POPE WARNS GERMANS ABOUT EVILS OF POWER

POPE WARNS GERMAN LAWMAKERS
NOT TO ABUSE POWER AT PARLIAMENT

Berlin (AP / AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI addressed Germany’s Parliament in the historic Reichstag building yesterday, warning that politicians must not sacrifice ethics for power and evoking the Nazi excesses of his homeland as a lesson in history.  Amid scattered protests outside and a boycott by some lawmakers, Benedict began his first state visit to Germany in a bid to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the church while acknowledging the damage caused by the clergy sex abuse scandal.  The pope spoke for 20 minutes in the Reichstag, which was torched in 1933 by Hitler. “We Germans know from our own experience what happens when power is corrupted”, Benedict said, describing Nazis as a “highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss.”

The Bavarian-born pontiff also urged all Germans not to ignore religion.  “Even today, there is ultimately nothing else we could wish for but a listening heart - the capacity to discern between good and evil, and thus to establish true law, to serve justice and peace,” he said.  Benedict also voiced strong support for Germany’s ecological movement, calling it “a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside.” After the speech, he met with a 15-member Jewish delegation, noting that it was in Berlin that the annihilation of European Jews was organized.  “The supposedly ‘almighty’ Adolf Hitler was a pagan idol, who wanted to take the place of the biblical God,” Benedict said according to a prepared text.

In a speech to the German parliament, Pope Benedict has warned German lawmakers not to abuse power, referring to excesses in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany as a lesson in history.  On his state visit to his native country, the pope said Germans know from experience what happens when power is corrupted. He described Hitler as a pagan idol and Nazis as a “highly organized band of robbers capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the end of abyss.”  The concept of the Aryans as a race and its right to abuse others was part of the ideology of German nationalism.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

After Hitler and the Nazi atrocities, most people, especially Europeans, are understandably reluctant to be reminded of the word (Aryans) . But that was a European crime; Indians had no part in it. The real Aryans have lived in India for thousands of years without committing anything remotely resembling the Nazi horrors. ... the notion of the Aryans as a race (...) finds no support in Indian literature or tradition.  In fact, the authoritative Sanskrit lexicon (c. 450 AD), the famous Amarakosa gives the following definition: “An Arya is one who hails from a noble family, of gentle behavior and demeanor, good-natured and of righteous conduct.”  And the great epic Ramayana has a singularly eloquent expression describing Rama as “Arya, who worked for the equality of all and was dear to everyone”.  The Rigveda also uses the word Arya something like 36 times, but never to mean a race. The word “Arya” in Sanskrit means noble and never a race. 

VINA - Vaishnava Intenet News Agency
“Aryan Invasion - History or Politics?”
Written by Dr. N.S. Rajaram 
Published on 20 November 2006.
http://www.vina.cc/news/index.php/Philosophical/Aryan-Invasion-History-or-Politics.html