Trustworthy

I'm such a fan of the link field in the heading, I've overused it :)

Marcellino D'Ambrosio, who writes the scripture columns for the OSV, has a blog called the Crossroads Initiative. That's where you will find this article from the Associated Press about Ratzinger's desertion from the German army.

If you rely on the mainstream media for factual information, you may find yourself woefully malnourished. But here we find the AP actually trying to be honest and objective in its account. As priveleged citizens with Constitutional provisions for civil rights, we are simply incapable of comprehending the terror of living under a totaliarian regime. Our fundamental human rights may not always be safeguarded by democracy, but at least we can trust that our Constitution provides for them. That minimal security disappeared the day the Nazi party usurped the Reichstag, and it only worsened thenceforth.

I find it appalling when people, in their anachronisitc hindsight, condemn Ratzinger for his forced recruitment into the army of the Third Reich. Such accusations display an ignorance of history (or a willful bias) as well as being uncharitably harsh towards the man who faced those realities with courage and conviction. The mainstream media is abuzz with such accusations at the moment.

Last night, I watched the DVD documentary based on Weigel's biography of the Pope. I was mesmerised to behold that Karol Wojtyla was about my age when the Nazi blitzkrieg swept in and terrorized Poland. Yet he had the courage to surpass what seem to be the limits of human fortitude, and that fortitude carried him through the wasteland of atheistic Communism to eventual victory, a stunning moral victory.

Benedict XVI has weathered a similar storm. His fortitude is evident, and therefore it becomes easier to place our trust in him. Anyone who has survived the terror he has known will not make decisions lightly, will not abdicate the age in which we live to forces beyond our control. He will demand that we engage the culture in which we live as heralds of the Kingdom, because that is the moral example he has set from the age of 18 to the present day. Be fearless! Be a co-worker in the Truth (his episcopal motto, as noted by EWTN). Labor in the vineyard!