Last week, I got into some trouble with the Catholic League, not the first time...Not my biggest fans...because I said in our little essay ending the show, I said, "The Pope," and I looked at it again, I looked at the words carefully, "used to be a Nazi." Okay, now first of all, it was a joke, okay? We were in a comedic context. I said, "He used to be a Nazi, and he wears funny hats, and ladies, he's single." So, right away, we're in the context of a joke, okay, and "used to." Okay, but, you know, you got me. The Pope was not a Nazi. When he was a teenager, he was in the Hitler Youth, which meant that he said the oath directly to Hitler and not to the Nazis, which is sorta worse!

But, but wait a second, the thing that argues for their side of this is that, you know what, he was coerced into that. He was a teenager. I wouldn't blame any teen, he was a fourteen-year-old kid in Nazi Germany, of course he's going to do what they tell him to do. So, on that score, you know what my Catholic friends, I will never make the Pope is a Nazi joke again, because you're technically right, okay, and also because it distracts from the main point.

And the main point I was making was that if the Pope instead of a religious figure was the CEO of a chain of nationwide daycare centers, who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail.

*****Update: the Catholic League has responded to Maher's statements:

On his HBO show last night, Bill Maher apologized for accusing the pope of being a Nazi; he acknowledged that the Catholic League was right when we said that Joseph Ratzinger was forced to join a German youth organization (from which he fled at the first instance). Maher then said that if a CEO were in charge of an institution that housed molesters, he would be fired.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented as follows:

We accept Mahers apology for accusing the pope of being a Nazi. Too bad he didnt stop there. For him to suggest that Pope Benedict XVI was in charge of policing molesters, and failed in doing so, is patently absurd.

As Pope John Paul IIs right-hand man, Joseph Cardinal Ratzingers principal job was to make sure that theologians were faithfully presenting the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was, to some extent, the Churchs Academic Dean, someone who was charged with enforcing academic standards. He was not the Churchs Dean of Students, i.e., he was not discharged with enforcing codes of conduct. Indeed, it wasnt until after the scandal hit the newspapers in 2002 that he was put in charge of dealing with predatory priests, and by all accounts did so effectively.

Maher has to understand that no one person, including the pope, could possibly be held accountable for the behavior of its employees in a global institution. There are priests from Boston to Bosnia, and it is simply preposterous for any one person to know exactly what is going on everywhere at any given time. Maher would have been better advised to focus on those bishops who proved to be enablersit is the bishops job to know what is going on in his diocese, not the popes.

The larger issue remains. It would be great if Maher gave up his Catholic-bashing obsession once and for all.