Well, what can we say? I thought Catholics were supposed to be scholarly, but Pope Ratzi babbled out a lot of ahistorical nonsense in his first speech on his UK tour.
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime's attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a "reductive vision of the person and his destiny".
Britain is now one of the most secular countries in the world, and yes, they stood up bravely against the Nazis…we cannot say the same about the Catholic Church, which had a complicated relationship with Nazi Germany that can't be called quite collaboration, but also can't be called opposition. The Nazis did not try to eradicate God from society — read Mein Kampf. It is not an atheist tract at all. The population of Germany was largely Catholic and Protestant, with very few open atheists.
Oh, well, we knew he was going to spew lies. That's nothing new. He's the pope — he doesn't care much about truth.
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