Misrepresenting the Truth ...

[struggle4progress]

... an anti-Catholic site ... includes this picture

http://solomonhezekiah.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2008/03/ratzingernaziyouthsalutinghitler.jpg

... Joseph Ratzinger is shown in priestly vestments ... Ratzinger was ordained in June of 1951. That is a full six years after the death of Hitler ...

Here is the whole picture ...

http://solomonhezekiah.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/03/ratzinger_bros_orindation.jpg
Ratzinger Brothers Ordination

http://solomonhezekiah.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/misrepresenting-the-truth-to-defame-the-church/

[pnwmom]

1. You're right. That is a picture of priests offering a blessing,

holding their hands out toward a congregation.

Nothing more.

[fire_in_the_middle]

2. yet another example of how truth can be distorted into propaganda. I think that it's sick and should

be punishible by being exposed as what it is and (lol) 'ministered' to with compassion, and grown up pats on the head: how nice, you think you're being accusatory... cute.

saoirse nó bás

[trotsky]

3. When the Catholic Church stops covering up kid-raping priests,

I'll worry about some idiots with a photo crop tool and a website.

[rd_kent]

6. +10000

[Jim__]

4. You're right. Context is extremely important.

The more context we have, the better we are able to judge any event.

[moobu2]

5. A couple of comments about this.

First of all, the photo was posted on a website with the caption "A young Joseph Ratzinger. Is he saluting? Or blessing? A "Holy hands lifted to Heaven" blessing is always palms up, not down as this picture depicts. The person is just asking about Rats palms being turned down rather than up. The photo could be seen as a distortion I guess, I don't know enough about Catholic superstition to know whether or not it makes a difference whether the palms are turned up or down and we don't know that the poster knew it was cropped or whether they got the photo in that form. Even in the photo's full version, with both Rat brothers, the hand gesture looks weird to me.

Secondly, if you guys were interested in the truth, you might want to post some of the other photo's on that page showing Catholics (Bishops, Priests etc...) associating with Nazi's Here's a link

[struggle4progress]

10. Omigoodness: should his hands should be up or down? Now THERE's a stupid and pointless question:

actually, nobody cares; it has no essential relation to the Catholic service. Your little website still identifies its little cropped photo as "A young Joseph Ratzinger. Is he saluting? Or blessing?"

As far as your photos go, it is unsurprising that one has evidence of various idiots supporting the German government in the early thirties; it's common for most people to support their government. Of course, what happened next was that the Nazis disbanded all the Catholic organizations; by the end of the war, the Nazis had destroyed hundreds of Catholic churches and thousands of priests had died in concentration camps. And its worth noting that the totalitarian state made the stiff-armed salute mandatory:

Dilemma of the Salute

Jehovah's Witnesses found themselves facing daily situations that tested their religious convictions. The Hitler salute, which became law in 1933, required the German citizen to raise his hand or arm (a gesture reminiscent of the Roman salute "hail Caesar") and to say the words "Heil Hitler!" Germans had to give the salute numerous times in the course of a day—upon entering or leaving work and school, on the street, in shops, and even at the close of evening prayers.

The word "heil" in the German Bible is connected with "salvation" by the Christ, or Messiah (cf. Acts 4:12). Repeating the salute affirmed one's belief that Adolf Hitler was, in effect, the Savior of Germany. Witnesses recognized the unmistakably religious overtones of the salute and refused to use the greeting.

The Witnesses' refusal to give the Hitler salute served as a high-profile trigger for widespread and severe reprisals. Many Witnesses lost their jobs and were eventually banned from civil service positions. Children faced teacher-instigated beatings by fellow students and expulsion from school. Juvenile authorities removed over 500 children from their parents' custody and placed them in Nazi institutions and homes. Angry Nazi mobs ransacked Witness-owned businesses. Employers and social agencies denied veterans, invalids, pensioners, and the unemployed their social benefits ...

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/steyer/jWitnesses.html

After the Nazis consolidated power, people were murdered for the most minor expressions of disagreement, like turning off a radio during a Hitler speech

[moobu2]

14. Priest hand gesturing might be stupid and pointless, but they still do it

Whether you or anyone else cares or not.

From a Roman Catholic Priest

The way the priest holds his hands is not incidental. The hands of the priest are held in a certain fashion, some prescribed some by tradition, because of the Church’s symbolic code which should be easily read by any Catholic in any parish in the world.

some are neither prescribed nor enforced but have value in them though a priest could ignore them completely and it not effect the Mass whatsoever. For example, have you ever considered where the practice of placing one’s hands palm to palm in prayer comes from? In ancient times someone who pledged service to their lord would place their hands thusly into the hands of their superior. This is a vulnerable position and a symbol of service and humility. This is the very act that occurs in the ordination right as a man kneels before his bishop and promises obedience to him and his successors. When we pray we often adopt this position of hands perhaps not even realizing that we are indeed symbolically placing ourselves thusly into the hands of our Master and Lord and trusting Him to care for us even as we defend His Name here on earth.



Other positions of the hands are indeed prescribed. A flat hand with the palm facing the desired target is used for calling down a blessing. So, for example, when a priest is ordained we have the laying on of hands, at the epiclesis (calling down of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine at Mass) the flat hand is used, or the laying on of hands at the anointing of the sick.


Another hand gesture is indicative. It is the blade of the hand that faces the target of the imparted blessing. At the end of Mass when the Sign of the Cross is passed over the assemblage or when the Cross is made over the gifts, it is this indicative mode that is used. link to Fr. Valencheck's post

This is a photo of some priest attempting to cast a blessing spell and conjure up spirits. Below that is the Rat brother salute.



Notice a difference? Rat was raised in a Nazi invironment and this may very well be a disguised salute. It looks funny in any case - cropped photo or not.

http://solomonhezekiah.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/03/ratzinger_bros_orindation.jpg



The Nazi Pope in his youth as a ........NAZI!




And it isn't "my little website"..you posted the photo with the web address on it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Well it's not like the fucker's not a nazi.

:shrug:

[struggle4progress]

8. He's very conservative, like much of the Catholic hierarchy, but calling him a Nazi is dishonest

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Nah.

He's a crazy fucking bigot and the moral equivalent of any nazi that ever was.

[struggle4progress]

11. I've known people who actually escaped from the Nazi terror. If you had spent your childhood under

the floorboards of a friend's house, hoping troops wouldn't find you and kill you, you'd be more circumspect with your meaningless jabber

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Do you know anybody with AIDS...

because the Vatican prevented access to condoms?

[struggle4progress]

13. Most of the gay people I knew as a teenager died of AIDS back in the 1980s. The Vatican's

rhetoric about sexuality, birth control, and prophylaxis doesn't strike me as terribly realistic -- but nobody is forced to be Catholic, the Church has rather limited influence in such matters (even among Catholics), and its dishonest to blame the AIDS epidemic on the Church

Throughout my life, condoms have been easily available in the US: people just didn't always use them

[caitxrawks]

15. well then

that's strange.