New Pope is an Uber-Conservative

Kind of like having Karl Rove as Pope. As I pointed out in Heil Jesus! Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was once a Hitler Youth. That really doesn't mean much anymore. Some kids in those days saw it as kind of "Boy's Club" until they saw what was going on then they ran for the hills. I'm not sure if Ratzinger was one of those or if he embraced it for all it was worth.*see UPDATE

One thing is for sure. Ratzinger, or Pope Benedict XVI, sends shivers down the spines of liberal Catholics and Catholic thinkers. He's been the head of the inquisition in the church, literally. He's called dozens upon hundreds of theologians and priests to the carpet and put a chill through free speech and debate in the church. John Paul's legacy was of spreading democracy in eastern Europe but not tolerating it inside the church. Ratzinger was the main instrument for killing free speech in the church. Ratzinger also helped quash democracy and intellectual thought inside the church. He believes the church always knows what's right and is never wrong. Sounds a little too much like the Bush administration if you ask me. Time will tell if he can live up to his successor. Not John Paul II but Benedict XV.

UPDATE: Mixter points out that Ratzinger was one of those who "ran for the hills".

In his memoirs, Ratzinger wrote that he was enrolled in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941, when membership was compulsory. He said he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood.

Two years later he was drafted into a Nazi anti-aircraft unit as a helper, a common taks for teenage boys too young to be soldiers. A year later he was released, only to be sent to the Austrian-Hungarian border to construct tank barriers.

He deserted the Germany army in May 1945 and returned to Traunstein — a risky move, since deserters were shot on the spot if caught, or publicly hanged as examples to others.

When he arrived home, U.S. soldiers took him prisoner and held him in a POW camp for several weeks. Upon his release, he re-entered the seminary.

Duly noted. He is still an Uber-conservative who bears watching. We'll just have to wait and see where he takes the Catholic church in this new era.