Being German by birth, conscripted a boy in the Hitler Youth, it would serve to reconcile the German people, taking it there, to Auschwitz, in his person, in his primacy.
A dazzling white cassock, the stiff shouldered pope walked like Germany itself to the altar, high solemnity as of a Latin Mass, the Holocaust to sacrifice in a bloodless act.
This manifestation of the Lamb of God taking away the sins of Germany: now free of that terrible cast Christ's death on the Jews had burdened them for centuries.
The site at Auschwitz preserved for posterity as a reminder of what must never happen again, in the pope a sign, even though it happened there was still left a hope for mankind.
