{"id":1599,"date":"2006-05-30T08:34:40","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T08:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html"},"modified":"2006-05-30T08:34:40","modified_gmt":"2006-05-30T08:34:40","slug":"time-on-benedict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html","title":{"rendered":"TIME on Benedict:"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

The Pope at Auschwitz:<\/a><\/p>\n

The sight of a German Pope crossing into the death camp beneath the infamously false Nazi sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei\u201d (Work Will Set You Free), is arguably the most striking image of Benedict\u2019s 14-month-old papacy. Walking alone with his hands clasped in front of him, an utterly grim expression fixed across his face, the 79-year-old pontiff entered as both the leader of the billion-strong Roman Catholic Church, and a World War II-generation German citizen. \u201cTo speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man is almost impossible \u2014 and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

With these words, Benedict set off on a rather remarkable theological meditation on the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

[snip]<\/em><\/p>\n

Almost as if on cue, as Benedict’s voyage to Auschwitz drew toward its close early Sunday evening, the wind picked up and a cool rain began to fall. The final ceremony began with the Pope pausing to pray at memorials in the different languages of the 1.5 million killed. But by the time he reached the final plaque, the rain had stopped, the umbrellas were tucked away, and the pack of reporters noticed that across the broad field of half-standing brick barracks of Birkenau, a vivid rainbow had appeared. The editors of TIME, like those who A. M. Rosenthal worked for back in the 1950s, would surely not normally consider this news. But on a day that the German Pope came to Auschwitz to ponder God\u2019s silence, that surprising explosion of colors seemed well worth reporting<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pope at Auschwitz: The sight of a German Pope crossing into the death camp beneath the infamously false Nazi sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei\u201d (Work Will Set You Free), is arguably the most striking image of Benedict\u2019s 14-month-old papacy. Walking alone with his hands clasped in front of him, an utterly grim expression fixed across…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTIME on Benedict: - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TIME on Benedict: - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Pope at Auschwitz: The sight of a German Pope crossing into the death camp beneath the infamously false Nazi sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei\u201d (Work Will Set You Free), is arguably the most striking image of Benedict\u2019s 14-month-old papacy. Walking alone with his hands clasped in front of him, an utterly grim expression fixed across…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-05-30T08:34:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"TIME on Benedict: - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"TIME on Benedict: - Via Media","og_description":"The Pope at Auschwitz: The sight of a German Pope crossing into the death camp beneath the infamously false Nazi sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei\u201d (Work Will Set You Free), is arguably the most striking image of Benedict\u2019s 14-month-old papacy. Walking alone with his hands clasped in front of him, an utterly grim expression fixed across…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-05-30T08:34:40+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html","name":"TIME on Benedict: - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-05-30T08:34:40+00:00","dateModified":"2006-05-30T08:34:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/05\/time-on-benedict.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TIME on Benedict:"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}