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OriginalJS
Guest
I don’t see why it would be unusual for the Church and Hitler to be close. Hitler was a devout Catholic who didn’t like protestants, and it is usual for all churches to support national interests in time of war. There are any number of photographs showing Russian, German, and American priests blessing the troops and praying for victory. Christianity was one of the elements of Nazi mythology. There was a concordat between the Vatican and the German goverment for much of the 30’s. It seems to me that all this discussion is just another example of presentism - assuming that things now are as they always were. Taking a hard look at facts, what could the Pope do against the Nazi government or even the Italian fascists? The answer is very, very little. I think it is pointless to criticize the Church for its role when its only real alternative at the time was to keep a low profile and, attend to the needs of those who applied, and try to come out as best it could. Think about it. What could the Russian Orthodox Church have done to stop the October Revolution or the Stalinist purges of the 1930’s. What could the American Church have done to stop the Iraq war?
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AlanF
Guest
It seems to me like everone else seems to think, it was a good thing for the Church to do to them considering the alternative.
Also about the Concordat, let us not forget what the deal was, basically "sign this concordat and get out of politics (i.e. out of opposition to Hitler) or you will n ot be allowed to run any catholic schools/institutions.
Israeli rabbi opposes beatification of Nazi-era pope
(You already have Rien and posted but have not answered any of the questions put to you.)
Like Cristiano said: do you even have any idea how the process of canonisation works? If Pope Pius XII is a saint, he is a saint already whether the Church canonises him or not, canonisation is just a recognition of the truth.
Ofcourse they were close, Hitler was the ruler of Germany, pictures of the talking is not evidence of Nazism. This is also long before the war, most pf the worst atrocities were only just begining.
Also about the Concordat, let us not forget what the deal was, basically "sign this concordat and get out of politics (i.e. out of opposition to Hitler) or you will n ot be allowed to run any catholic schools/institutions.
Read this thread:
Israeli rabbi opposes beatification of Nazi-era pope
(You already have Rien and posted but have not answered any of the questions put to you.)
Like Cristiano said: do you even have any idea how the process of canonisation works? If Pope Pius XII is a saint, he is a saint already whether the Church canonises him or not, canonisation is just a recognition of the truth.
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mercygate
Guest
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AlanF
Guest
I just want to mention something I found in that site.
That last statement is absolutely rediculous, the fact that Hitler wanted to united the german churches shows that he wanted to control them, notice that he wanted to replace Catholicism (and also the protestant churches) with his own nazi church. That’s how you control the minds of the masses, not support christianity.
I wouldn’t trust this site.
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Deacon_Ed_B
Guest
**
bolding mine **
To say that Hitler was a devout Catholic is like saying that the Roman Emperors loved the Church so much that they wanted to give it more saints and martyrs. Any agreements he had with anyone, country or organization was for expediency for his megalomania in leading Germany on what he thought was the road to the 1000 year Reich, but was actually the road to destruction.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
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mercygate
Guest
Indeed – that web site is ludicrous. “Photo of Hitler in front of a church” – makes him a Christian? makes him a Catholic? makes the Church complicit in the holocaust? These people need to get a day job.
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Lance
Guest
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Valke2
Guest
The Church itself does not try to limit its guilt in this matter. There’s no question that it profited from forced labor at the time. It admits as much and has compensated between 500-600 survivors. It put out a 700 page report detailing it’s role in using cheap forced labor from the camps.
It was a minority of the churchs in Germany that took advantage of this and it was done at a time when the church itself was facing persecution from the Nazi party.
The Church has announced that further reconcilation efforts will take place
dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3253219,00.html
“It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced labourers,” Cardinal Lehmann said at the book’s presentation.
Better to acknowledge and learn, IMO.
It was a minority of the churchs in Germany that took advantage of this and it was done at a time when the church itself was facing persecution from the Nazi party.
The Church has announced that further reconcilation efforts will take place
dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3253219,00.html
“It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced labourers,” Cardinal Lehmann said at the book’s presentation.
Better to acknowledge and learn, IMO.
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rpp
Guest
This is nothing less than an absolute evil lie. It is a sick foul statement that drenched with anti-Catolic bigotry.
Since you had to lie to make your point, your point is not only worthless, it is utterly contemptible. None of the rest of your post is worth discussing since it is predicated on the lie you stated when you revealed your anti-Catholic “perspective”.
There is no record of Hitler attending any parish after he left grade school.
Hitler murdered Catholics as ruthlessly as he murdered Protestants.
