gee i am all for the pope being forced to do that, just as i think israel needs to admit it treats arabs like human garbage, kills them without any care, beats them kidnapps and tortures them, controls them and treats them like they are the jews and israel is the nazi's, funny we never get to see movies of how they treat the arabs, that wouldn't play well to the "we are the victim of everyone" israel.
LanceThruster
· 7 months ago
The Pope needs to call on Israel to stop denying the Palestinian Holocaust.
Indigo
· 7 months ago
I always enjoy a good pope-fry but facts remain facts and holocaust denial is ignorant, not sinful. Excommunication is reserved for political sins against the Roman hierarchy, not ignorance.
marblex
· 7 months ago
Why should anyone be condemned for believing what they believe regarding the Holocaust or anything else? Is it now illegal to deny the Holocaust? Will it be illegal to deny the official 9/11 story too?
This condemnation for whatever stupid beliefs people have is a very dangerous journey down an extremely slippery slope. It's time to shed the urge to force conformity of belief about the holocaust or evolution or whatever. People are going to believe what they believe, however misguided their beliefs are.
Movements involving condemnation or worse, punishment of people who believe other than the mainstream beliefs are decidedly medieval and have no place in our world. Counter unpopular beliefs not with censorship or condemnation, but with education.
Sheesh, some lessons never get learned.
ezpz
· 7 months ago
Actually, holocaust denial IS illegal in many countries:
Holocaust denial is an opinion not an act. Limbaugh and his ilk say a lot of things based on their opinion I find morally repellent borderline hate speech, but I defend their right to say whatever nonsense pleases their ego.
The accepted benchmark for illegal speech is yelling fire in a crowded theater. In that case, injury and death can be attributed directly to the act, and such an act is properly illegal.
As much as no one likes to have the slaughter of a targeted population group denied, such an opinion should not be outlawed. Let the facts be self evident and the truth will overcome all baseless claims.
Just like the facts that recently Israel commited a war crime in the killing over 1500 women and children in the targeted population of Gaza, using illegal weapons such as white phosphorus.
Israel denies this occurred. Should Israel's denial be outlawed?
ezpz
· 7 months ago
I see your point and to be clear, I didn't say I agreed or disagreed with the laws about holocaust denial. I simply answered marblex's question about whether or not it's illegal to deny the holocaust.
vkobaya
· 7 months ago
The fear in many European countries is that Holocaust denial may well be yelling fire in a crowded theater. The experienced the Nazis once and fear that the same sentiments lurk just beneath the surface. Allowing Nazi type hate speech may inflame those passions and bring the Nazis back to power. That fear is especially strong in Germany and I think it is a reasonable fear given that we have seen neo-Nazi groups popping up again and again in Germany.
You have to also realize that Free Speech is an ideal and in a perfect utopian world, of course, we live by ideals. Unfortunately, this world is imperfect and we cannot always afford to live by those utopian ideals. Thus other than that test of yelling fire in a crowded theater we must be careful and restrictive of the utopian ideal of perfect free speech.
As for your other test, whether or not Israel's denial of their war crimes in Gaza are also beyond the test limits as they committed international war crimes in Gaza that should be punishable. I would then claim that punishment for those crimes is, in fact, a restriction on the free speech of Israel.
shell
· 7 months ago
What lesson? A MAJOR church saying something that obviously happened -- didn't? Oh yes, it was a scream that for hundreds of years, the Catholic Church denied the earth was round and that the earth revolved around the sun. But was it funny 100 years ago? 200 years ago? 400 years ago?
The Catholic Church condemned Galileo for pretty much proving the Bible was wrong, when he claimed the earth didn't just stand still. Did you know that Galileo was found guilty of heresy (see Inquisition, Roman), forced to repent, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest?
America seems to be a tad more enlightened in the Catholic faith (Bill Donohue aside), but there are many countries in the world where the Catholic citizens trust the Pope and believe everything he says.
And public schools are even scarier! In Texas public schools, they teach that evolution and "Intelligent Design" are both equal THEORIES -- after all, neither can be proven.
I just shake my head and can't BELIEVE humans still carry on this way in the 21st century.
