8 May—Eighty years ago today Nazi Germany surrendered to the good guys. More precisely, Colonel General Alfred Jodl on behalf of the German High Command signed the German instrument of unconditional surrender at Reims, France, on 7 May1945. The formal surrender was accepted on behalf of the Allied Expeditionary Force by General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. (The Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force—SHAEF—had been moved to Reims from Versailles in February.)

At the insistence of the Soviets, on 8 May Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, also on behalf of the German High Command (of course), signed the unconditional surrender in Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe. That surrender was accepted by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov and British Air Marshal Arthur Tedder on behalf of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

It’s worth noting that both Jodl and Keitel went on to be tried for major war crimes at Nuremberg, convicted on all counts, and hanged on 16 October 1946. Jodl’s last words on the gallows were, in German, of course: “I salute you, my eternal Germany.” Keitel’s last words, also in German, were somewhat less Teutonic: “I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I now follow my sons—all for Germany.”

It’s also worth noting, albeit irrelevant, that Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project and was perhaps the most tragic victim of the execrable post-war Red Scare, was the last of three husbands of Keitel’s niece Katherine “Kitty” (née Puening), to whom he was married from 1940 until his death in 1967.

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Now for something completely different, if you can’t trust a Catholic priest to follow the rules and do the right thing, whom can you trust? Okay, that’s best construed as a rhetorical question these days. But what are cardinals but priests who have risen through the ranks to earn their scarlet schmattas.

That takes us to the conclave of cardinals that’s at this writing sequestered in the Vatican to choose a new pope. The Roman Catholic Church has never been too big on transparency. So it’s no surprise that before a papal conclave, the cardinals take a solemn, binding oath of secrecy. They swear to maintain absolute secrecy regarding everything around the big election. The oath is in Latin, so some contemporary cardinals probably don’t know what they’re pledging.

Presumably the guys in scarlet can at least be trusted with a little thing like keeping secrets when they’ve promised to do it. That’s not too much to ask, after all. So even given the fear-motivated, punitive nature of Catholicism and most other religions, why is it necessary for the cardinals—of all people—to be threatened with severe penalties including excommunication if they spill the beans?

And why are the presumably virtuous, trustworthy prelates of the church who have taken an oath to keep shtum (and face severe consequences if they don’t) still required to surrender their cell phones upon entering the Sistine Chapel? (At least they don’t have to use those silly Yondr pouches that are being inflicted on school kids.) Presumably the conclaving cardinals are patted down and/or scanned to make sure they’re not wearing bugs. And since all that opacity-security is in place, why is it still necessary to jam electronic signals?

It really doesn’t speak too well of the Roman Catholic Church.

And some of the cardinals may actually be moles, when you think about it, agents infiltrated into the conclave by the Vatican Gestapo. The Vatican must know something the rest of us don’t . . .