What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon 82 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  aqwsed12345

  @slimboyfat

  I know how much you hate me, but, but it's almost touching how aggressively you defend a tissue-paper story, but unfortunately sentimentality is no substitute for historical accuracy. You accuse me of lacking "common sense," but common sense actually demands skepticism when a story riddled with cultural, linguistic, and genealogical absurdities presents itself. Nicknames are indeed peculiar, but they are not random noise — they emerge from linguistic patterns, regional traditions, and family habits. In 1930s Bavaria, "Sepp" and "Sepperl" were standard diminutives for Joseph. "Pepi" is an Austrian variant, occasionally heard in Vienna, not in the rustic dialects of Traunstein or Tittmoning where Ratzinger grew up. Pretending otherwise is an exercise in wishful thinking, not common sense.

  As for the surname issue, your sarcastic triumph about married names completely misses the point. Yes, she could have married into the name "Brzakovic" — and I explicitly acknowledged that possibility, if you had actually read the argument instead of reacting emotionally. The real problem is not the married name but the complete lack of any genealogical connection between Stefanie Blabst (her maiden name) and the Ratzinger/Peintner family trees, which are thoroughly documented. No amount of huffing and puffing about "relatives with Slavic names" changes the simple fact that the Blabst family is nowhere to be found among the Ratzinger maternal or paternal lines. So much for your supposed "common sense" defense.

  And let’s not kid ourselves: the idea that Benedict XVI would seriously endorse Jehovah’s Witness missionary methods — in a private phone call to a long-lost cousin after fifty years of total silence — strains credibility to the breaking point. The man who spent his entire life defending Catholic orthodoxy against precisely the kind of sectarian errors JWs embody would not, in a moment of candor, suddenly congratulate them for leading people away from the Sacraments. He may have been polite (because he was a gentleman), but to interpret a passing kindness as some hidden theological endorsement is naive at best and deceitful at worst.

  The real irony here is that you accuse me of wasting time with "logical nonsense" when you're desperately clinging to a feel-good anecdote whose entire purpose is to score an emotional point against the Catholic Church. Your protestations reveal more about your loyalty to this Stalinist-style (the five-year plan was fulfilled 200%!) Watchtower triumphalist success propaganda than about any real concern for historical truth. If you find this conversation a waste of time, feel free to step aside — truth has never depended on the approval of those unwilling to follow evidence wherever it leads.

  Do you know how many Muslim polemicists I've heard boasting about similar anecdotes? "Many bishops secretly know that Islam is the truth, they're just afraid of their status!" - when I ask him to name a few, there's silence. It's all just wishful thinking propaganda, which reveals a desperate need for celebrity endorsers.
• 

  slimboyfat

  As so often, you say multiple contradictory things at once in the style of: there’s absolutely no hole in the bucket, and I didn’t make the hole in the bucket, and it wasn’t my fault I made the hole the bucket, and who cares if there is a hole in the bucket anyway?

  You start out saying it “strains credibility” that the pope made the comment.

  Then you go on to say: “He may have been polite (because he was a gentleman), but to interpret a passing kindness as some hidden theological endorsement is naive at best and deceitful at worst.”

  So which is it?

  My view is it’s plausible he made the comment though it can’t be proved. And if he did make the comment then obviously it was not intended as a theological endorsement of JWs. He was just being polite. I said so above before you did. Your comments don’t contradict what I wrote they agree with them.
• 

  Rivergang

  Slavic names are very common in Bavaria

  They are certainly by no means unknown.

  For example, I used to have a friend who hailed from that part of the world, whose surname was "Petrenko". (Furthermore, he would have been of similar age to the person named as Stefanie Brzakovic. Long story, though, how he - very much a German - ended up with a Slavic surname!)
• 

  slimboyfat

  13% of surnames in Germany are Slavic according to Wikipedia. In Vienna they are very common. Yet our resident ChatGPT expert knows otherwise.

  All of which is beside the point because our ChatGPT friend somehow failed to appreciate that the woman’s maiden name is different than her married name anyway. 🤦‍♂️
• 

  aqwsed12345

  Yes, nowadays, after the significant immigration of the Yugos during and afther the Cold War period...

