POPE Equates Atheism and Naziism

[JReducation]

The problem is not the pope is not infallible every time he speaks. The problem is that too many Catholics have erected altars to their own judgment under the guise of critical thinking.

That’s a very dangerous thing to do. It threatens the unity of the Church. The Church is unified not only by the infallible teachings of the Magisterium, but also by its one temporal head. If we begin to give ourselves license to pick and choose what we endorse and what we cast aside, where is the unity?

I go back to my own religious experience as a Franciscan. Today, there are more about 1.7 million Franciscans from different branches of the family. If you take that number and multiply if over 800 years, how many men and women Franciscans have there been? Now, take that and remember that no one said that Francis of Assisi was infallible. In fact, we know that he made mistakes and he had human limitations. The brevity of his rule and the fact that he does not answer many of the questions raised by his followers is the reason that there are so many branches of the order. Different groups of Franciscans have had to fill-in the blanks to answer questions that the rule does not address.

That being said, if you ask a single one of those millions of men and women who have followed the Seraphic Father since 1209 if they would ever question him, disregard a directive given by him, or even disagree with him, you would get a look of horror in return. Why is that? Because the unity of the family and the love for the father is our means to holiness and eventually to heaven. When we love our spiritual father, we fulfill the words of Christ, “He who hears you, hears me.” Even when our father makes mistakes in judgment, we know that if we are obedient, humble, and cooperative, God will use that to lead us where he wants us to go. A saint is a man or woman who instead of building an altar to his own judgment and critical thinking, offers himself on the altar of obedience as Christ did.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Onegin]

I could not find anything offensive at all in the Pope’s statement. As offended as today’s well-meaning humanists might be at drawing the comparison that His Holiness did, one has to admit that, without a clearly defined system of morality, there is little to separate us from tyrants. When human beings refuse to submit to the authority of Christ the King, we leave an empty gap in our lives that can be filled with anything, including dangerous and horrible ideologies.

Certainly not all secularists would endorse a genocidal mentality but the philosophy itself (that rejects any form of moral authority) leaves the possibility open where the right person may choose to take advantage of it. History has given us a veritable laundry list of people who have taken advantage of it. The Pope, therefore, seemed justified to be warning us against embracing or endorsing this ideology. The problem is that many people today are not taught to reason and therefore they cannot distinguish between condemning an ideology and condemning a person as an individual which is why we see this mass “outrage”. We have become a culture that cannot think.

Secularism has endorsed euthanasia, abortion, etc. Why is it such a leap in logic to conclude that it is also capable of endorsing genocide?

 

[edwest2]

I could not find anything offensive at all in the Pope’s statement. As offended as today’s well-meaning humanists might be at drawing the comparison that His Holiness did, one has to admit that, without a clearly defined system of morality, there is little to separate us from tyrants. When human beings refuse to submit to the authority of Christ the King, we leave an empty gap in our lives that can be filled with anything, including dangerous and horrible ideologies.

Certainly not all secularists would endorse a genocidal mentality but the philosophy itself (that rejects any form of moral authority) leaves the possibility open where the right person may choose to take advantage of it. History has given us a veritable laundry list of people who have taken advantage of it. The Pope, therefore, seemed justified to be warning us against embracing or endorsing this ideology. The problem is that many people today are not taught to reason and therefore they cannot distinguish between condemning an ideology and condemning a person as an individual which is why we see this mass “outrage”. We have become a culture that cannot think.

Secularism has endorsed euthanasia, abortion, etc. Why is it such a leap in logic to conclude that it is also capable of endorsing genocide?

The leap in logic is that for some secularists, theirs is the right view of reality. However you look at it, their view is the right view. They are sometimes shocked when others disagree with or cannot see what they regard as plainly evident.

Reason has been co-opted by the very same people I speak of. A protest outside of a Creation Museum was led by a group calling itself “Rally for Reason.”

What we have here is a clash of orthodoxies. People need to understand that there are people just as committed to spreading a message of human freedom and progress, as they define it, as some are to spread the Gospel. This replacement gospel enshrines the mind of man and worships the god Change. Change, we are told, is inevitable and should be expected and accepted. The moment the Church ‘gets in the way’ they have to post on forums like this one that the Church has it wrong, lacks compassion, is old-fashioned, inflexible and so on.

It is not a lack of thinking skills but where some people put their trust. Since infallibility is complete nonsense - how dare anyone suggest anyone could be infallible? They put their trust in men. The same experts by the way, who tell you something is bad for you, only to be overruled by another group of experts six months later.

