German Pope condemns Nazi 'genocide' of Jews

[emad]

Pope Benedict said of the "genocide of the Jews" that humanity must never be allowed to forget or repeat such atrocious crimes. Picture / Reuters


20.05.05 1.00pm


VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict, in his first major address about the Nazi era in his native Germany, condemned "the genocide of the Jews", and said humanity must never be allowed to forget or repeat such atrocious crimes.

Speaking exactly one month after his election, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger also quoted from a famous phrase of reconciliation between German and Polish Catholic bishops issued in the 1960s: "We forgive and we seek forgiveness."

Benedict, 78, served briefly in the Hitler Youth during the war when membership of the Nazi paramilitary organisation was compulsory. But he was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Hitler's regime.

He made his address in the Vatican after a screening of a new, made-for-television film on the life of his predecessor John Paul 2, whose native Poland was the site of the most notorious of the Nazi death camps.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10126558

[reality based]

1. That was mighty nice of him. n/t

[blue agave]

2. Only took him 60 years ...

How long will it take him to condemn the genocide of the Iraqis ?