So, a few days after the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Konzentrationslagers Ravensbrueck and Buchenwald, and on the anniversary of Waco and Oklahoma City, 117 men in red dresses have decided to elect as Pope a former member of the Hitler Jugend who also helped man Volksturm anti-aircraft batteries at the end of World War II.

But it’s all apparently okay, ‘cause everybody was doing it, they had to, don’tchaknow, and he just had to, and besides he was signed up without his knowledge and then he refused to go to meetings and well, firing Krupp cannon at American Eighth Air Force B-17s in order to protect a BMW plant which used slave labor from Kl Dachau was just apparently a youthful indiscretion and maybe there was some big ol’ nasty Nazi holding a gun to his head, making him aim right. Oh and then there is that rabbi who was trotted out to proclaim that the good Cardinal had worked miracles for Jewish-Catholic relations over the last few decades (Pope Pius XII’s reign wasn’t brought up).

And then this hardline orthodox Catholic ex-Nazi who has since 1981 headed up the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known until 1908 as the Holy Office of the Inquisition, chose the name ‘Benedict’ in homage to a Pope who tried to soften the strictures of his predecessor, who had declared war on ‘Modernism.’

Then to top things off, we hear that 24 hours before becoming Pope, he declared war on any ‘isms’ (although Fascism wasn’t mentioned) which state that truth is relative:

‘On Monday, Ratzinger, who was the powerful dean of the College of Cardinals, used his homily at the Mass dedicated to electing the next pope to warn the faithful about tendencies that he considered dangers to the faith: sects, ideologies like Marxism, liberalism, atheism, agnosticism and relativism — the ideology that there are no absolute truths.’

—San Francisco Chronicle

A question, sir: If there are only absolute truths, were you, Pope Benedict XVI, a Hitler Jugend or not? According to history, you joined the HJ, you took the oath to Hitler. And what’s this Inquisition business?

Unfortunately, I think it’s too late to ask the Pope, now that he’s Pope, if he swore an oath of personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

That would be a faux pas and simply isn’t done. It’s kind of like asking Justice Scalia if he sodomizes his wife.

Oh well. Let’s look on the bright side. Now we can call the Pope a Nazi and it’s neither mere hyperbole nor verboten under that ridiculous Godwin’s Law.

Could be fun.