PyCON 2024 in Pittsburgh experience
I am a regular visitior of PyCON US conference since 2001 and I visited most
You might be astonished by this blog post but it is now time to speak up.
Pope Benedict XVI (formerly known as Joseph Alois Ratzinger) approved a decree lifting the excommunications of several leaders of the Society of St. Pius X traditionalists in order to avoid a further schism within the Catholicism. Unfortunately he overlooked that one of leaders of the Pius society - Richard Williamson - is a convinced denier of the Holocaust. Williamson claims that only several thousand of Jews died in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany - compared official number of six million Jews. Can there be any justification for rehabilitaing Williamson? No - never ever.
Ratzinger - in his former position was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - was known for his strong conservative postions in various fields like women in church, homosexuallity and abortion. Most of these positions were to some point at least consistent (although usually not acceptable for me) but this late action is absolutely unacceptable.
When Razinger was elected Pope in 2005, the german newspaper BILD celebtrated the event with the words "Wir sind Papst" ("We are Pope") and in the following years Ratzinger made the impression having relaxed some of his positions...but now this... Ratzinger - as a German Pope - should know best about the German history between 1933 and 1945.
Although I used to work for the Catholic Church for more than ten years as organist and choirmaster, I left the Catholic Church for a variety of reasons. Now with Benedict XVI being head of the Catholic Church since four years, I am affirmed that leaving the church was the right decision. A Pope making the Holocaust respectable again is just a shame for the Catholic Church and as a Geman one can only be ashamed as well.