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Habemus Papam!


PSYCHOcatholic

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it's so funny, here i am in bavaria where ratzinger is from, munich the city of which he was archbishop, and there is no excitement whatsoever! the germans are very understated about it. the only ones i've spoken to have been cynical, saying he's too old and conservative. but we all know this guy is just a filler for a few years. on the tv all day they've taken the p*ss, especially out of the headline on 'die bild' which said 'wir sind papst - we are pope'!

i'm of two minds about this whole thing. i'm not a practising catholic although i was raised as one. there are issues which i feel strongly about such as a married clergy, female clergy, gay rights etc. but i feel like today, becasue of current society, people believe they are entitled to everything, just the way they want it. in an era of convenience food, tv channel packages, 24-hour convenience stores, people think everything should be as easy. they want to cut and paste their doctrines. i mean, you can't be a true practising hindu and eat hamburgers, you can't be a true practising buddhist without stepping over ants, why should you be able to be a true practising catholic if you don't accept the doctrine? i know people will attack me for being naive and point to reforms in the church as evidence that things can change. don't get me wrong, things can change. but not tomorrow. the problem is, we have millions of people in the world who don't want catholicism but who want the catholic church to want them.

as i said, i'd be a hypocrite if i said i was a practising catholic or that i accept their stance on everything. but there is no religion in the world which fits in exactly with my world view. i don't expect one to, that's why my faith is a very personal thing and something i can't explain to anyone. i just think there's a whole lot of judgement going on in the world today, in every direction. and i don't like it.

that said, when ratzinger is replaced in 5-15 years, it will be an interesting time...

phew! - [/rant]

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I guess people expect the Vatican to make a good use of all the power it has still on many people. They have the main tool and they can do lots of good things to help humanity... but yet you´re right, it´s their church and they can do what they consider they must...

I am not even christian and I don´t believe in god but I know John XXIII was a great man so he was also a good Pope.

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i thought JP was a very kind man and i really admired him. i admire him even more now since i've heard so much more about him following his death. i was hoping for him to slip away though because he wa suffering terribly. but there again i admire the fact that he wasn't to proud to show the world his suffering and that he showed it is possible to experience pain with dignity.

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I knew all this because I had friends who told me about it, and my husband also has the book, and so the next Pope is supposed to be the last one... does it mean the end of the world or the Vatican? Never understood that point...

I think what St. Malachy was saying is that catholicism will fall when the 'seven hilled city' aka Rome is destroyed. It is very strange stuff indeed.

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I am quite worried about this pope. The media describes him as a very concervative man and that is not what the world needs now. He's a man who thinks JPII was a progressive hippy. And when he was young, he was a member of the Hitlerjugend.

I don't think the world would be a better place with another pope who doesn't approve condoms. Although the aids-problem would better..

I do seem to worry a lot about this man, but I hope I'm wrong. I really do..

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He's a man who thinks JPII was a progressive hippy. And when he was young, he was a member of the Hitlerjugend.

Yes, that is incredible... a young nazi becomes Pope... :doh:

I knew we should have insisted on a recount, Sammy and Aaron would be great... :shades:

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I knew all this because I had friends who told me about it, and my husband also has the book, and so the next Pope is supposed to be the last one... does it mean the end of the world or the Vatican? Never understood that point...

I think it means a restructuring of the Catholic Church which does not include the position of Pope.

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I am quite worried about this pope. The media describes him as a very concervative man and that is not what the world needs now. He's a man who thinks JPII was a progressive hippy. And when he was young, he was a member of the Hitlerjugend.

I don't think the world would be a better place with another pope who doesn't approve condoms. Although the aids-problem would better..

I do seem to worry a lot about this man, but I hope I'm wrong. I really do..

Maud, just ask yourself this question. How much direct influence has the Pope had over how I live my life?

If you're like most I don't think you have a thing to worry about. I don't.

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I am quite worried about this pope. The media describes him as a very concervative man and that is not what the world needs now. He's a man who thinks JPII was a progressive hippy. And when he was young, he was a member of the Hitlerjugend.

I don't think the world would be a better place with another pope who doesn't approve condoms. Although the aids-problem would better..

I do seem to worry a lot about this man, but I hope I'm wrong. I really do..

I don't like the very conservative aspect of him, but about the Nazi thing, from what I read on the internet (which isn't allowed to lie) is that he was forced into joining the group.

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You guys dont have anything to worry about...this is just a transition pope. He wont change anything, cause, he thinks things are fine the way they are. As for the whole Hitlers Youth thing...every youth who lived in German at that time...was considered Hitlers Youth. Ratzingers Father was actually very outspoken AGAINST Hitler, which finally forced them to move to the edge of the Alps. Nothing is wrong with this pope, nothing will be wrong with him.

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You guys dont have anything to worry about...this is just a transition pope. He wont change anything, cause, he thinks things are fine the way they are. As for the whole Hitlers Youth thing...every youth who lived in German at that time...was considered Hitlers Youth. Ratzingers Father was actually very outspoken AGAINST Hitler, which finally forced them to move to the edge of the Alps. Nothing is wrong with this pope, nothing will be wrong with him.

Not every youth who lived in Germany during Hitler's time were considered Hitler's Youth. Hitler started Nazi Youth which all young Germans (excepting young German Jews) were forced to join. Most of the youth joined willingly. I read that Ratzinger joined against his will.

As for change in the catholic church, there will be none. Paul is right when he says nothing will change under the new pope. Ratzinger was John Paul II's right hand man, so all he will be doing is reiterating the previous policies on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, women in the church, divorce, etc.

It is very sad that the catholic church still adopts such a hard line on contraception when AIDS has reached epidemic levels in Africa.

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thank you psychocath and katie! i'm so sick of the ignorance people display regarding the nazis in germany. i'm half german, which means half my relatives are german, which means some of them, including my grandfather, were forced to go to war. that's what conscription means. children were forced to join the hitler youth. of course, we would all say that they should have all stood up to hitler and the sa and ss, but in the real world, when the inevitable resukt is death, fatherless children and a husbandless wife, it's ot so easy to make that choice. i am horrified by the holocaust and everything to do with it. but i grew up being called a nazi by ignorant people when had i never even lived in the country. the fact is that nearly any german of ratzinger's age will have taken part in some sort of nazi activity during the height of the third reich. so in order to avoid such a person becoming pope you would more or less have to exclude any german from the running. what about the italians, spanish, russians, should they all be excluded in the same way. get a grip!! and for the record my grandfather deserted and hid in the alps while my granduncle spent almost ten years being tortured in a POW camp in russia,finally released in 1954.

okay! [/rant]

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You´re right, Gis, I have some German friends who suffered from the same attitude towards them. People my age, but their parents had to join the army during the war. I also had German relatives (my grandad was half-german) but they deserted, just like your grandad, or they escaped. And I also had a granduncle who was "suicided" after spending many years in a Russian gulag (he was russian). And my uncle, who was a French engineer, was into the Resistance in Paris during the occupation. There are many personal stories into that chapter of Europe´s history.

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