Berlin, Germany, Sep 22, 2011 / 14:49 pm
Pope Benedict XVI told the German parliament Sept. 22 that the country’s Nazi past highlights the dangers of power divorced from an objective morality rooted in the natural law.
“We have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it, so that the State became an instrument for destroying right,” he told the parliament, which is called the Bundestag.
The Pope described the Nazi regime as “a highly organized band of robbers,” which was “capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss.”
The Pope was addressing the German parliament on the first day of his state visit. The speech was boycotted by some left-wing parliamentarians but, on the whole, the Pope found himself looking out upon a packed chamber.