, to banned Allied radio broadcasts.

Step One: Ratzinger was part of the "Flakhilfer generation," so-called because entire classes of male students born from 1926 to 1929 were impressed into service into the "Luftwaffenhelfer." This was a civilian group that served in part as military auxiliaries --Ratzinger's specific duties included guarding two industrial plants and to support, in a telecommunications post, the defenses against allied air strikes on Munich. His "Flakhilfer" tenure -- over a year, ending in mid-September 1944 -- was by far his longest stint of service top the German military effort. It clearly involved no participation in the persecution of others.

Step Two: Reicharbeitsdienst ("Reich Work Service"): From late September until late November 1944 -- two months -- Ratzinger served (under orders) in this civilian auxiliary formation that provided support for the Wehrmacht. It was in this capacity -- not as a soldier in the Wehrmacht -- that Ratzinger briefly served on the Hungarian border, laying mines and, according to Prof. Lance, "watch[ing] as Jews were herded to death camps."

Well. The choice of words does matter. My own brief research yielded a 2005 Times of London article -- probably the most negative mainstream media article on the issue -- that reports that Ratzinger "saw Jews being herded to death camps." A nice linguistic move by Prof. Lance -- we all know the difference between something we merely "saw," and something we (more culpably) "watched as" it happened. But there is no foundation for this cleverly insinuated higher degree of culpability. Indeed, there is precious little detail regarding what, exactly, he "saw" or "watched." Prof. Lance provides none, and a review of dozens of articles, websites (including of the hysterically anti-Catholic variety), and commentary reveals none. Suffice to say that upon his election as Pope, no less an authority than Yad Vashem found absolutely no basis to ever investigate further any activities of Ratzinger during this period. This conclusion was backed, with unanimity, by every major Jewish organization that spoke at the time of his election.

Another critical event from this period is omitted entirely by Prof. Lance: Ratzinger and his work group were awakened one night and pressured to join the Nazi SS. While others in the group joined, he resisted, and was sent away,

Step Three: Wehrmacht. Drafted in December 1944, Ratzinger's service in the Wehrmacht -- which ended with his desertion in late April or early May 1945 -- was his only actual military service. He entered in Munich and was immediately posted to an infantry barracks in Traunstein -- his home village. Neither he nor his unit saw combat.

There is no case, therefore, to conclude that Ratzinger "assisted" -- the lowest and broadest standard of culpability -- in the persecution of Jews or anyone else. It is on this point that Prof. Lance's argument collapases, when judged through the prism of well-established, accessible, and frequently adjudicated legal standards.

But, Prof. Lance may object, I was not making a legal argument at all. Well, the only other arguments he could possibly be making are philosophical or theological. On these grounds, his thesis is even more susceptible.

Prof. Lance concludes, I take it from a philosophical perspective, that Ratzinger was guilty of "material collaboration" with the Holocaust. But this assertion cannot possibly hold under the facts as discussed here. As Prof. Lance surely knows, Ratzinger's was not a case of "immediate" material cooperation; Lance can point to no action of Ratzinger's that was essential to the commission of an intrinsically evil act, such that the act could not have occurred without his participation. (If Prof. Lance wants to make the case that service in, or in support of, the Luftwaffe or Wehrmacht was itself "intrinsically evil," he needs to make that case far more clearly, and against the weight of weight of authority on the licitude of compulsory military service.) In the Catholic tradition, such "immediate" material cooperation is not excused by duress; the cooperation of itself remains intrinsically evil, even if the duress may affect the level of culpability.

There is another, "mediate," form of material cooperation which arises when the cooperator participates in activities that are not essential to the completion of the intrinsically evil act. Because the culpability, if any, for an act of "mediate" material cooperation depends heavily on the cirumstances -- think of the hairdresser in the Supreme Court's hypothetical from Fedorenko -- factual precision is essential. This, Prof. Lance does not provide. The sinister-sounding "watched as" phrase implies a great deal but, as discussed, tells us nothing.

There is a final appeal made by Prof. Lance, which might be characterized as either philosophical or theological: Ratzinger's alleged failure to act heroically, in the manner of the White Rose movement headed by Sophie and Hans Scholl. Simple chronology unravels this attempted parallel. Sophie School was 21, and a university student, when she joined the White Rose in the summer of 1942. At the time, Joseph Ratzinger was 15, in junior seminary. By February 1943, when Ratzinger was still 15, Sophie Scholl and her brave colleagues had been executed. In other words, Joseph Ratzinger did not reach the ages of the White Rose pamphleteers until -- April 1948. To suggest that, at 15, or even 16 or 17, he could have summoned the maturity and skill to become a leader in the underground resistance, is to assume much. And that such actions would be considered reasonable in light of the well-publicized extermination of the White Rose movement is to assume even more.

In April 2005, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel said there are two ways of dealing with the issues raised by a biography such as Ratzinger's. "One way is delving into the subject and emphasizing it. The other is by doing positive things to improve Jewish-Catholic relations and German-Jewish relations without necessarily emphasizing his own personal experiences or his past. My impression is that he's chosen the latter path."

