Liadnan

Jeanne d'Arc makes the argument why Ratzinger's past in the Hitler Youth matters. One of the best posts I've seen on this. The comments are well worth reading as well.

(ETA: purely to collect together my own thoughts and half-thoughts on this:
I argued in a comments thread on AJHall's journal that one can't demand people be heroes, and linked it with my thoughts while watching The Downfall. I certainly think the child Ratzinger's moral position was far less ambiguous than that of the naive Traudl Junge.

Australienne replied that:

Personally, I think condemning Benedict XVI for the bare fact of his membership of the Hitler Youth is not particularly useful. By this I mean Ratzinger = ex-Hitler Youth = morally doubtful Pope. BUT: the fact that his experience growing up in a totalitarian dictatorship has not lead him to condemn authoritarianism and intolerance, but merely demand unquestioning allegiance to *his* set of absolutes, is something that does trouble me deeply. Dictatorship of Nazi Part? Bad. Dictatorship of relativism? Bad. Dictatorship of conservative priests unwilling to acknowledge global situations and dismiss a large number of fellow humans as intrinsically moral evil? Fine!

Which is a very good point, I think.)

... and the BBC news page overloads...

That was suprisingly short. Did they run out of coffee and cigarettes? (I speak from my own obsessions here.)

ETA: Oh arse, not him.

Italian police charge four people with the death of Roberto Calvi.

Fascinating this story should begin moving again right now. For those who've forgotten, Calvi was one of the people at the centre of the murky scandals surrounding the Vatican finances and died in very mysterious circumstances in 1982 (hanging under Blackfriars Bridge with his pockets rammed full of small change). In the aftermath it became clear he had been deeply involved in all sorts of murky enterprises, often connected with People From Sicily, and that his involvement (in succession to Michele Sindona, then awaiting trial in prison in New York for, um, being involved with People from Sicily, later, in 1986 either murdered or 'committed suicide' in prison in Italy) with the Vatican had left it in a godawful and embarassing financial mess. On the back of which David Yallop built an edifice of lies and loony theories which have been uncritically accepted by many about the death of John Paul I, but that's somewhat beside the main point. What really worries me is that one of the four is called Diotavelli. Wasn't that a character in Foucault's Pendulum?

As Cardinals, perhaps somewhat prematurely (what if it's all a massive April fool?), begin to pour into Rome airports (so Italian news reports), I'm somewhat distressed to notice that Paddy Power appear to have quietly pulled the Papal Stakes. Presumably only temporarily, once the death is announced most of the major bookmakers open a book, Power were only unusual in that they made their book a couple of years early.

Labour victory in the General Election is odds on though, 1-14 (Cons 6-1, LD 50-1, Other 500-1). Not sure I'd put it quite that high myself. Wonder what the spread betting looks like.