Dave of the Jungle
· 7 months ago
J2P2 studied drama in Warsaw as Jews burned in the Ghetto just blocks away.
Benny was in the Hitler Youth.
Impressive.
Zorba
· 7 months ago
I didn't know about the studying drama, but I did know about the Hitler Youth. After all, Benny was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is the office that ran the Inquisition, back in the day, so what can we expect?
markf217
· 7 months ago
Ratzinger was 18 when the war ended and served in a German army uniform. In the USA, we have (in recent times) executed people who committed murdered when they were 17-years-old. We hold people that age accountable for their actions, sometimes trying minors as adults for serious crimes. Raztinger didn't murder anyone as far as I know, but he was in an anti-aircraft battery shooting at American and UK bombers. And as an 18-year-old man he was in an American-run POW camp for captured German soldiers in 1945. Yeah, he was in the Hilter Youth. But he wasn't a "youth" who skipped being a young adult and suddenly became a priest. I don't like that his history as a German soldier is glossed over and people think he was just a harmless Nazi boy scout in WWII. There were German Roman Catholics like Franz Jägerstätter who were conscientious objectors and they paid for it with their lives: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/224.html Ratzinger was not a conscientious objector. How ironic that Ratzinger presided over Franz Jägerstätter's beatification in 2007 and will probably be the pope who canonizes him as a saint.
shell
· 7 months ago
Doesn't seem to me that WOMEN can have their say in the Vatican -- even GOP women. I have never seen so many old, white men as in the Vatican. Well, old closet gay men....
Butch1
· 7 months ago
"The Sick Rose"
" Oh Rose, thou art sick; The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy; And his dark, secret love Does thy life destroy." - William Blake
So goes the catholic church and its Pope.
anastasjoy
· 7 months ago
I would amend that to "gay, female or Democratic." Well, uncloseted gay anyway. Uf the church ever tried to follow through on its purge of gays in the clergy, it would be lights out for the Catholic church.
markf217
· 7 months ago
Usually when former Nazis go to Israel (like Eichmann) they are put on trial. As a former soldier, I cannot imagine having the personal legacy of having worn a uniform with a swatstika. Ratzinger was 18 when the war ended in 1945, so it's not like he was an apolitical toddler during the Nazi-era. There were 16 and 17-year-old German youngsters (and some younger) in the German infantry towards the end of the conflict. Josef Ratzinger has been a disaster as pope. His pontificate has been a setback in terms of relationships between Christian and Jews and Muslims. He is a virulent homophobe of the Michele Bachmann genre. Because of his age (82 now) and the long length of the reign of his predecessor, I wonder if they chose him as an interim, thinking he wouldn't last long. There are countless wonderful Roman Catholics who do tremendous and selfless work for the poor. For example, Father Geoff Farrow is an American Catholic priest who has called for legalization of same-sex marriage: http://fathergeofffarrow.blogspot.com/ I am not going to bash all Catholics or their Church. That seems very unfair. What I do like is that in 2009 no pope or religious leader can count on mindless deference and unquestioning obedience from people and government leaders. I am a person of faith, but I love it when secular-minded governments, academics, public health officials, artists, writers, and others publicly push back against repressive, unreasonable, intolerant, and irrational garbage coming from religious fanatics -- positions contrary to modern liberal democratic values and scientific realities. Michelangelo Signorile met (then) Cardinal Josef Ratzinger in New York City in 1988. Ratzinger was on some sort of anti-gay rights tour of the USA. Signorile went to a church event in NYC as a protester. Signorile says, "Soon, anger swelled up inside me: This man (Ratzinger) was the embodiment of all that had oppressed me, all the horrors I had suffered as a child. It was because of his bigotry that my family, my church—everyone around me—had alienated me, and it was because of his bigotry that I was called 'faggot' in school. Because of his bigotry I was treated like garbage. He was responsible for the hell I’d endured. He and his kind were the people who forced me to live in shame, in the closet. I became livid." Mike says he then jumped on the stage and confronted the future pope to his face saying, “He is no man of God - he is the devil!” http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid1... Mike got arrested, but he got a few good words in on behalf of all of us to Josef Ratzinger. Once a Nazi, always a Nazi. I don't think Ratzinger's presence will help things in the Middle East. He may make things worse.
