Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 10/16/2005 10:26:03 AM PDT by Rodney King
In keeping with the solemnity of the Yom Kippur holiday, though, I spent my time after services reading David Dalin's new book The Myth of Hitler's Pope. It's a short book but in just a very few pages succeeds (or so it seems to me) in proving that Pope Pius XII has been horribly traduced by his many critics.
There are spots where Rabbi Dalin's enthusiasm gets the better of him. I think it is hard to deny that the Vatican willingly cooperated with antidemocratic forces in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. And Dalin's own evidence makes clear that the pope's supreme priority was always the protection of the institutional interests of the church.
Within those limits, though, Dalin proves and more than proves:
1) that both Pius XII and his predecessor Pius XI abhorred and repeatedly condemned Nazi doctrine;
2) that Pius XII used his diplomatic power to protect Jewish communities in Catholic countries like Hungary and Slovakia - with a measurable impact on the survival rate of the Jews in those countries;
3) that Pius XII defied the very real risk of his own abduction and arrest by the Nazis to protect the Jewish communities of Rome and Italy, including sheltering some 3,000 Roman Jews in his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo during the German occupation of Rome in 1943;
4) that the many Roman Catholic clerics who risked their lives to rescue Jews during World War II testified again and again that they were acting on the orders of the pope - and that letters in Pius XII's own handwriting confirm the claim;
5) that even by the most conservative estimate of the effect of his actions, Pius XII's personal interventions saved the lives of more European Jews than any other person outside the governments and armed forces of the allied powers - more than Oskar Schindler, more than Raoul Wallenberg.
Just this very year, the pope's memory was attacked by a new story: a claim that Catholic institutions that housed Jewish orphans refused to deliver the rescued children to their families after war's end, but instead tried to keep and raise them as Catholics. Dalin demonstrates convincingly that the documents on which the story was founded were forged.
The debate over Pius XII is not, Dalin argues, ultimately a debate about history at all. It is an internal debate over the character and future of the Roman Catholic Church - a debate in which attacks on the war record of Pius XII function as coded attacks upon Pius' great successor, John Paul II.
That debate should at least be carried out without injustice to the memory of the voiceless dead. At this season of soul-searching and atonement, it seems clear to me that Dalin has exposed a very great injustice - and that Pius XII deserves to be numbered prominently among those honored in the Yad Vashem memorial to the righteous gentiles who saved Jewish lives during the Nazi Holocaust.
But as we've been saying all week: Don't trust me. Read the evidence for yourself. As Michael Novak says on the book's dustjacket: "This is a stunning book. I wish I had known more of this material years ago."
When does it?
Ping!
Looks like the Jesuit whitewash of history is nearing completion.
Does the book mention anything about the Ustachi and Catholic priests in soldier's uniforms torturing and killing millions of Serbs during World War II?
It is a stunning book. It is a must read for Catholics and for Jews.
I don't know. Did that happen with the Pope's knowledge and approval?
You'll want to read this. Ping
"Did that happen with the Pope's knowledge and approval?"
I don't know. In an organization like the Catholic Church, wouldn't the headquarters get feedback from something like that?
BTW, that's why the Serbs attacked the Croatians when they got a chance.
Not neccessarily. Did the Cardinal in Boston inform Rome of all the homos he was covering up for? If you were a Croatian Priest, and a bad man, as some Priests are, would you telegraph Rome and say "hey guys, I am having a grand ole' time killing Serbs"?
BTW, that's why the Serbs attacked the Croatians when they got a chance.
It goes back a lot longer than that.
"BTW, that's why the Serbs attacked the Croatians when they got a chance."
Gee, and here I thought that whole situation was due to 3 civilizations coming together at that spot. I thought that whole deal dated back to the time when the Muslims came to town and forcibly converted those conquered.
For the life of me, I can't understand those who wallow in anti-Catholicism, any more than I can't understand the anti-Semites.
"For the life of me, I can't understand those who wallow in anti-Catholicism, any more than I can't understand the anti-Semites. "
I'm not wanting to make anybody feel personally attacked. I know that criticism of someone's religion can make one feel that way and I don't want to do that.
It's just that, if the Vatican killed up to 60,000,000 Christians, Jews and others through the Dark and Middle Ages and into the Reformation because they wouldn't convert, then I don't think that should be lied about. I'm getting two 180 degree opposite reports of history.
Where did you see that figure, and how did they come did that? On its face, it is ludicrous.
You might want to prove that statement. It's absurd on its face.
. . . you might want to seriously rethink the bona fides of your source. Sounds like you've stumbled on somebody with a serious axe to grind and not too much compunction about the truth.
And if you're talking about the fellow I think you're talking about, he was defrocked and condemned while the war was still going on.
Sixty million is only an estimate, because the perpetrators of the inquisitions were the ones in control of writing the histories. Finding the real number isn't possible.
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
The only place in which that might be true because the church was effectively the temporal authority was the Papal States, and only for the period from their independence circa 1300 to the time of Napoleon. But as somebody who majored in history, I sincerely doubt it.
The temporal authorities keep the records -- the government of Spain, for one, had meticulous records. Even if the "histories" of time did not mention it due to some sort of universal conspiracy in which the Evil Church managed to stop everybody from writing anything that mentioned it (pretty preposterous in itself), subsequent research in original documents would disclose it. People have relatives, property, jobs, friends, etc. They only "disappear without a trace" in horror fiction or other alarmist literature.
As an example, the Black Death in the 14th century killed a third of England's population. Despite the tremendous dislocation and social upheaval that this entailed, we know WHO died, WHERE they are buried, and what happened to their property. It's all in the Public Record Office and anybody can go look at it.
To think that any institution, whether the church or any temporal authority, could "cover up" something of that magnitude is tinfoil hat stuff. It's impossible to cover up the murder of sixty million people, estimated or otherwise.
The folks who are telling you this, whoever they are, are admitting that they have no proof whatsoever, because the "the authorities have covered it up" excuse (1) is completely unsupported in fact, i.e. it cannot be done; and (2) is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Let's not have a whitewash, why don't you inform us of all the evil the Catholic Church has done?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.