I am concerned that some on internet forums are accepting opinions as if they were facts, or even representative of an appropriate response to Church teaching. Instead of simply reading, understanding and accepting Church teaching in obedience, another poster comes on to say, no, I don’t buy it. That is a problem with the media in general. Their message is generally against Church teaching on cetain hot topics of the day. And the reasoning of some of their columnists is not good. One wrote that only religious people are against embryonic stem cell research. After all, an embryo doesn’t have fingers and toes. Is there an agenda to downplay the fact that a human embryo is a human being? Yes. And after all, the hoped for ends justify the means? Right?

God bless,
Ed

 

[hartleymartin]

How many of you have actually read a verbatim transcript of the words that came out of the Holy Father’s mount?

I think you will find that he was warning against the “Extremist Atheism” as practised by the Nazis, which lead to the Ontological crisis, resulting in several-million people willingly and systematically killed.

Nowhere did he say “Atheists are Nazis”

 

[Robert_Burns]

The Holy Father is not discussing politics. He is teaching that extremist exclusion of God leads to the devaluation of the human person (abortion, stem cell research with human embryos, euthanasia, etc.) :

He said:
"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny” "(Caritas in Veritate, 29). Pope Benedict XVI

He is teaching as the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ.

Precisely - In reading the text of the Speech - he was definitely firing a salvo across the bow of Atheists like Richard Dawkins who lives in Great Britain and loves to grab headlines with his anti Religion agenda - the POPE , it would seeem was fighting fire with fire.

Propaganda is a powerful weapon. The Nazi’s used it with success and the Progressives are attempting to use it for their advantage as well. To sway public Opinion to forwar their anti religion and anti Christian morals agenda. To a Chistian - thereis no dicernable difference.

 

[Lujack]

It does a great disservice to what the Pope actually said to boil it down to something as simple as “Pope equates Atheism and Nazism”. When the Pope is trying to speak on a complex topic and make a complex point, we should at least do him the courtesy of not trying to boil it down to a five word sound bite.

 

[Robert_Burns]

It does a great disservice to what the Pope actually said to boil it down to something as simple as “Pope equates Atheism and Nazism”. When the Pope is trying to speak on a complex topic and make a complex point, we should at least do him the courtesy of not trying to boil it down to a five word sound bite.

What do you expect from MSN? Its hardly a conservative News Outlet.

 

[georgewithfaith]

I believe and agree with everything Papa Benedict said regarding atheism and naziism. He is a holy man who is the vicar of Christ and I owe my obedience to him. Would it not be wonderful if the world did not have to suffer the evils of atheism and the nazis?

 

[revert_jen]

As offended as today’s well-meaning humanists might be at drawing the comparison that His Holiness did, one has to admit that, without a clearly defined system of morality, there is little to separate us from tyrants. When human beings refuse to submit to the authority of Christ the King, we leave an empty gap in our lives that can be filled with anything, including dangerous and horrible ideologies.

Excellent post. Aquinas said, “Justice without mercy is cruelty.” What would he have said about injustice without mercy? How can you have justice, if each person is to define for himself what is just and what is unjust? How can you have mercy if you don’t see that all people have intrinsic value? If materialism is true, then the animal rights activists are in some sense correct–the only reason to treat people in one way and animals in a different way is “because I can.” If that is the ruling light of society, how long will it be before powerless people are treated like animals are treated now, killed when in pain rather than allowed to live a life with “low quality,” forcibly sterilized when they are too numerous, kept in cages to produce what people want, perhaps even eaten. Only God stands between us and the “Modest Proposal” being taken seriously.

God bless our Pope for seeing this and having courage to say it!

–Jen

 

[Lujack]

What do you expect from MSN? Its hardly a conservative News Outlet.

Except that people on this thread are trying to do the same thing; there are people who like simplifying the quote so that they can boo and hiss, and there are people who like simplifying the quote so that they can cheer and yell “Stick it to them!”, when what we really should be doing is reading, thinking, and discussing.

 

[JReducation]

I must be the most naive person on the planet. I don’t see the issue here. The pope said that Nazism is atheistic. OK, so what’s the problem?

Why is it that the pope cannot say something without being put through a llitmus test by his own people?

I’m not particularly interested in what other people say about his comments. When Catholics put the pope’s words through a litmus test, it makes me wonder.

I’m reminded of my parents. They had a wonderful marriage. I cannot think of two people who were more different. My father was a lawyer and a diplomat. He was reserved, observant and timid. My mother was a physician. She was gregarious, energetic and had an opinion about everything. However, the one thing that I always admired about them was their fidelity to each other. We never heard either one question the other. They may have asked questions of each other in private, but never in public. If my father said the moon was made out of cheese, my mother remained quiet, because Dad had spoken. When my mother said that the world was flat, my father remained quiet, because Mom had spoken. Observing that relationship I learned the true meaning of fidelity and love. When the pope says that Nazism is atheistic, I do like my parents. I smile and move along.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[RobHom]

I saw nothing in his speech that I would take exception to. He said the truth. The fact that atheists and proponents of eugenics can’t deal with the truth is their problem.

