wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] East Germany's secret police spied on Pope Benedict,

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Note #8958 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05545
Oct. 11, 2005

East Germany's secret police
spied on Pope Benedict, paper reports
 
by Jonathan Luxmoore 
Ecumenical News International 

WARSAW - East Germany's Communist secret police, known as the Stasi, spied on
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger three decades before he became Pope Benedict XVI.  

  
	"Long before his nomination as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, State Security Ministry agents kept watch on
him," the Bild am Sonntag weekly newspaper reported on Oct. 2, referring to
Ratzinger as the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog before he became Pope. "One of
them later wrote with concern that, as Congregation prefect, he would have an
influence on the growth of anti-Communist attitudes in the Catholic church,
especially in Latin America."  
     
	The newspaper said the Stasi began keeping an eye on the future
pontiff in April 1974, when he was a theology professor and visited then-East
Germany to lecture at a Catholic seminary in Erfurt. The secret police later
said that he was seen by the Vatican as "one of the fiercest opponents of
Communism."  
  
	One Stasi report noted that Ratzinger appeared "initially shy in
conversation," but possessed "a winning charm."    
  
	The Pope had been notified by Germany's Center for Stasi Archives of
the newspaper's plans to publish the material and had given his consent, the
newspaper said.  
     
	The Stasi employed 97,000 full-time agents and managed an estimated
173,000 informers from its headquarters in East Berlin and 14 regional
offices. That's one agent for every 63 East German citizens; one in six if
part-time informers are included. It was swept away by East Germany's
peaceful revolution in 1989, which paved the way for German unification the
following year.  
  
	In its article, Bild am Sonntag said East German agents had shown
"particular interest" in the future pope's contacts with then-Cardinal Karol
Wojtyla of Krakow, who became Pope John Paul II in 1978, and who was himself
closely monitored by agents for Poland's Communist rulers.   
  
	One Stasi report noted that the German cardinal "strongly supported"
Wojtyla's election as pope, the newspaper said. Stasi agents recorded how
John Paul II later asked Cardinal Ratzinger to organize support for
"counter-revolutionary activities in Poland" after the rise of the Solidarity
movement in 1980.

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