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Ratzinger under pressure The on-line German news-magazine Der Spiegel aims some well-deserved contempt at the contention of the British tabloids that the young Ratzinger was a Nazi, and included this moving testimonial about his service as a 16-year-old conscript:
Hemingway defined guts as “grace under pressure.” There are occasions when truth under pressure requires considerably more from a man. Even the ordinary force of social pressures on teenage boys in undramatic everyday circumstances are enough to cause them to dissemble or keep silent about their faith. The young Ratzinger, in his own quiet way, was bearing witness to Christ by confessing his desire to serve him as a priest. He does not mention this incident in his autobiography, and perhaps did not remember it himself — but it made enough of an impression to be remembered by another man more than 60 years after the event. In this respect Ratzinger is a kind of John Kerry-in-reverse, understating rathering than exaggerating his pluck. Thereupon his forgotten comrades, far from shredding his accounts of personal heroism, testify to the guts that didn’t feel the need for self-advertisement.  |