All Comments
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05072009.html
This condemnation for whatever stupid beliefs people have is a very dangerous journey down an extremely slippery slope. It's time to shed the urge to force conformity of belief about the holocaust or evolution or whatever. People are going to believe what they believe, however misguided their beliefs are.
Movements involving condemnation or worse, punishment of people who believe other than the mainstream beliefs are decidedly medieval and have no place in our world. Counter unpopular beliefs not with censorship or condemnation, but with education.
Sheesh, some lessons never get learned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
Holocaust denial is an opinion not an act. Limbaugh and his ilk say a lot of things based on their opinion I find morally repellent borderline hate speech, but I defend their right to say whatever nonsense pleases their ego.
The accepted benchmark for illegal speech is yelling fire in a crowded theater. In that case, injury and death can be attributed directly to the act, and such an act is properly illegal.
As much as no one likes to have the slaughter of a targeted population group denied, such an opinion should not be outlawed. Let the facts be self evident and the truth will overcome all baseless claims.
Just like the facts that recently Israel commited a war crime in the killing over 1500 women and children in the targeted population of Gaza, using illegal weapons such as white phosphorus.
Israel denies this occurred. Should Israel's denial be outlawed?
I simply answered marblex's question about whether or not it's illegal to deny the holocaust.
You have to also realize that Free Speech is an ideal and in a perfect utopian world, of course, we live by ideals. Unfortunately, this world is imperfect and we cannot always afford to live by those utopian ideals. Thus other than that test of yelling fire in a crowded theater we must be careful and restrictive of the utopian ideal of perfect free speech.
As for your other test, whether or not Israel's denial of their war crimes in Gaza are also beyond the test limits as they committed international war crimes in Gaza that should be punishable. I would then claim that punishment for those crimes is, in fact, a restriction on the free speech of Israel.
The Catholic Church condemned Galileo for pretty much proving the Bible was wrong, when he claimed the earth didn't just stand still. Did you know that Galileo was found guilty of heresy (see Inquisition, Roman), forced to repent, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest?
America seems to be a tad more enlightened in the Catholic faith (Bill Donohue aside), but there are many countries in the world where the Catholic citizens trust the Pope and believe everything he says.
And public schools are even scarier! In Texas public schools, they teach that evolution and "Intelligent Design" are both equal THEORIES -- after all, neither can be proven.
I just shake my head and can't BELIEVE humans still carry on this way in the 21st century.
Benny was in the Hitler Youth.
Impressive.
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/224.html
Ratzinger was not a conscientious objector. How ironic that Ratzinger presided over Franz Jägerstätter's beatification in 2007 and will probably be the pope who canonizes him as a saint.
" Oh Rose, thou art sick;
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark, secret love
Does thy life destroy."
- William Blake
So goes the catholic church and its Pope.
I am not going to bash all Catholics or their Church. That seems very unfair. What I do like is that in 2009 no pope or religious leader can count on mindless deference and unquestioning obedience from people and government leaders. I am a person of faith, but I love it when secular-minded governments, academics, public health officials, artists, writers, and others publicly push back against repressive, unreasonable, intolerant, and irrational garbage coming from religious fanatics -- positions contrary to modern liberal democratic values and scientific realities. Michelangelo Signorile met (then) Cardinal Josef Ratzinger in New York City in 1988. Ratzinger was on some sort of anti-gay rights tour of the USA. Signorile went to a church event in NYC as a protester. Signorile says, "Soon, anger swelled up inside me: This man (Ratzinger) was the embodiment of all that had oppressed me, all the horrors I had suffered as a child. It was because of his bigotry that my family, my church—everyone around me—had alienated me, and it was because of his bigotry that I was called 'faggot' in school. Because of his bigotry I was treated like garbage. He was responsible for the hell I’d endured. He and his kind were the people who forced me to live in shame, in the closet. I became livid."
Mike says he then jumped on the stage and confronted the future pope to his face saying, “He is no man of God - he is the devil!”
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid1...
Mike got arrested, but he got a few good words in on behalf of all of us to Josef Ratzinger. Once a Nazi, always a Nazi. I don't think Ratzinger's presence will help things in the Middle East. He may make things worse.