:
We May 31 -

POPE BENEDICT
AT AUSCHWITZ -

*The word "guilt" is never used. There is no "mea culpa," neither with regard to anti-Semitism in the Church, nor with regard to the role of his country... Instead of speaking about guilt, Benedict XVI speaks about metaphysics.*

I don't have a criticism about his metaphysics. And I don't need a "mea culpa" from him.

"Words fail in this place. Only a devastated silence can stand here-- a silence that is a necessary cry to God: Why were you silent?"

But there is something about this which drives me up a wall and irks me: some people's attempts to persistently drag God into it. Surely, after more than half a century, it should be clear by now that God had nothing to do with the evil Nazi Holocaust. This evil thing was not the province of God. It should be obvious to even a half-wit by now that this was the work of the Devil.

Grow up already! People have anti-social, destructive, malicious, and evil impulses, just as they have altruistic, constructive, benign, and generous impulses. There is nothing to be gained by continuing to drag God into it. What does that accomplish? Perhaps, it represents a way to exculpate the real perpetrators by somehow displacing their responsibility onto God.

:: By Alexander Smoltczyk ::
-- Spiegel Online --

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