Godwin's Pope

Matt Welch | April 21, 2005

What with that whole Hitler Youth thing, it's no surprise that Pope Ratzinger I has brought forth a torrent of Nazi references, especially from the left side of the political spectrum.

But the Right, too, has joined the fun, inspired by Ratzo's remark about the "dictatorship of relativism" (which, if you think about it for two seconds, is itself a classic example of relativism). Daniel Moloney, writing in The National Review, argues that the Pope's Hitler past will help him lead us to victory against ... the new Hitler!

[T]he ills of western Europe today have the same cause, and the same solution, as during World War II. [...]

[T]he consumerism and relativism of the West can be just as dangerous as the totalitarianism of the East: It's just as easy to forget about God while dancing to an iPod as while marching in a Hitler Youth rally. There's a difference, to be sure, but hardly anyone would contest the observation that in elite Western society, as in totalitarian Germany, the moral vocabulary has been purged of the idea of sin.