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So, remember when the Catholic church elected a pope -- Benedict XVI, to be specific -- who was a former member of the Hitler Youth, and he continued some very antiquated and atrocious policies that the rest of the Church had trying to move away from for decades? That was a hoot, wasn't it?

Remember how he looked so much like Emperor Palpatine that Internet memes about the resemblance spring up practically overnight? Laugh riot, right?

I know, I know. He's not the Pope anymore and I'm posting this way too late. I just found the thing in a stack of old drawings. Deal. (Judging by the Hebrew calendar date I found at the bottom, this thing was drawn sometime back in 2006.)

Back then, I thought - and still think to this day - that electing someone with as controversial a past as Benedict XVI as what was essentially a "bench-warmer" posting was something of a misstep that sent an awkward message. Add his conservative politics to the mix, and you've got a strange pope. (He turned out alright, though, though he didn't go nearly as far as the current Catholic leadership in exposing the corruption and child abuse plaguing the church.)

Also: it has always seemed so strange to me that we sometimes root for villains who are, in essence, Space Nazis. In the Expanded Universe content (pre- and post-Disney), the Empire and its successor state, the First Order, have committed horrid atrocities on an intergalactic scale that easily dwarf the Nazi's "Final Solution" in scale, yet these villains aren't merely adored by fans, they are heavily merchandised by the Lucasfilm/Disney/Twentieth Century Fox corporate machine as well. (Hence the inclusion of Hitler in the image as Vader's moff/sidekick.)

Should we really be marketing mass murderers to our children? If you're buying your kid a Darth Vader action figure, you might as well grab them a Goebbels figure while you're at it.

Description
So, remember when the Catholic church elected a pope -- Benedict XVI, to be specific -- who was a former member of the Hitler Youth, and he continued some very antiquated and atrocious policies that the rest of the Church had trying to move away from for decades? That was a hoot, wasn't it?

Remember how he looked so much like Emperor Palpatine that Internet memes about the resemblance spring up practically overnight? Laugh riot, right?

I know, I know. He's not the Pope anymore and I'm posting this way too late. I just found the thing in a stack of old drawings. Deal. (Judging by the Hebrew calendar date I found at the bottom, this thing was drawn sometime back in 2006.)

Back then, I thought - and still think to this day - that electing someone with as controversial a past as Benedict XVI as what was essentially a "bench-warmer" posting was something of a misstep that sent an awkward message. Add his conservative politics to the mix, and you've got a strange pope. (He turned out alright, though, though he didn't go nearly as far as the current Catholic leadership in exposing the corruption and child abuse plaguing the church.)

Also: it has always seemed so strange to me that we sometimes root for villains who are, in essence, Space Nazis. In the Expanded Universe content (pre- and post-Disney), the Empire and its successor state, the First Order, have committed horrid atrocities on an intergalactic scale that easily dwarf the Nazi's "Final Solution" in scale, yet these villains aren't merely adored by fans, they are heavily merchandised by the Lucasfilm/Disney/Twentieth Century Fox corporate machine as well. (Hence the inclusion of Hitler in the image as Vader's moff/sidekick.)

Should we really be marketing mass murderers to our children? If you're buying your kid a Darth Vader action figure, you might as well grab them a Goebbels figure while you're at it.