Perhaps a case can be made for Pope Benedict XVI, at a time of his choosing, to reflect more on his "personal" experience. But Prof. Lance has done nothing to persuade us that the "latter path" chosen by Benedict over the decades has been in any way deficient. Nor, by his flawed accusations of material cooperation with evil, has he impressed us that Benedict is under any present obligation to do otherwise than he has done throughout his adult life to promote greater, and genuine, understanding between Christians and Jews.

Edward R. Grant
College, 1979
Affiliated Scholar, Center for Clinical Bioethics
Georgetown University Medical Center

Professor:
You employ the word "crime" with remarkable abandon. Consider the case of Franz Jagerstitter who was beheaded for reusing induction into the German Army in 1943. Is every German who accepted induction therefore a criminal, as you posit Benedict is.

In 1945, Benedict was under militay discipline. Please consult Gunther Grass for a description of the summary executions uniformly meted out by drum head courts martial for soldiers and officers defying militay orders. There is a distinction between a lawful military order such as operating an anti aircraft gun and a clearly unlawful one such as participating in the murder of civilians. Should every German soldier, sailor or airman been prosecuted as a war criminal? If not how can you responsibly term Benedict a criminal.

Finally, you contend Benedict was "defending the death camps from liberation". I disagree. The war aim of the allies was the total defeat of Nazi Germany. Rightly or wrongly, strategies were pursued, resources allocated and tactical decisions made that postponed - for a significant period of time - the disruption and eventual liberation of the death camps. Millions of German soldiers were engaged in the climactic battles, none of whom (most assuredly including Benedict) believed the were defending death camps. In 1946 and 1947 millions of captured Russians and Russian collaborators were forcibly repatriated by American and British forces to the Soviet Union. Almost all of whom were enslaved or executed. Their fate was well known at the time of their repatriation. Were the American officers and soldiers who conducted this forcible repatriation as guilty in the subsequent crimes of Stalin as you say Benedict was in the crimes of Hitler.

Incidentally, I criticize your article. I do so vehemently and unapologetically. I do so because I know your article is wrong. I have the duty to defend the victims of detraction and calumny whenever possible, especially in regards to the pope. It would be craven of me not to.

Now who wrote that article? You did. You placed it here to be "discussed". Are you familiar with that old saying "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen"? You are the one who opened this can of worms. Don't make a mess in this kitchen and then skip out when your precious assumptions are put under the flaming heat of proper criticism.

Prof Lance,
You are obviously a very troubled and frustrated human being.
Your ongoing role here as the victim is both transparent and sad.
Get some help and then teach or do whatever it is do someplace else.
You are an intellectual embarrassment to the institution.
Parent

Edward R. Grant

I am in total awe of your post there, and I am quite humbled by your knowledge and grace therein.

I still stand by my defense of the Holy Father and I urge the professor to consider carefully what he places at the feet (and mouths) of others in the future.

Mark Lance, for a professor, you think you would be able to take criticism - valid or otherwise - in a more professional manner.

You sarcastically state to one poster: "if your goal is never actually to have to think about opposing views. Well done."

It just so happens that your complete refusal to look at the historical factors involved at the time - including the rise of Bolshevism in several European (even German) capital - really discounts your argument and makes you a bit hypocritical considering the quote above.

You obviously have a bias to the left and consider National Socialism "worse" than Bolshevik-inspired communism.

In reality, the are equally abhorrent.

Professor Lance,

Congratulations! I have just thrown away my annual letter to the Georgetown Fund. I am no longer sending any money to an alma mater that appeals to its Catholic tradition in fundraising letters and uses that money to fund anti-Catholic bigots such as yourself.

Facts? How about these:

1. Ratzinger's father was a police officer who opposed the Nazis! This made his situation extremely difficult. A cousin of the future Pontiff had downs syndrome and was exterminated by the Nazis. Their family abhorred the Nazi regime. Never mentioned in your article.

2. Ratzinger was in early seminary when forced to join the youth movement. He may very well have been killed if he had not. Evidence shows he tried hard to avoid this--but could not, or face deportation. Never mentioned in your biased approach.

3. Ratzinger never fired a shot and did what he could to avoid participating in Nazi activities. He left as soon as possible and did all he could possibly have done. Never mentioned in your rant on the Holy Father.

An earlier post brought up the Fox News Special on the Pope. Watch it! It clears the Pope of all your falsehoods.

I am tired of Georgetown supporting such trash--in the classroom and the student newspapers. The week Benedict comes to DC--and this is what the Hoya gives us?

Shame on Georgetown, the Jesuits who no longer run it and Mark Lance. My money is no longer going to the Hilltop.

