Susan Sarandon has called Pope Benedict XVI a ‘Nazi’ as she delivered a speech about Catholic teaching on the death penalty.

The actress made her incendiary remark while talking at the Hamptons Film Festival over the weekend. She revealed how she had sent a copy of the book ‘Dead Man Walking’ to the late Pope John Paul II, stating she had sent the book to “[...] the last [pope]. Not this Nazi one we have now.”

This was a reference to Pope Benedict XVI’s membership of the Hitler Youth as a 14-year-old. However, it is questioned by some historians how supportive the Pope or his family of the time were toward Nazism.

In 2009, National Catholic Reporter journalist John Allen Jr. argued that the Pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, was always an unwilling participant in Nazi life:

“The historical evidence is overwhelming that Joseph Ratzinger’s family was ferociously anti-Nazi, and that the future pope was appalled by the arrogance and destructiveness of National Socialism. He was never a Nazi party member, entered an auxiliary unit of the German army only when forced to do so, and deserted before war’s end. He was an American prisoner of war in a camp near Ulm, Germany, before being released and returning to his seminary studies.”

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League accused Sarandon of displaying “willful ignorance,” labeling her comments “obscene.” It wasn’t only theist organisations who were critical: the Anti-Defamation League called the remarks “disturbing, deeply offensive and completely uncalled for.”

What do you make of Sarandon’s remarks?

Susan Sarandon Calls Pope a Nazi is a post from: The Inquisitr

Who woulda thunk it it eh; but it seems that the Pope, yes that Pope, is all cool and down with this thing called Social Media. Even though he warns against becoming obsessed or addicted to all those shiny doodads his message for the Church’s World Day of Social Communications was surprisingly warm toward Social Media.

From Pope Benedict XVI’s speech:

In the digital world, transmitting information increasingly means making it known within a social network where knowledge is shared in the context of personal exchanges. The clear distinction between the producer and consumer of information is relativized and communication appears not only as an exchange of data, but also as a form of sharing. This dynamic has contributed to a new appreciation of communication itself, which is seen first of all as dialogue, exchange, solidarity and the creation of positive relations. On the other hand, this is contrasted with the limits typical of digital communication: the one-sidedness of the interaction, the tendency to communicate only some parts of one’s interior world, the risk of constructing a false image of oneself, which can become a form of self-indulgence.

Young people in particular are experiencing this change in communication, with all the anxieties, challenges and creativity typical of those open with enthusiasm and curiosity to new experiences in life. Their ever greater involvement in the public digital forum, created by the so-called social networks, helps to establish new forms of interpersonal relations, influences self-awareness and therefore inevitably poses questions not only of how to act properly, but also about the authenticity of one’s own being. Entering cyberspace can be a sign of an authentic search for personal encounters with others, provided that attention is paid to avoiding dangers such as enclosing oneself in a sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world. In the search for sharing, for “friends”, there is the challenge to be authentic and faithful, and not give in to the illusion of constructing an artificial public profile for oneself.

…It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.

The Pope is cool with Social Media is a post from: The Inquisitr

Mood: Holy.

His Popiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has urged Catholic priests to go forth and blog in an effort to connect with more people and ultimately get more asses in pews. The 265th Pope is no stranger to the internet, as the Vatican launched a YouTube channel last year to get the word of God out to the digitally connected masses.

Citing the “broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis” presented by social media, Big Pope-a quoted the scripture in his plea for priests to get out and evangelize:

Such is the lofty dignity and beauty of the mission of the priest, which responds in a special way to the challenge raised by the Apostle Paul: “The Scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame … everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent? (Rom 10:11, 13-15).

His Holiness gently reminded priests who might be neglecting the opportunities presented to reach potential churchgoers that Jesus is totally watching them and their reticence makes him kind of sad:

Responding adequately to this challenge amid today’s cultural shifts, to which young people are especially sensitive, necessarily involves using new communications technologies. The world of digital communication, with its almost limitless expressive capacity, makes us appreciate all the more Saint Paul’s exclamation: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16) The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility on the part of those called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires them to become become more focused, efficient and compelling in their efforts. Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by putting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word.

Ooh, Word? Capitalized? Bill Gates might like a word with you about that, Father.

And, says the Pope, no half assing. In what actually may have been the first time I’ve felt like adding an “Amen” in my entire Catholic life, Pope Benedict says that it’s not enough to fill the web with content, it must be meaningful and relevant and worth reading.

The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.

In all honesty, it’s definitely a step in the right direction for the Vatican to get priests out and preaching the word of God via blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Maybe since the Catholic Church, which is literally older than Jesus, has embraced the changing market and new challenges presented therein, the music and book publishing industries will follow suit.

Pope urges priests to embrace social media, start blogging is a post from: The Inquisitr

You’ve seen them auctioned off on eBay, we seen the pictures of her showing up in everything from toast tp shadows on the wall and this explosion of people claiming to have seen the Virgin Mary has got the Pope just a tad pissed. It apparently bothered him enough that he plans on publishing a criteria for the faithful to use so they won’t get taken in by charlatans. This criteria will them distinguish between the true and false claims of Virgin Mary sightings, Jesus sightings and the ever famous stigmata reports.

According to a report in the Daily Mail the Pope is concerned about this explosion

The Pope is said to be deeply concerned by the explosion in the number of pseudo-mystics who, claiming a direct line to God, set themselves against the bishops and lure the Catholic faithful out of the Church and into cults.

The handbook comes six years after the Pope – when he was simply Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – first said that the boom in such phenomena posed a risk to the unity of the Church.

The Church has been traditionally cautious in dealing with ‘private revelations’, in the belief that nothing new can be added to the Catholic faith.

But according to Petrus, an Italian online magazine, the Pope will now explicitly demand the ‘utmost rigour’ in apparitions

Source: Daily Mail

From what the Vatican yearbook of 2003 said that between 1905 and 1995 there were 295 out of which only 11 were recognized as being genuine.

Pope on ‘holy’ warpath against false Virgin Mary sighters is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Vatican has condemned the sculpture as blasphemous, and demanded that the museum take it down, but the board of the Museion museum in Bolzano decided by majority vote to keep Zuerst die Fuesse” (Feet First) by German artist Martin Kippenberger up.

The artist who passed on in 1997 considered it a self-portrait illustrating human angst.

Personally all I see is a green frog on a cross, and the mug he’s holding to be representative of a storm in a tea cup, but having said that I’m no artist.

Details of the Museum and exhibitions can be found here.

(via)

Crucified frog upsets Pope is a post from: The Inquisitr