Is the Pope Catholic?

Since college, I've been trying my absolute best to quell the part of me that typifies a Reactionary Jew, such a person who shouts at the wind and lives with perpetual high blood pressure because of the world's sinister movements against the Jewish people. It's not that such plots are dormant, it's that a person doesn't really live a free life if his or her time is spent in the global shadow of proxy anti-Semitism.

That said, I really have to comment on how disappointed I am by Pope Benedict XVI's decision not to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum on his upcoming visit.

For starters, PB XVI was a member of Hitler Youth (I know he was forced into it), but in being the avatar of Catholicism and 17% of the world, this already is disquieting to some Jews. Secondly, the Church recently rehabilitated a Holocaust denying bishop (Benedict XVI says he was unaware of the bishop's views when he lifted the excommunication).

Benedict now claims his decision to skip the museum was based on his disagreement with the museum's characterization of inaction on Pope Pius XII's part during World War II (a claim which deserves another parenthetical because while records seem to show that Pius XII secretly aided not only Jews, but others facing persecution by the Nazis, he also did remain neutral in the war even while nearly two million Polish Catholics citizens were exterminated). Clearly...ironically...it seems Pius XII didn't have a lot of faith in the strength of his pulpit. Also it should be added that Pope John Paul II had no problem apologizing on behalf of the Vatican for Pius XII's silence during World War II.

Ultimatelty, the fact that the Pope needs a publicist to create parenthetical means of egress to his words (regarding his past, regarding his rehabilitation of wayward Holocaust-denying bishops, regarding his reasons not to visit a museum whose focus is not solely Jewish suffering, but the persecution of millions in the name of violent ignorance) is silly and offensive.

It's also not very Catholic. Since when has Catholicism been known for flexibility? It's the Jewish texts and sermons that can't be absorbed without an accompanying debate or book of footnotes and commentary to squabble about the meaning of everything. So, in summary, if you're going to be a dick Pope Benedict XVII, just be a dick. We're kind of used to it from other religious leaders (including our own).

In short, don't be a bene dick.

Save the shades of gray for the Jews. It's kind of our specialty.

On another note, there was one thing that amused me when I read this story online. The footer at the bottom of the page linked additional reading on the story in the following scroll:

All About Adolf Hitler • Pope Benedict XVI • The Holocaust

Don't look at us on that. That was CNN. And we're not about to claim Ted Turner.