>This is not the pope. It is a cardboard pop-op pope that is used so people can have their pictures taken. Papal marketing, I guess by Catholic United Financial
Speaking in Latin, Pope Benedict announced that he was no longer able, in body, to perform his job. 
This pope is one of the worst if not THE worst of the popes of my lifetime.
Matthew Fox, one of the Liberation Theology Catholic Priests who Ratzinger defrocked decades ago wrote about the then new pope's history in his article, On Ratzinger, the New Pope Benedict XVI
Now we have the Inquisitor General of the 21st century, who led the assault on theologians and women, yoga ("dangerous" because it gets you too much in touch with your body), homosexuals (who are "evil"), liberation theology, ecumenism and interfaith, made " spiritual head" of 1.1 billion people.
Cardinal Ratzinger is living proof of the dictum coined by Catholic historian Lord Acton after the First Vatican Council's declaration of papal infallibility when he said "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Ratzinger, far from supporting movements of justice, has committed his career to silencing those who have and elevating the rich and powerful, such as Escriva, fascist sympathizer and founder of opus dei, to sainthood. It is a sad day and a decisive one for the Roman Catholic Church.
And Matthew Fox also wrote another article, 22 Questions for Ratzinger. Here's a sampling of the questions.
1. You come from Bavaria, that part of Germany that most admired Hitler and first voted for him. Did you ever denounce Hitler or fascism? If so, when? If not, why not?
2. If you denounced Hitler why do you support today the Spanish priest Escriva who admired Hitler publicly? And why did you rush Escriva, founder of the Opus Dei movement, into canonization thus leaving the impression that fascism is a path to holiness?
3. If you denounced Hitler then why do you carry on in his ways such as
1) bookburning and denouncing of thinkers and theologians? 2) whipping up hostility toward homosexuals as he did? 3) excluding women of all decision-making and leadership? 4) create scapegoats including people of religions other than Catholic, theologians, women and gay people?
4. Do you want to put gays in concentration camps like Hitler did? (In the second of two documents you wrote and the past pope signed denouncing homosexuals you did not cite even ONE scientific study of homosexuality but cited your catchechism five times. Is this anti-intellectual attitude not another Galileo case in the making?)
5. Do you know the difference between ideology and theology? Why have you destroyed the latter by condemning theologians while you create ideological churchmen by your loyalty oaths? Is this not the explanation for the scandalous pedophile crisis in the church--that you have so dumbed down the hierarchy since the only criterion for their "elevations" is loyalty, that they had neither the intelligence nor the integrity to stop pedophile priests? Why was Cardinal Law, the poster boy for hierarchal pedophile support, "elevated" to a plum parish assignment in Rome?
6. According to a serious study done on the death of Pope John Paul I, cardinals were part of the plot that killed him. Do you know which cardinals were involved in his murder and have they ever been brought to justice?
7. How much was the CIA involved in the rushed election of John Paul II?
(A CIA agent told me he had been "their man in Poland" for many years.)
8. You once said you wanted a "smaller church." Might you tell us why?
Does it have anything to do with absolute control?
9. Do you agree with Lord Acton that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?" What are you--the champion of papal infallibility (as in "the fuhrer is always right")--doing to prevent that from happening in your organization?
10. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of forbidding condoms in a time of AIDS has contributed to the death of millions in the African continent and beyond?
11. How do you sleep at night knowing that your theology of no birth control is contributing to the destruction of 25,000 other species annually as well as to the degradation of life among human beings?
12. Did Jesus ever say anything at all about condoms or birth control or homosexuality or the ordination of women? (In fact, today's scholarship shows how many women were in position of leadership in the early
church.) Then why are you so sure of your absolutist position?
13. You complain about "the dictatorship of relativism." Isn't there also--and more easily--a dictatorship of absolutism? Isn't that what you have been involved in for twenty-five years by aggregating ALL decision making, all theological teaching, all bishop-making back to Rome in spite of Vatican II's explicit teaching to spread it to bishop's conferences and to lay gatherings in parishes?
14. Why do issues of social and economic injustice play so little a role in your definition of morality which seems to be 98% about sex? (Hint:
Saint Augustine!)
15. Are you aware that your destruction (with the help of the CIA) of liberation theology and base communities in Latin America has stripped Catholicism so bare that Pentecostals are taking over the continent?
16. Why did you canonize the Escriva who favored Franco and fascism and not canonize the holy martyr Oscar Romero who favored the poor against the military in El Salvador?
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