And you can quote for us sections of Mit Brennender Sorge which condemn specifically the persecution and murder of Jews? Of course not, not in 1937.
Why do you fixate on the Jews? The Jews were but one group defined by Nazi racial theory as subhuman and actually constituted a minority of the peoples the Nazi's targeted for elimination in the Third Reich. To address your question, Mit Brennender Sorge directly addresses Nazi racial theory under which the Jews and many other groups suffered.
8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community--however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things--whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
It's impossible to believe the Vatican did not know of Catholic clergy including bishops being murdered, or take note of the fact their deaths happened in camps set up to hold or exterminate Jews. How much of this was going on in late 1941? I don't know, but certainly it was well under way by this time, and not all of it could be kept secret.
From a modern standpoint, how often have you heard condemnations from the Vatican about catholics being butchered in Indonesia or sub-saharan Africa at the hand of the muslims?
The Pope had no difficulty publicly identifying and condemning persecutions of Christians in Soviet Russia -- indeed the Church excommunicated Communists, but not Nazis, not even Hitler.
Oh really? How many communists did the Pope(s) excommunicate prior to 1945? Help me out here.
The Church suffered a thousand times more in Poland under Nazis than it ever did in Russia under Stalin -- for obvious reasons, since there were few Russian Catholics to begin with.
There were plenty of catholics in the western Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia... at least there were plenty before the communists took over.
And that is the core of the problem. The Nazi threat was: the Pope must stay silent, or the numbers murdered would be far more.
True but I again point to the modern example of catholics being murdered in places like Indonesia and Nigeria by muslims yet the Vatican makes no direct condemnation.
Of course, I understand that -- it is what it is. I'm only saying: let's not pretend that the Pope or any other church leader spoke specifically and publicly about the Nazi horrors.
I'm not sure what your standard is for public condemnation. Perhaps that's where we differ. If you just follow Homer's postings, you will see plenty of such examples. Here's another for you, also from the month of November. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f167/Lisa_Simpson/1941/November/1117/1117-refusei.jpg
I'm rushed for time today, but it seems to me that you are here admitting the basic idea you originally posted to dispute: that churches in general, and the Catholic Church specifically, remained silent in the face of Nazi atrocities against Jews.
In defending that statement, I went further by saying the Church didn't even speak openly about atrocities against its own clergy.
All of this you seem to be admitting, albeit with explanations or excuses.
You also claim the Church even today says nothing when its clergy are murdered or persecuted in, for example, Islamic countries.
This I find a bit hard to believe, considering that most churches today are as media-savy as anyone, and will certainly report and comment on any newsworthy events affecting them.
Got to run now...
