Regarding your post: http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/apr2005/stevem420.htmThe fact that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "In 1945 ..was interned in a POW camp as a German soldier" means nothing. A 16-year-old boy was drafted into an anti-aircraft corps and at 18 was rounded-up by the Allies.
If you are cognizant of those times, you know that children and their parents said no to the Nazis at the risk of their lives. My mother, her parents, and her two brothers, after escaping the Soviets in Ukraine, wound-up in Germany. By 1943, those brothers, ages 16 and 17, were also drafted into the German army. They were considered eligible for the draft because their mother was of Austrian ancestry and because the Germans were beginning to scape the bottom of the barrel by drafting children. The elder brother was sent to the Russian front, where he as promptly killed, and the younger brother was fortunate enough to be captured and "...interned in a POW camp as a German soldier".
Among the various reasons people might be wary of the current pope, the fact that he was drafted into the Flak should not be one of them. Had it been known that he was Jewish by birth, he would have been executed.
Marie Komar