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Deacon_Ed_B
Guest
One point of fact that many overlook with statements such as this and the article is, What would have been the alternative for these people had they remained in the concentration camps. Schendler is looked upon as a hero for the Jewish people. Are some so myopic as not to see that many of those who worked such as this are alive because of it. What is the difference.?
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B
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FreedomLiberal6
Guest
Idk but check this out…
ethicalatheist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11948
ethicalatheist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11948
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Valke2
Guest
Schindler actually ended up bribing officials to give him jews to keep away from the camps. That is a very different thing than what we are talking about with the Church. ANd the Church itself does not overly try to defend its actions in this instance.
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rpp
Guest
With a a decent computer, any idiot can doctor photos. With a decent, many idiots intimidated many people.
The Book, “Hitler’s Pope” has been repeatedly shown to be biased and false. It is a poor source.
This is nothing less than anti-Catholic hatred. Those who promote this kind of thing are nothing other than sick bigots.
Hitler was an atheist.
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redrosetea
Guest
If Hitler was such a good Catholic please explain to us why there were priests and nuns in the concentration camps?
Why were Catholics persecuted by the Nazis? Another smear campaign against the church.
Why were Catholics persecuted by the Nazis? Another smear campaign against the church.
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rpp
Guest
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Steadfast_love
Guest
I “accidentaly” left my copy at my mom’s house. She told me she started reading it to get the dirt on PXII but was shocked by what she learned!
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rjs1
Guest
This is not correct. Hitler actually came to hate Christianity as a “weak” belief. The so-called religion used by the Nazis in their celebrations, marriages and funerals was a blend of Teutonic “superman” philosophy and plain pagan spectacle.
It was based on the teachings of Nitzche, the German philosopher, who despised Christianity and believed absolutely in the survival of the fittest and the idea of the superman, and super-race.
Under this belief system the old, mentally retarded, sickly babies etc were to be eliminated. As were so-called inferior races such as Jews and blacks.
These incidently were the prime beliefs of Margaret Sangster, foundress of Planned Parenthood.
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Dwyer
Guest
There seems to be a lot of people out there who think Hitler was a staunch, practicing Roman Catholic when he was Chancellor and Dictator of Germany.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here are some quotes from Paul Johnson’s History of Christianity. (which was written in the 1970’s when he was a political Liberal).
I’m afraid I can’t recommend the book; Johnson, at the time he wrote it was politically a Liberal in the 1970s, and, in my opinion, Johnson makes many satirical and negative statements about St. Augustine and the Catholic Church.
However, Johnson has an excellent section about the Catholic Church and its role in the world during WWII, warts and all:
"In fact he (Hitler) hated Christianity and showed a justified contempt for its German practicioners. Shortly after assuming power, he told Herman Rauschnig that he intended to stamp out Christianity ‘root and branch’.
Paul Johnson: "In the 1920s he told Ludendorf that he had to concel his hatred of Catholicism, because he needed the Bavarian Catholic vote as much as he needed the Prussian Protestants-‘the rest can come later’ . . .
Paul Johnson, quoting Hitler: “One is either a Christian or a German. YOU CAN’T BE BOTH (my emphasis) . . . [d]o you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Nonsense. Never again. The tale is finished . . . but we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray THEIR God to us.”
Johnson, quoting Hitler: “Pure Christianity, the Christianity of the catacombs, is concerned with translating the Christian doctrine into fact. It leads simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely wholehearted Bolshevism under a tinsel of metaphysics.” Thus Hitler, whom Pius XII saw as the indispensible bastion against the Russia (i.e., the Soviet Union), himself equated true Christianity with communism.
Paul Johnson: “Yet the Nazis as a whole did not even go through the motions (as Hitler did AT FIRST) of pretending to be Christians . . . They (the Nazis) claimed, rather, to believe in the 'religion of the blood”. They were in the millenarian (apocalyptic) tradition, and had something in common with the experimental pseudo-religions of the 1790s in revolutionary France, but with the added racialist content . . .*t was a BLASPHEMOUS parody of Christianity, with racialism substituted for God, and German “blood’ for Christ.”
The belt buckle insignia, “Gott Mit Uns”, was the old family Motto of the Prussian Hohenzollern Family that was dethroned during the First World War. It is similar to our “In God We Trust”.
There were established churches in Germany during WWI-WWII, but Germany was an Enlightenment nation, industrialized, and secular. It had produced many famous agnostic/ atheist philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was issued to German soldiers in WWI, and Hitler was deeply influenced by Nietzsche.
I have watched some Jewish-American religious programming on Cable TV, and on a program called “Cable To a Jewish Life”, a New York rabbi, Rabbi Katzman, had a program about Nazi Germany and played interviews of Holocaust survivors, and one man said Germany was an Enlightenment nation and the Holocaust showed us how low the Enlightenment could drag humankind in the gutter.
Hitler’s version of Nietzschean philosophy was somewhat different from the original philosopher’s ideas. For instance, Nietzsche was not an Anti-Semite nor a Nationalist, whereas Hitler was; Hitler essentially took basic Nietzschean ideas and interpreted them so they would comport to and advocate the Nazi’s views on Nationalism and Race.
Historian Paul Johnson: “In the end he (Hitler) intended to exterminate the Christians. But first he wanted to deal with the Jews.”
Well, I can go on and on, but Hitler certainly was not a Christian and not a Catholic.
I’m quoting from a respected British writer, Paul Johnson.
Hitler, as I understand, had a deep interest in Nietzschean philosophy (which is one of the dominant philosophies of modern America society) and the German Aryan Occult.
Hitler had utter contempt for Christianity.*
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here are some quotes from Paul Johnson’s History of Christianity. (which was written in the 1970’s when he was a political Liberal).
I’m afraid I can’t recommend the book; Johnson, at the time he wrote it was politically a Liberal in the 1970s, and, in my opinion, Johnson makes many satirical and negative statements about St. Augustine and the Catholic Church.
However, Johnson has an excellent section about the Catholic Church and its role in the world during WWII, warts and all:
"In fact he (Hitler) hated Christianity and showed a justified contempt for its German practicioners. Shortly after assuming power, he told Herman Rauschnig that he intended to stamp out Christianity ‘root and branch’.
Paul Johnson: "In the 1920s he told Ludendorf that he had to concel his hatred of Catholicism, because he needed the Bavarian Catholic vote as much as he needed the Prussian Protestants-‘the rest can come later’ . . .
Paul Johnson, quoting Hitler: “One is either a Christian or a German. YOU CAN’T BE BOTH (my emphasis) . . . [d]o you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Nonsense. Never again. The tale is finished . . . but we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray THEIR God to us.”
Johnson, quoting Hitler: “Pure Christianity, the Christianity of the catacombs, is concerned with translating the Christian doctrine into fact. It leads simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely wholehearted Bolshevism under a tinsel of metaphysics.” Thus Hitler, whom Pius XII saw as the indispensible bastion against the Russia (i.e., the Soviet Union), himself equated true Christianity with communism.
Paul Johnson: “Yet the Nazis as a whole did not even go through the motions (as Hitler did AT FIRST) of pretending to be Christians . . . They (the Nazis) claimed, rather, to believe in the 'religion of the blood”. They were in the millenarian (apocalyptic) tradition, and had something in common with the experimental pseudo-religions of the 1790s in revolutionary France, but with the added racialist content . . .*t was a BLASPHEMOUS parody of Christianity, with racialism substituted for God, and German “blood’ for Christ.”
The belt buckle insignia, “Gott Mit Uns”, was the old family Motto of the Prussian Hohenzollern Family that was dethroned during the First World War. It is similar to our “In God We Trust”.
There were established churches in Germany during WWI-WWII, but Germany was an Enlightenment nation, industrialized, and secular. It had produced many famous agnostic/ atheist philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was issued to German soldiers in WWI, and Hitler was deeply influenced by Nietzsche.
I have watched some Jewish-American religious programming on Cable TV, and on a program called “Cable To a Jewish Life”, a New York rabbi, Rabbi Katzman, had a program about Nazi Germany and played interviews of Holocaust survivors, and one man said Germany was an Enlightenment nation and the Holocaust showed us how low the Enlightenment could drag humankind in the gutter.
Hitler’s version of Nietzschean philosophy was somewhat different from the original philosopher’s ideas. For instance, Nietzsche was not an Anti-Semite nor a Nationalist, whereas Hitler was; Hitler essentially took basic Nietzschean ideas and interpreted them so they would comport to and advocate the Nazi’s views on Nationalism and Race.
Historian Paul Johnson: “In the end he (Hitler) intended to exterminate the Christians. But first he wanted to deal with the Jews.”
Well, I can go on and on, but Hitler certainly was not a Christian and not a Catholic.
I’m quoting from a respected British writer, Paul Johnson.
Hitler, as I understand, had a deep interest in Nietzschean philosophy (which is one of the dominant philosophies of modern America society) and the German Aryan Occult.
Hitler had utter contempt for Christianity.*
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