Just because there were many Christians in Germany during the war years did not mean that the Third Reich or Hitler were Christian. In fact the truth is the opposite. Hitler and the leading members of the Reich were no more Christian than the devil.

If you do a thorough study of that time period you will find that many clerics of different faiths to include Catholic Priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps…this link may give some insight to the issues at hand.

holocaustforgotten.com/non-jewishvictims.htm

And the guy who did the whining about what the Pope said…has been quoted as saying that the Nazi’s eugenics programs were the right way to do it.

Maybe the truth hit home??

 

[Adeodatus]

I’ve found the objections to His Holiness’ remarks remarkably uninformed. And I’m only an amateur historian of WWII. How much more deeply must the Pope understand it, who grew up during the Third Reich and lived through these momentous events. He has had his whole (long, erudite) life to ponder these events and reach his conclusions. From what I know of the state of affairs he is discussing, what he says seems quite sound.

Perhaps part of the confusion people have is the extension of the term “Nazi”, as if it applies to every Grenadier in a stahlhelm and feldgrau. And then you have the complication of party membership not necessarily implying agreement with the leadership or methods, such as the famous case of SS General Wilhelm Bittrich. But I think it is unmistakable that the ‘religion’ of the Nazi state was entirely godless, and depended upon the Fuhrer and the state itself to stand in as ersatz gods.

 

[Onegin]

Excellent post. Aquinas said, “Justice without mercy is cruelty.” What would he have said about injustice without mercy? How can you have justice, if each person is to define for himself what is just and what is unjust? How can you have mercy if you don’t see that all people have intrinsic value? If materialism is true, then the animal rights activists are in some sense correct–the only reason to treat people in one way and animals in a different way is “because I can.” If that is the ruling light of society, how long will it be before powerless people are treated like animals are treated now, killed when in pain rather than allowed to live a life with “low quality,” forcibly sterilized when they are too numerous, kept in cages to produce what people want, perhaps even eaten. Only God stands between us and the “Modest Proposal” being taken seriously.

God bless our Pope for seeing this and having courage to say it!

–Jen

Indeed!

To add to my previous thought, it seems his Holiness was making an additional important philosphical point here and one which I am sure that Thomas Aquinas would agree with, namely that reason alone can never be the final source of morality. Reason is a wonderful thing to have and it is certainly even a more wonderful thing when utilised correctly, however reason alone cannot always lead us to the correct moral choice. For that we also need the operation of faith.

Take the Holocaust for an example. Pure reason would tell us that it is not a good thing for a family to risk their lives to hide Jewish prisoners and yet many Polish families during WWII did this, even at the risk of being caught and killed. Why? Because they did the “right” thing which was not, strictly speaking, reasonable under the circumstances. They did the unreasonable thing because it was the RIGHT thing.The bottom line here is that worshipping at the altar of reason alone as secularism does can lead to erroneous and often dangerous moral conclusions.

Why? Because the human being was not made to be a creature of pure reason. He was created and designed to use his reason to guide him to deeper faith for the greater glory of God. When that end goal is removed, reason becomes a means without an end, and in the place of that end man often substitutes things like himself (secular humanism). He has created a circle, there is nothing outside of himself and he is free to make up his own moral rules as his reason sees fit.

So when the Holy Father cautions against dangerous ideologies like secularism (that either implicitly or explicitly deny the role of faith in the formation of moral conclusions), he is completely correct and echoes the sentiments of Thomas Aquinas quite well.

Fides et Ratio. Faith and Reason.

 

[Justin1982]

I think everyone should also look into radical secular movements such as the one south of our border in Mexico with the Cristero War.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War

Not the most accurate of sites (wiki) but gives you an overview of the story that I certainly had no idea about and figured most didn’t as well.

 

[RobbyS]

While I don’t think that the news is really being fair to the Popes actual statement I have to say that I can’t fathom what was going through the heads of the people who helped author or reviewed this statement. I could have told them that the paragraph in question would be latched onto and attacked. Any statement on Nazis, especially in Europe, is taken rather sensitively and the link between Nazism and Atheism isn’t exactly a clear black and white historical fact. Nazis even had a standard issue belt buckle that said something along the lines of “God is with us” in German. And of course it doesn’t help the whole issue that almost everyone knows that the Pope was a part of the Hitler youth, even if it wasn’t a matter of choice.

