Catholic Church Ruins Young Woman's Life

Originally posted by no1marauder
You are mistaken. Membership in the Hitler Youth was not compulsory for teenagers in Germany in 1937 when Ratzinger joined. Even if his Catholic Youth group was merged with the Hitler Youth at that time (which is unclear), he could have left at any time prior to 1941. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html

No on ...[text shortened]... to avoid social consequences like possible ostracism by your Nazi age peers is reprehensible.

No one faced death for not joining the Hitler Youth but joining it was cooperating with the Nazis and by extension their evil acts.

Simply joining does not constitute cooperation (and, again, Ratzinger is not clear whether he enlisted himself, or whether the church or school did). To materially cooperate, he would needed to have given material support to the Hitler Youth (made bombs, given money, etc) and had no proportionately good reason. But even so, Ratzinger claims that he needed to enlist in order to continue his education and that those who seemed anti-Nazi could be killed. And given his age and the element of coercion, it is dubious whether he could be considered morally responsible (14 year olds cannot be expected to distinguish propoganda from reality, determine whether their country is engaged in a just war and resist military coercion.)

Originally posted by Conrau K
[b]No one faced death for not joining the Hitler Youth but joining it was cooperating with the Nazis and by extension their evil acts.

Simply joining does not constitute cooperation (and, again, Ratzinger is not clear whether he enlisted himself, or whether the church or school did). To materially cooperate, he would needed to have given material sup ...[text shortened]... reality, determine whether their country is engaged in a just war and resist military coercion.)[/b]

Please actually do some study of what the Hitler Youth did. Ratzinger's claims are self-serving; I can find no evidence that anyone who refused to join the Hitler Youth was killed for that reason.

Your morality test is simply inadequate; since when is "material support" of evil the benchmark for whether an act is immoral or not? Joining the Hitler Youth is in and of itself support for the Nazi regime; it was a fundamentally important organization in Nazi ideology. Ratzinger's youth somewhat mitigates the moral error of his act in joining the HY, but his weak excuses and failure to admit moral error in doing so in the first place since are failings in and of themselves.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Married women cannot take vows, no matter how disastrous their marriage. The only exception is for unconsummated marriages, which are not technically marriages anyway.

If a marriage is annulled then a woman can take religious vows. If the husband is dead and she's a widow she can as well. If the marriage was never consecrated (i.e. marriage in a church or later consecration of a civil wedding) and the husband and wife were unbaptised at the time, it is possible to take vows without going through the annulment process.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Please actually do some study of what the Hitler Youth did. Ratzinger's claims are self-serving; I can find no evidence that anyone who refused to join the Hitler Youth was killed for that reason.

Your morality test is simply inadequate; since when is "material support" of evil the benchmark for whether an act is immoral or not? Joining th to admit moral error in doing so in the first place since are failings in and of themselves.

Please actually do some study of what the Hitler Youth did. Ratzinger's claims are self-serving; I can find no evidence that anyone who refused to join the Hitler Youth was killed for that reason.

Ratzinger does not claim that those who refused to join were killed. He claims they were sent to a reeducation camp, a quasi concentration camp.

Your morality test is simply inadequate; since when is "material support" of evil the benchmark for whether an act is immoral or not?

It isn't the benchmark for what is an immoral act. But we can agree that Ratzinger did not head the Hitler government and nor did he formally cooperate with Hitler because (we can assume) that he did not share Hitler's intention to kill Jews, subjugate the church and totalise all of Europe. The only way he could be have committed an immoral act (and I am using Catholic moral theory here) is by material cooperation, in which he gave financial/material help to the organisation. But material cooperation with evil is not intrinsically wrong -- Catholics cooperate with governments by paying taxes and obeying laws, even if those governments approve of abortion or have initiated an unjust war and are evil. The requirement is that the person have proportionately good reason for material cooperation (perhaps the government, despite moral failures over abortion, does charitable work). Ratzinger claims that he needed financial help with his tuition and that the possible consequences of not joining could be very severe. As I see it, his reasons are proportionate and he did not materially cooperate.

EDIT: Formal cooperation = cooperation with an evil act with the intention to assist the evil act; material cooperation = cooperation with an evil act without the intention to assist the evil act. The Pope did not commit evil acts themselves, so whatever immorality he committed must be one of cooperation. Which category of cooperation do you consider him guilty of?

