The Panzer Pope - Benedict XVI

Well, so there's a new Pope in the Vatican. He came on the scene with a puff of white smoke and a finely choreographed first appearance - the curtains parted, the doors opened, and there he was. And the world media - who it seems are really not the sophisticated crowd that have seen everything - transmogrified into frenzied yellow and green bananas. The man once treated with irreverent nicknames like 'Darth Rottweiler', 'God's Rottweiler', 'The Enforcer', and 'Panzer Cardinal', was now put by some on the receiving end of some long overdue, over-the-top respect. After all he was the 'First German Pope'. There was a certain note of relief in that - better a German than someone from Asia or Africa - that apparently would have been too much of a first. Any whiff of discrimination has been exorcised by the explanation that the choice reflects 'a stubborn unwillingness by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church to abandon Europe to secularism'. A worthy reason indeed and, like I said, a cause for celebration. "We have a Pope!" crowed Fox News, then learned a bit of Latin, and declared, "Habemus Papam!"

From all accounts, the selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the Pope has come as a bit of a surprise. His age - 78 - and his German nationality were thought to be detrimental to his election by some. Highly unlikely, his own brother Georg said before his election.

Born on 16 April 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany, Joseph Ratzinger came from a lower middle-class Bavarian family. His father, a Bavarian Police Officer, has been described by Ratzinger in his 1998 memoir 'Milestones' as a devout Catholic (who went to mass three times every Sunday) and an anti-Nazi. He says, "My father was one who with unfailing clairvoyance saw that a victory of Hitler's would not be a victory for Germany but rather a victory for the Antichrist." The senior Ratzinger, however, doesn't appear to have made a public show of his opposition. The junior Ratzinger, on the other hand, had a public profile as a member of the Hitler Youth, and was for two years a part of an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines (the slaves that manned this factory came from the Dachau concentration camp).Then there appears to have been a Grand-Uncle with writing skills, who wrote anti-semitic pamphlets. These things, however, can be glossed over today. After all, if the new Pope was ever a Nazi, he was one 'Only briefly' and 'Not an enthusiastic one', his supporters are quick to point out. They also add that he was only 14 and repeat his claims about never having participated in combat or ever fired a shot - on account of a badly infected finger, rather than any deeply-held conviction - and about resistance being truly impossible. He would have been shot if he had resisted, and 'Death before Dishonor' - an option many young and heroic resistance fighters chose - was not one he considered. So he went along with the stream until it was relatively safe - in 1945 - to desert.

But this is of no importance today. Even the Grand-Uncle that wrote anti-semitic pamphlets - well, there are such inconvenient skeletons in every family cupboard. What is the point in getting into an uproar about what happened in the past? One was too young to know better; one too old. Besides, remember, one of the Church's credos is to forgive and forget.

A credo that the new Pope is said to be very much in sync with - forgive the perpetrators in the church sex scandals and forget entirely about issues pertaining to contraception, abortion, women's rights within the church, married priests, dissident theologians, same-sex marriage, and war. At various points in his Church career, he has declared that Jewish history and scripture (can) reach fulfillment only in Christ, that "Only in the Catholic church is there eternal salvation", that homosexuals suffer from an "objective disorder", and so on. It's enough to make you seriously doubt his oft-repeated reputation as being someone who is "always prepared to listen to the other side", and strongly suspect there is indeed some truth in the reputation for having, as one headline proclaimed, 'Steadfast Beliefs in a Tumultuous World'.

Some people think the world is tumultuous enough without his stirring it further, but his attitude has found him a definite fan in U.S. President George Bush II - who made a First too, by the way, by becoming the first U.S. president to attend a pope's funeral. Bush described the new Pope as "...man of great wisdom and knowledge" and "He is a man who serves the Lord."

The Pope, who has a better understanding of himself, describes himself - according to Fox News - as a "simple, humble worker". This self-view is seconded by his former second-in-command at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department in charge of doctrinal orthodoxy. The Dominican Rev. Augustine DiNoia said, "He's a kind of simple person. He chuckles."