It doesn’t really seem like the Church has quite grasped how important it is to be careful with individual statements and PR when dealing with the modern Western world. Of course most older politicians don’t seem to be able to figure this out either. Perhaps the Church should consider taking a few of their brighter young western priests and getting them involved in this stuff. I know the Pope’s advisors are traditionally high ranking and older officials, but a young voice here or there might be nice consider the rapid pace at which the world is changing now-a-days.

Oh and you should link the articles you are talking about. I couldn’t find the MSN one, but here is the BBC one that probably says pretty much the same thing. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11332515

I think you are taking all this stuff out of Context. Of course Hitler was not your every day atheist–eg. Bertram Russell. But read Bonhoeffer and you will get closer to the pope’s meaning.

 

[Timothy17]

Did anyone see this news story on MSN? Thats a bold statement isnt it.

He is quite right to do so.

In a beautiful German work, “Downfall [of the 3rd Reich],” which depicts the final days of Hitler in his bunker, the movie brilliantly, purposely and quite subtly omits to mention the word “God” throughout the entire span of this commanding film depicting Hitler’s final days. Strinkingly, the word “God,” is not spoken until after Hitler has killed himself, and then only by some of his assistants and entourage who, now fleeing for their lives and absolutely without any leadership, begin to God-bless and God-speed one another, and ask for God’s help. I said this was brilliant because it calls to mind the fact that God has been utterly missing up until this point, and that up until Hitler’s death, Hitler was virtually the god of the National Socialists, even commanding suicides or suicidal acts, etc., with many going obediently to their deaths. The irony is that for the first time these people, though scared, are also excited - for the first time they are determining where they are going and what they are going to do now, which under Hitler they had utterly lost all control of.

Furthermore, the movie quite nicely demonstrates Hitler’s and the National Socialist’s philosophies - primarily that of Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a virulently atheistic and especially anti-Christian 19th century philosopher, and his ideas lead to the idea of, or accumulated philosophically in, the “Triumph of the Will,” which characterized the National Socialist experiment - of man’s willing his own salvation, so to speak, his own perfection, free from any other guiding light save himself. Egotism is a natural by-product of this mentality, and the need for dominance, and control, become obsessive.

It is often heard that Hitler was Christian or the National Socialists were somehow Christian. This is utterly false, insomuch as they had all long before foresaken Christ and His Church. The National Socialist regime would go so far as to invent its own creation myth in the manner of the 3rd Reich, and edit Christian Hymns and Prayers to replace God, Christ, Our Father, etc., with the Reich, Germany, our Fuhrer, etc.

National Socialism was essentially a combination of early 20th century Darwinism, (which began to fuse his ideas of natural selection and apply them perversely to humanity, wherein a kind of racist caste system developed), with Nietzsche’s philosophy, and the results of that unholy union have scarred forever human history.

Pax,
Tim

 

[crazzeto]

They were indeed pagans or the Germanic order, at least officially. While many of them may have been atheists in their hearts, I’m not sure that it was such a great idea for this pope to speak out about Nazism in anything other than concrete, historical terms. Someone should have realised that this would cause a problem, whether he was right or wrong. There has to have been a better way to express the ideas without using the word “Nazi.”

I believe the Holy Father was being lead by the spirit when this speech was put together, some uncomfortable things simply need be said. No doubt he has angered many, and no doubt he has these same people evaluating what he said to see if it’s true. God willing, eventually they will see the plain truth of what the Holy Father spoke.

 

[fitzyjr]

i have a huge problem with these comments by the pope. im an atheist, and last time i checked i dont murder innocent people. people have a misconception that because we dont believe in God, we have no morals. this is actually the natural ignorance of people who view those of different beliefs as bad people. and i have to say im sickened by aramis actually agreeing with the popes outlandish insinuations. the actions of the nazis had very little to do with their faith. they were twisted, sick individuals, under the influence of a deeply disturbed human being. it is in no way acceptable to group atheism together with nazism. that would be like me stating that ALL priests are paedophiles due to the actions of a few. im well aware that they are not. so to those who actually agree with the pope, get your head checked. atheists are good people

 

[fitzyjr]

I must be the most naive person on the planet. I don’t see the issue here. The pope said that Nazism is atheistic. OK, so what’s the problem?

THATS THE PROBLEM!!! It is wrong to group things together which are really so different. I could make an equivocal statement that the Catholic Church is responsible for the destruction of the lives of thousands of innocent children, and for the murder of millions of people.

but this statement would be grouping together facts which have no relevance. the nazis are twisted and sick, the priests who abused children are twisted and sick. Beliefs do not come into this argument. Being atheist has nothing to do with how the nazis acted. priests are supposedly closer to your God and yet they committed such sick crimes (i am referring here to just those who were charged, obviously when i use the term priests i do not mean every priest)

there is a saying that ignorance is bliss. sometimes i feel catholics are the most blissful faith in the world