Originally posted by pawnhandler
If a marriage is annulled then a woman can take religious vows. If the husband is dead and she's a widow she can as well. If the marriage was never consecrated (i.e. marriage in a church or later consecration of a civil wedding) and the husband and wife were unbaptised at the time, it is possible to take vows without going through the annulment process.

If the marriage is anulled, then there was no marriage to begin with. Anullment simply declares the marriage never to have happened due to defects at the time. Depending on the circumstances, the woman of an anulled marriage could contract vows, as could a widow (because she is no longer married). Marriage between unbaptised men and women is valid and only with special dispensation from the pope could either be released from the marriage.

Originally posted by Conrau K
[/b]Please actually do some study of what the Hitler Youth did. Ratzinger's claims are self-serving; I can find no evidence that anyone who refused to join the Hitler Youth was killed for that reason.

Ratzinger does not claim that those who refused to join were killed. He claims they were sent to a reeducation camp, a quasi concentration camp.

ery severe. As I see it, his reasons are proportionate and he did not materially cooperate.

No, his claim was that they COULD be sent to a re-education camp. I can find no evidence to support this claim i.e. that youths were sent to re-education camps for failure to join the HY alone. At no time, even after membership was made compulsory by law, did 100% of German teenagers join the HY.

As a teenager, he supported the Nazi government as much as he could by joining the HY. Since he knew or should have known that that government was fundamentally evil (he was certainly exposed to Nazi ideology including Mein Kampf by then), his lame excuse that he might have suffered some level of privation by not supporting them by joining the HY is inadequate IMO.

Originally posted by no1marauder
No, his claim was that they COULD be sent to a re-education camp. I can find no evidence to support this claim i.e. that youths were sent to re-education camps for failure to join the HY alone. At no time, even after membership was made compulsory by law, did 100% of German teenagers join the HY.

As a teenager, he supported the Nazi governm ...[text shortened]... ave suffered some level of privation by not supporting them by joining the HY is inadequate IMO.

To clarify, do you think that his moral error is one of material cooperation?

Originally posted by Conrau K
To clarify, do you think that his moral error is one of material cooperation?

I don't think "material cooperation"(whatever that means) is required. If actual resistance to great evil isn't a moral requirement, then at the very least support of if when not absolutely required by overwhelming necessity is a moral error.

To clarify, I do not find his service in the German military during wartime a "moral error" as he would have probably been killed if he had refused to do so AND there is nothing intrinsically immoral about manning an anti-aircraft gun. But his joining of the HY is a different matter entirely.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Marriage between unbaptised men and women is valid and only with special dispensation from the pope could either be released from the marriage.

Nope. Not necessarily. I know someone who made vows (temporary, in preparation for permanent) but was divorced. She never had her marriage annulled. Neither she nor her husband had been baptized, and they were married by a judge. The community made no effort to encourage or even suggest an annulment. She professed temporary vows twice and the community was ready for her to make permanent vows. Had an annulment been required, they would have begun that process very early because it can take a couple of years to complete.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I don't think "material cooperation"(whatever that means) is required. If actual resistance to great evil isn't a moral requirement, then at the very least support of if when not absolutely required by overwhelming necessity is a moral error.

To clarify, I do not find his service in the German military during wartime a "moral error" as he wou ...[text shortened]... ut manning an anti-aircraft gun. But his joining of the HY is a different matter entirely.

I don't think "material cooperation"(whatever that means) is required

If you are confused about the terminology, this site might help:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01100a.htm

If actual resistance to great evil isn't a moral requirement, then at the very least support of if when not absolutely required by overwhelming necessity is a moral error.

But this is essentially accusing him of material cooperation -- you are saying he should have resisted the evil (read: not cooperated) unless required by overwhelming necessity.

Originally posted by pawnhandler
Nope. Not necessarily. I know someone who made vows (temporary, in preparation for permanent) but was divorced. She never had her marriage annulled. Neither she nor her husband had been baptized, and they were married by a judge. The community made no effort to encourage or even suggest an annulment. She professed temporary vows twice and the commu ...[text shortened]... they would have begun that process very early because it can take a couple of years to complete.

