Singing Loudly

With the election of the new Pope by the Cardinals, we are left with a lot of bickering about whether Pope Benedict was a Nazi supporter at worst, or too submissive at best. The other major criticism seems to be that the new Pope is essentially PJP2 Lite. My friends got into the action over email conversations lately, where my Berkeley history phD put it all in context:

The pope...in the Hitler Youth, yes--but who wasn't? Anyhow, they were mostly boyscouts with somewhat more propaganda and somewhat less appreciation for the customs of the native american. Also, I concur with [particular friend]--I think all the cardinals sat down and said "ah, it's totally going to take us 3 months to chose between the Brazilian and the Nigerian/ to beat down these stinking Italians who think they're going to get yet ANOTHER pope just because they happen to have the Vatican...so, let's have JP lite, and let's have him old so that we can get another one quickly". Yes.

I think that she's right, there is too much concern over this Hitler Youth membership in this situation.