The Vatican's Holocaust

[daeve]

Did anyone take it seriously? I read most of this earlier today, but I don’t remember anyone treating this anyway except as a big old joke. People who read that kind of undocumented baloney and take it at face value aren’t interested in rational discussion.

I’m not going to worry about those people because there’s nothing to do about them anyway. My ex-mother-in-law is in that group. She has some amazing ideas about the Catholic ex-daughter-in-law and both the Jewish sons-in-law (current and former).

 

[ComradeAndrei]

But it’s a fact that:
700,000 Serbs were massacred in Croatia from 1941 to 1945
they were massacred under a Fascist regime presided over by Ante Pavelic
it existed by sufferance of the Berlin government of the time
the Franciscans were deeply implicated in the blood-letting
atrocious cruelty was used
one Serbian Orthodox bishop had horse-shoes nailed to his feet
These are facts, and there is no way whatever of getting round any of them. These are all true, and they add up to a horrific & revolting picture. Manhattan was certainly anti-Catholic by any reasonable definition, but that doesn’t alter the facts, which by any remotely Christian moral standard are not Christian; he should not be one’s only source - equally, his book is about real crimes.

Nor are the facts altered by the subsequent exaggeration of the figures, to 1,700,000. I for one find it very hard to understand how Pius XII could receive a known assassin & terrorist, which Pavelic undoubtedly was, in audience - even though the Pope pointedly refused to treat him as a head of state.

The best answer is to look at this episode thoroughly - one book I recommend is “The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators: 1922-1945” by (the late) Robert Rhodes James. Its great virtue is its calm tone - too much Catholic writing is disfigured by a partisan tone, as though putting the CC in a good light mattered more than an impartial & honest approach to all the available facts, flattering to the CC or not. Advocacy & history are ill-matched partners.

While this may be true, it is not as if the Church was encouraging all of this. There is nothing in the teachings of the Church to support this kind of atrocity. What some people who call themselves Catholic do is not our fault.

The Balkans are just like that-it doesn’t matter what religion you are. It is a deep seated problem that only got a thin layer of veneer with the introduction of Christianity. I do not hold the Serbian Orthodox Church responsible for any actions committed by people who called themselves Orthodox because the Orthodox follow the same basic teachings on morality that we do.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

While this may be true, it is not as if the Church was encouraging all of this. There is nothing in the teachings of the Church to support this kind of atrocity.

How does that mean or guarantee that Catholics do not commit genocide, or other crimes ?​

What some people who call themselves Catholic do is not our fault.

The Balkans are just like that-it doesn’t matter what religion you are. It is a deep seated problem that only got a thin layer of veneer with the introduction of Christianity…

Aren’t Catholics supposed to behave better than that ?​

It can’t simply be shrugged off. Facts don’t vanish because people avert their eyes - they remain facts. If Pavelic had been a Protestant what would have happened ? This at least: the whole wretched business would have have been exploited as an argument against Protestantism. But it was not the work of Protestants; it was the work of Catholics. It’s our filth - nobody else’s - & we have to face up to it. It is just too convenient for us to imply that other Catholics are not Catholic - that’s no different from disowning them because they are embarrassing to us. But if we do that to others - why should we ourselves not be treated in the same way ?

As for Church encouragement, some Franciscans were extremely encouraging - after the War, they were executed for their crimes.

http://www.jasenovac.org/images/jasenovac2.pdf

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Why is it that times in our history that are admittedly bad get blown so out of proportion? And then the exaggerated versions multiply and hang around for so long as gospel truth and eventually become assumed to be historical truth? You would honestly think that such things would be forgotten or at least recognized as abstractions by now. But yet the stories of horror persist in the minds of man.

However, on another similar topic…Did you know that Chess has been persecuted by Muslim leaders, Eastern Orthodox leaders, Catholic Cardinals and Saints, Government officials, terrorists groups, and more, but it’s still here among us today after approximately 1500 years.

Why…???..because it is immortal in the mind of man. It makes us think. It is not a game of chance, it is a game of intellect and skill. It grabs hold of you and pulls you into an infinity that you believe you can grasp, but like any other infinity, you never can grasp all of it.

Even though individuals from the groups mentioned above have periodically sought to stamp out this game, the groups as a whole have an overwhelming reputation for praising it’s genius and usefulness in the development of many key aspects of a civilized culture. Literature, philosophy, mathematics, theology, economics, and psychology all benefit from those 64 squares with their 32 pieces and the lessons we can all learn from them. Chess even makes it easier to pass on information. Chess itself may even be a product of information being passed from nation to nation.

Long live Chess!!! Hoorah!! Hoorah!!!
Away with silliness, Long live Chess!!!

What has society benefitted from passing on tales of horror received from yesteryear?? Admittedly, history needs to be recorded as it happens for future generations to learn about. However, people keep on repeating atrocity after atrocity against humanity. Humanity has learned many lessons. I think they are fogotten in America every 2 years at election time. Certainly, globally, the lessons are forgotten as often as I get my local newspaper. Daily!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

You should get over yourselves, I posted a silly thread and people reacted in a similar ridiculous fashion to a Da Vinci Code thread.

You did that for fun? I encourage you to take up golf.

I cannot affirm or deny that 700,000 Serbs died during WWII. Since it was a very serious battleground, it might not be taken as a great surprise. The Nazis definitely recruited Croats. They also recruited Muslim Bosnians in great numbers. The Soviets definitely recruited and supported Serbs. For a time, the Western allies supported Mihailovic, then switched to support Tito, who was communist and who was also supported by the Soviets. Tito’s cadres and ruling elite after the war were largely Serbs, though Tito himself was an (atheist) ethnic Croat. All of the various groups committed atrocities against all the other groups, except to the extent the other group was either a fellow Nazi or Communist symmpathizer. Certainly, the Tito regime committed many after the war. The Orthodox and the Serbs cannot take much pride in the genocidal Milosevic. A horrible, horrible mess. Many Nazis were from Catholic backgrounds; more were from Protestant backgrounds. Many Russian communists were from Orthodox backgrounds. Stalin was, for a time, an Orthodox seminarian, and outdid Hitler by far in murder. People of Buddhist and Confucian background participated in the murders in China, and outdid Stalin. Many of the most prominent, and murderous, Bolsheviks were Jews. Dzerzhinsky was, for a time, in a Catholic seminary. Most of the Japanese war criminals were Shintoists. None of this means that Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism Confucianism, Shinto or Judaism, per se, promote genocide. What it does mean is that people can commit terrible evil and that the religious background of a particular person provides no guarantee that he will not.

I grew up listening to my Irish grandmother’s stories about how terrible the British Protestants were to the Catholic Irish, and I don’t doubt they were true. Am I supposed to forever claim that the Anglican Church is genocidal because of that? When I was a child, the most prominent members of my community were KKK. Had they been able to get away with driving Catholics like my family out of the area, and with hanging a few of us as an encouragement to the others, some would have undoubtedly done it. Am I supposed to forever claim that the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and Evangelical churches are genocidal because of that? No, and it would be terribly wrong of me to do so.

Even the savagery now being perpetrated by some Muslims will be over with someday. I truly believe that, though it’s sometimes hard to think so, and it does not prevent us, morally, from fighting against it today for the threat that it is, presently. And when that day comes, we should not allow ourselves to dwell overlong on the memories of it.