That is strange. The marriage was valid.

Originally posted by Conrau K
[/b]I don't think "material cooperation"(whatever that means) is required

If you are confused about the terminology, this site might help:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01100a.htm

If actual resistance to great evil isn't a moral requirement, then at the very least support of if when not absolutely required by overwhelming necessity is a mo ...[text shortened]... uld have resisted the evil (read: not cooperated) unless required by overwhelming necessity.

I'm not interested in semantics. I know what the term "material cooperation" means; what I don't know is in what sense it is relevant to the discussion of whether it was morally wrong for Ratzinger to join the HY. Him doing so was not merely not resisting the evil; it was actively joining an important arm of it.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I'm not interested in semantics. I know what the term "material cooperation" means; what I don't know is in what sense it is relevant to the discussion of whether it was morally wrong for Ratzinger to join the HY. Him doing so was not merely not resisting the evil; it was actively joining an important arm of it.

I know what the term "material cooperation" means

Strange, given that you just said "whatever that means".

what I don't know is in what sense it is relevant to the discussion of whether it was morally wrong for Ratzinger to join the HY. Him doing so was not merely not resisting the evil; it was actively joining an important arm of it.

Because the putative error is material cooperation. If he is guilty of that, then he must not have had proportionate reasons to join. Do you really think that not joining would have done the world much better?

Originally posted by Conrau K
[b]I know what the term "material cooperation" means

Strange, given that you just said "whatever that means".

what I don't know is in what sense it is relevant to the discussion of whether it was morally wrong for Ratzinger to join the HY. Him doing so was not merely not resisting the evil; it was actively joining an important arm of it.
...[text shortened]... easons to join. Do you really think that not joining would have done the world much better?[/b]

Don't be an ass; when I said "whatever that means" surely the context should have alerted you to the fact that I was saying that the formulation you were using was too vague to be meaningful here. Your subsequent post clearly show that I was correct as all you seem to want to do is argue semantics rather than the issue at hand.

Since when is the test of a personal moral error whether it "would have done the world much better" if you hadn't made the moral error? Joining a Nazi organization is a moral error as it is supporting evil (I assume you don't dispute that the Nazi ideology was evil). The only reason it wouldn't be is if there was some overwhelming reason which, in effect, completely suborned the will of the actor. Surely the reasons given by Ratzinger fall far short of that; he has merely claimed it would have caused some degree of personal privation. If the RCC test's allows the supporting of evil for such trivial reasons, then its test is inadequate.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Don't be an ass; when I said "whatever that means" surely the context should have alerted you to the fact that I was saying that the formulation you were using was too vague to be meaningful here. Your subsequent post clearly show that I was correct as all you seem to want to do is argue semantics rather than the issue at hand.

Since 's allows the supporting of evil for such trivial reasons, then its test is inadequate.

Your subsequent post clearly show that I was correct as all you seem to want to do is argue semantics rather than the issue at hand.

You just do not seem to understand what material cooperation is at all, as illustrated here:

Since when is the test of a personal moral error whether it "would have done the world much better" if you hadn't made the moral error?

For material cooperation to be justified, it must be that the good of material cooperation are proportionate (equal or greater) to the evils of cooperation. As you deny that he is justified, then you concede that his reasons are not proportionate to the evil of material cooperation. So you are saying that not materially cooperating would have greater good than materially cooperating. Which is (or seems to be) better for the world is precisely what needs to be evaluated in determining whether material cooperation is justified.

Joining a Nazi organization is a moral error as it is supporting evil (I assume you don't dispute that the Nazi ideology was evil).

And Ratzinger concedes that the ideology is evil. Apparently one of his relatives was a victim of the eugenics program. Now Ratzinger claims that he did not want to join the Hitler Youth but was forced by proportionate reasons: if he did not cooperate, he would be unable to afford further seminary studies and his life could be joepardised (whatever you say, reeducation camps do not sound like grammar schools); if he did cooperate, the consequences would not be so bad (and his cooperation does not seem to amount to more than being a listed member.) Are you seriously claiming that the latter is worse than the former? Possible death, reeducation and renunciation of the seminary better than...being a listed member of the Hitler Youth with minimal association with Hitlerian ideology?