God's Rottweiler

During much of the Nazi era, Joseph Ratzinger lived with his family in Traunstein, Germany, a small and staunchly Catholic town between Munich and Salzburg.

Ratzinger’s recollections of his youth in Nazi Germany, makes it seem as though all the problems, violence, and hatred existed outside his local community. There is no recognition that resistance to the Nazis existed — or was needed — just outside his door.

In his biography of Joseph Ratzinger, John L. Allen, Jr. says that anti-Semitic violence, displacement, deportation, death, and even resistance turned the town into “an over-populated lunatic asylum of hopeless inhabitants.”

Joseph Ratzinger joined the Hitler Youth in 1941 when, according to him and his supporters, it became compulsory for all German boys.

Between the ages of 10 and 14, membership in the Deutsche Jungvolk (a group for younger children) was mandatory. Yet there is no mention of Raztinger belonging. If he had managed to avoid the required membership in the Deutsche Jungvolk, why did he suddenly join the Hitler Youth in 1941?

Joseph Ratzinger was a member of an anti-aircraft unit protecting a BMW factory that used slave labour from the Dachau concentration camp to make aircraft engines.

Later he was transferred to a unit in Hungary where he set up tank traps and watched as Jews were rounded up for transport to death camps.

It’s curious that one of the lessons which Joseph Ratzinger, draws from the experiences of German Catholics under the Nazis is that Catholics should become even more obedient to their ecclesiastical leaders.

Ratzinger has held since 1981, the role: head of the Vatican office that oversees doctrine and takes action against dissent.

As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the Vatican's iron hand.

He earned unflattering nicknames such as Panzer Cardinal, God's Rottweiler and the Grand Inquisitor. (The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was founded in 1542 as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.)

"Some physical exercises automatically produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even phenomena of light and of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. To take such feelings for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life."

Ratzinger & Opus Dei

Pope John Paul II was groomed for the Papacy, long before he was elected Pope, by the ultra-right-wing sect Opus Dei. This secret organization was founded by Monsignor Escrivá, a Spanish priest who was formerly a private confessor to General Franco, organizing spiritual meetings for the Spanish fascist leadership.

Opus Dei was the organization that developed the strategy to make him the Pope, assisted by the bishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger.

Immediately after his election as Pope, John Paul designated Opus Dei as a special order directly accountable to him, not to the bishops. He surrounded himself with members of the order, the most visible being Navarro-Valls, an Opus Dei journalist who had worked for Abc, an ultra-conservative Spanish paper that had been supportive of the Franco regime.

The Pope later named another Opus Dei member, Angelo Sodano, as Secretary of State of the Vatican. Sodano had been the Vatican's ambassador in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, becoming a close friend and advisor to the dictator. He was responsible for the Pope's visit to the Pinochet dictatorship in 1987.

Under Pope John Paul II, the founder of Opus Dei was made a saint just twenty seven years after his death (one of the fastest such processes ever). John Paul never touched on the political causes of poverty, he marginalized and ostracized the mass religious movements in Latin America that called for major social reforms in favour of the poor, and (with Cardinal Ratzinger, the guardian of the Church orthodoxy) he condemned such movements,

The stated aim of Opus Dei is to "spread throughout society a profound awareness of the universal call to holiness and apostolate through one's professional work carried out with freedom and personal responsibility."

Despite its seemingly noble intentions, Opus Dei has stirred up controversy in countries all over the world. Opus Dei has ignored directives from Church superiors to cease recruiting minors and to require they discuss the matter with parents before making any commitments. Also questionable are Opus Dei's recruiting tactics, which are comparable to the tactics used by cultic groups.

In 2002, Opus Dei's founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, was canonized in Rome, Italy on October 6 after having been beatified amidst substantial controversy in 1992. There were many irregularities involved in Escriva's swift canonization (he died in 1975), including the refusal to accept the testimonies of almost a dozen people who opposed the canonization and knew Escriva personally.

Opus Dei practices include the imposition of intense coercion and guilt on those who wish to make free decisions; and blind obedience to superiors.

Susan Bell of the Telegraph (Britain), in her book Duborgel "describes techniques of psychological isolation similar to those sometimes used by sects, and claims that Opus Dei intrudes into the most intimate areas of members' private lives, encourages them to inform on each other and drains their financial resources.