Barb wrote:
"We catholics have a wonderful sacrament called confession. Sadly it is neglected and even abused by many catholics today. That is where we catholics go to for forgiveness. The priest acting "in persona Christi" has the Divine Mandate of forgiving and retaining the sins of those who so confess. We do not apologize to "the people of the world". We apologize to God through his duly appointed representative."

You're going to have to pardon my ignorance about aspects of the Catholic faith here to explain some of this to me. I'm approaching it from a purely secular perspective, mind you, at least in this case.
I accept that Confession is a private, personal act between a person and God. You receive, there, forgiveness from God for your sins, no? However, how do you, Barb (or any Catholic who is clearly practicing and believes in his/her religion and its importance; I don't mean to single you out it is simply that you brought this up), apply these ideas in our mortal life? Should we be held legally accountable, or do you believe that by going to Confession your sin is fully pardoned by all? I guess I'm trying to draw the line in the sand regarding our mortal culpability here (which, no matter our stance on the issue at hand, is what Prof. Lance's article is perhaps trying to figure out).

Any clarification would be appreciated.

And I agree with you regarding that post above yours; I may not agree with all of it, but it was probably the best written response we've seen here...

Brett and Barb have been responded to as much as I'm going to here.

Parent is obviously not interested in serious discussion.

Robert O'Brien:
Millions of Russian collaborators were repatriated by Americans? Well, leave that to one side. If an American soldier repatriates someone to the USSR, knowing that they will be executed, then I take it to be quite clear that they are guilty of moral complicity with evil, just as are those who knowingly deport refugees to countries today where they will be tortured or killed.

Edward Grant:
You start with the claim that I don't pause to give considered scholarly reflection on the standards of any discipline. Well, I wonder if you might be able to guess about why that is. Here's a hint: Your post here was 2158 words -- or a bit over double the 900 word limit the Hoya imposes on my column. No, it was not a scholarly article.

I'll respond to just a few of your points. I won't go through the many very serious misrepresentations of what I said. (For example, you start a paragraph on the Hitler youth claiming "contrary to Prof. Lance's insinuation". But there was no such insinuation and nothing you say in this paragraph is relevant to anything I said.)

No I was quite obviously not making a legal, but rather a moral point. (I don't think there was any drifting or ambiguity about this.) The fundamental point that so many posters here miss is that the Pope himself says that he knew all along and maintained as much, that the Nazi regime, the Nazi war effort, and the holocaust were evil. All of them. The war was, in his view according to what he now tells us, unjust. So all this about the extent to which his actions contributed to the holocaust versus merely the German war on Europe are quite irrelevant. The Pope by his own completely explicit description of the events was participating in something that he saw to be massively immoral.

As it happens I think the standards of complicity you state here -- that your actions must have been essential to the success of the evil -- are quite absurdly strong. We routinely take people to be morally and legally complicit in actions that would have gone on without their support. And to suggest that laying tank mines and spotting for anti-aircraft is akin to being a hair-dresser is really a bit silly. One can participate in and support an evil in many ways. (I'd be curious to see your reaction to John Quinn's post also.)

But none of that matters. The Pope's own interpretation is that he knew the entire Nazi war and Nazi program to be evil. He says that he did not support it in a big way, and that there was no meaningful way to resist. that is his defense. That is what I'm addressing and critiquing. I claim that by ignoring the fact that he chose not to join the underground, chose not to openly protest, chose not to take the route of conscientious objection, he made a choice that accommodated with what he knew to be evil. When he suggests that this was the only possible route, he is failing in a chance to teach about the noblest people of the time.

You mention the analogy with the White Rose. Somehow the fact that he was a couple years younger means that the analogy is irrelevant. Of course it is progressively harder to do risky things as one gets younger. (Well, not really, sometimes youth feel invulnerable, but never mind.) But I did not deny this. I said utterly clearly that his youth, the threats of others, the social pressure, made the failure to do the best thing completely understandable and excusable. Was that not clear? The point of the WR and many many other examples is that there were options, options that were better things to do from the point of view of any recognizable Catholic ethic than what Ratzinger did. And if one chooses to work with a regime one thinks to be evil, in mediated, inessential support of evil actions, then one's choices -- excusable though they are -- leave a moral residue in the need for acknowledgment of that complicity.

Honestly folks, this is all I have the energy for, so I'm going to end my participation on the issue here. Got grading, writing, teaching, etc. and I fear that a very few people are reading this thread any longer. (GU students, such as David above are welcome to email me or come by to talk. Anyone who wants to tell me I'm stupid, mentally ill, or an embarrassment to GU, can post away, but I really have nothing to say to that.)

But Edward: since you seem interested in serious and detailed multi-disciplinary discussion of the notions of complicity and responsibility in the face of evil, let's organize a small symposium at GU in the Fall with folks from law, theology, and philosophy and discuss these issues in a serious venue. The idea would not be to focus specifically on this case -- though I suppose we could if you prefer -- but on the general issues you discuss in your post. I think there are quite a few folks at the law school who would be interested. Email me directly if you would like to do that.

Mark Lance