A new toy from Google has revealed that many people wanting to know more about his holiness Pope Benedict are interested in his links to the Nazis.

Google Correlate lets you see f there are search terms which occur often in conjunction either with other ones, or with a particular time series, or a US state. It is a useful tool, it means you can see if there is an outbreak in illness by looking at how many people are asking about it online.

But if you type in the word Benedict, it seems the tool shows that most people are uninterested in the modern scandals effecting the church. There were no links, for example, to the issue of women priests, sexual assaults on choir boys, or contraception. Apparently when people do a search on the pope they are interested in the fact that he was a member of Hitler Youth. The list is:

4. pope nazi youth
5. pope benedict antichrist
6. pope benedict nazi
7. pope benedict xvi biography
8. pope benedict hitler youth
9. pope and hitler

To be far the bloke was conscripted and so had very little chance of dodging Hitler Youth, but it is strange that is the only thing that Americans want to know about him. It is usually the British who get into trouble for always mentioning the war when they talk to Germans.