News/Commentary

Politico reporter deletes tweet marking the death of ‘homophobic pedophile protector’ Pope Benedict XVI

January 1, 2023 | | Print Article

Members of the establishment media continue to prove themselves to be some of the worst, most ignorant people in America, and Saturday was no different.

Indeed, on Saturday a cybersecurity reporter at Politico effectively celebrated the sudden death of Pope Benedict XVI.

“Homophobic pedophile protector and Hitler Youth alumnus dead at 95,” reporter Eric Geller wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

Look at a screenshot of the tweet below:

The tweet was posted a few short hours after word of Pope Benedict XVI’s death emerged.

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement.

Geller’s tweet provoked massive backlash, with critics tearing into him for grossly distorting Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy.

For instance, one critic noted that he’d only been 14 when he’d been forcefully conscripted into the Hitler Youth:

This is true.

“The fact that he was in the Hitler youth — if you were a young child during the Third Reich and you didn’t go, you’d be condemned. He didn’t volunteer. That’s not a blemish. We’ve done a bunch of research, and that should be very clear,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said to ABC News in 2013.

If anything, he grew up in “a family of anti-Nazis, with no hint of antisemitism,” according to ABC News.

Other critics blasted Redfern for falsely labeling Pope Benedict XVI a “pedophile protector.”

“I imagine Eric doesn’t know that Benedict XVI did a lot to root out child abusers. He is the one who cast out pedophiles and allowed for local authorities to charge them,” one tweeted.

Look:

This is also true.

“Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is rightly credited with having been one of the 20th century’s most prolific Catholic theologians, a teacher-pope who preached the faith via volumes of books, sermons and speeches. But he rarely got credit for another important aspect of his legacy: having done more than anyone before him to turn the Vatican around on clergy sexual abuse,” according to the Associated Press.

“As cardinal and pope, Benedict pushed through revolutionary changes to church law to make it easier to defrock predator priests, and he sacked hundreds of them. He was the first pontiff to meet with abuse survivors. And he reversed his revered predecessor on the most egregious case of the 20th century Catholic Church, finally taking action against a serial pedophile who was adored by St. John Paul II’s inner circle,” the AP reported Sunday.

These are the facts.

As for Geller’s claim that was Pope Benedict XVI was “homophobic,” one would be hard pressed to prove that the pope had hated anybody.

It is true, however, that he was staunchly opposed to gay marriage. But so are millions, if not billions, of other people across the globe.

His views on this issue were made clear in comments he made to journalist Peter Seewald. The comments were later published in Seewald’s book, “Benedict XVI — A Life.”

“A century ago, anyone would have thought it absurd to talk about homosexual marriage. Today those who oppose it are excommunicated from society,” he said, according to Them, an LGBT magazine.

“Modern society is in the middle of formulating an anti-Christian creed, and if one opposes it, one is being punished by society with excommunication. The fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is then only more than natural, and it really needs the help of prayers on the part of an entire diocese and of the Universal Church in order to resist it,” he added.

See more responses to Geller’s crude tweet below:

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles