From your post asking why you don’t expect a Pope to know very much:
“I don’t. As my former professor of history used to say when addressing his ecclesiastical history students: “a few theologians are historians, a few historians are theologians. Regrettably, you gentlemen fall into neither category”. Nevertheless, a pope, especially a German pope, should have some historical sensitivity.”
**So,because your history professor didn’t think his students’ could hold theology and history in their heads at the same time, you don’t think the Pope knows history? That prejudice certainly doesn’t mean anything except that your professor had a prejudice or told a poor joke. And what? You don’t think the Pope knows about the Ustashe? I’m fairly confident he does, as well as he knows there were Dutch, Norwegian, Belgian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian SS units. I’m sure he knows about Spanish collaboration with both Nazism and Stalinism. Is he to condemn them all because of what their grandparents did? **
My professor’s point, and mine, was not that his clerical students couldn’t hold both theology and history in their heads but that very few of them had an equal interest or competence in both disciplines. And that was an observation based on his experience over 50 years of teaching both lay and clerical students. I did not say that the pope doesn’t know history - I said that I expected a pope, especially a German pope, to have some historical sensitivity, especially when championing membership of the EU for a country that has shown no indication that it is prepared to come to terms with its past.
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My question: So, what history, do you imagine, that I do not know? There isn’t a European country without some serious blemishes in its history. For what reason do you think Croatia worse than those who are in the EU now?
Your response: “The other EU countries with a history to have a conscience about, have at least acknowledged the wrongness of their actions and tried to make amends.”
No, outside of Germany they haven’t, and even Germany and Austria have never fully recompensed those whose assets were seized during the Nazi period.But they have, at least, tried. Croatia has never acknowledged its Nazi past, nor has the Church ever acknowledged its own involvement. Austria elected Kurt Waldheim as President despite the revelations about him. Practically the whole of France was collaborationist with the Nazis. **No, practically the whole of France was under the control of the Nazis: that did not make it collaborationist which implies a willingness and consent. **Romania was a direct ally of Hitler’s Germany. So was Finland. **Did either country contain even a single concentration/extermination camp like Jasenovac?**In addition, Romania was one of the worst Stalinist states, but it’s in the EU despite being Hitler’s ally and Stalin’s and despite its genocides in the past, its persecution of minorities to this day and horrific child prostitution record.
Bulgaria, during its communist era, sent terrorist mercenaries in Soviet hire all over the world. When did Bulgaria make amends for that? **Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 and have, at least, acknowledged that they have problems and are attempting to address them. Croatia shows no such inclination.**And Czech weapons are still in the hands of third world terrorists.**So are US, Russian, British, Chinese and Israeli weapons - what’s your point? ** Both are in the EU.
Spain has never acknowledged the murderousness of its communist Republican government, and the leftists who admire it, don’t either.**Spanish historians readily acknowledge the outrages committed by the Republican government during the Civil War, whilst also not denying that Franco and the Fascists also carried out bloody purges during a war of attrition against the elected Government of the Second Spanish Republic. Significantly, Spain did not attain membership of the EU until 1986, eleven years after Franco died and the transition to democracy under Juan Carlos was well under way. **
And when did the Irish who collaborated with the British, for that matter, make amends? Not sure what your point is here or how it is related in any way to Croatia’s Nazi past and the continuing popularity of Nazi ideology there
