re: #273 MJ

I certainly wouldn’t deny that some in the media are using this as a club to to beat Ratzinger. But Ratzinger gave them the club which to beat him with his total indifference to world opinion, to the opinion of many, if not most Catholics, and especially the opinion of Jews. The longer this keeps up, the less moral authority the Vatican retains.

The Pope did not give him the club. This was an internal political/dogmatic matter. The Pope was trying to give an olive branch to the SSPX sect and this nutbag got the spot light. Holocaust denial was not even on the radar screen. This Pope was very focused on dogma and philosophy before he became Pope. This was probably something he had wanted to do for years.

Go the sspx.org and you can see the significance of rescinding the exommunications to these people.

The Pope was trying to get these people back into the fold and this nutbag got caught up in the net.