  I meant the second possibility, assuming, but not accepting, that the story was true, then he was just polite. As you can see, the family tree has not been able to confirm it, and there are many circumstances that make it improbable.

  You would be a terrible lawyer, I write several arguments, you get hung up on one, and you turn a deaf ear to the rest. It doesn't work that if you point out the weakness of just one of my arguments, you have the right to do a hateful dance of joy, but you should definitely refute all of them, but since you can't, instead you just carry on with foul-mouthed hatred and mockery.
• 

  Jeffro

  It’s funny how desperately slimboyfat wants the anecdote to be true. It is entirely a story without evidence told by a JW lady. When pressed, the lady’s story was shown to be even more tenuous. She was hesitant at responding to any request for clarification of her story and contradictory about whether there were any arrangements for her to meet the Pope when he came to Australia in 2008. And in the end, even if she were his first… uh… sorry… second cousin, without any evidence of her in Ratzinger’s well documented genealogy, it still wouldn’t provide any evidence of how the Catholic Church views JWs.
• 

  Jeffro

  
  

  🤣🙄
• 

  Earnest

  aqwsed12345 : To assess the plausibility of a familial connection to Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), it's pertinent to examine the geographical proximity of Weilheim to the birthplaces of the Pope's maternal ancestors.

  Geographical proximity would only be relevant if we knew that Katharina Blabst's mother, both her mother's parents, and all four of her mother's grandparents were born in Weilheim in Oberbayern, Bavaria. We know none of that. We only know where her mother was buried.

  Consider the full spread of the Pope's maternal ancestors to see how location can change over a couple of generations.

  Maria Peintner Rieger (Joseph Ratzinger's mother) was born in Muhlbach bei Oberaudorf, Bavaria.

  Her mother, Maria Tauber-Peintner, was born in Raas, South Tyrol, Austria.

  Her father, Isidore Rieger, was born in Welden, Augsburg, Bavaria.

  Her maternal grandmother, Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber, was born in Maehrisch-Weisskirchen, Moravia, present-day Czechoslavakia.

  Her maternal grandfather, Anton Peter Peintner was born in Aica, South Tyrol, Austria.

  Her paternal grandmother, Maria Anna Rieger was born in Welden, Augsburg, Bavaria.

  His paternal grandfather, Johann Reib was born in Untergünzburg, Bayern, Bavaria.

  If Joseph Ratzinger's maternal line was so widespread over three generations, it seems quite likely that of Stefanie Brzakovic would likewise be widespread. So with geographical proximity there are no fixed points to measure.

  One other gem that I picked up was that Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber, the Pope's great-grandmother, was the daughter of Jacob Tauber (b.1811) and Josefina Knopfelmacher (1819-1886). Josefina Knopfelmacher's nickname was "Peppi". I can only think that this gives credence to Stefanie Brzakovic's recall of Joseph Ratzinger's nickname.
• 

  Jeffro

  slimboyfat:

  Then you go on to say: “He may have been polite (because he was a gentleman), but to interpret a passing kindness as some hidden theological endorsement is naive at best and deceitful at worst.”

  Passing that off as a contradiction is a straw man argument. aqwsed12345 acknowledged that if the anecdote has any truth at all, it’s possible that Ratzinger might have been polite about Brzakovic’s religious views, which is not an ‘admission’ that he said ‘exactly what Brzakovic said he did’.
• 

  Jeffro

  One other gem that I picked up was that Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber, the Pope's great-grandmother, was the daughter of Jacob Tauber (b.1811) and Josefina Knopfelmacher (1819-1886). Josefina Knopfelmacher's nickname was Peppi. I can only think that this gives credence to Stefanie Brzakovic's recall of the Joseph Ratzinger's nickname.

  ‘Pepi’ is a Germanic diminutive of ‘Joseph’. It isn’t an obscure reference in any way unique to an ancestor born over 100 years prior. The similar use of a common diminutive form is trivial.