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Locked on 04/13/2007 1:17:11 PM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior |
Posted on 04/03/2007 2:32:00 AM PDT by NYer
ROME, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Adolf Hitler's No. 1 enemy was the Vatican's secretary of state, Eugenio Pacelli, future Pope Pius XII, according to documents recently found in Europe.
In an article published last Thursday by La Repubblica, reporter Marco Ansaldo announced that he has a dossier on Pius XII that complements documentation found in the Vatican Archives.
According to the newly discovered documents, Pius XII was considered an enemy of the Third Reich. Memos and letters unearthed at a depot used by the Stasi, the East German secret police, show that Nazi spies within the Vatican were concerned at the Pope's efforts to help displaced Poles and Jews.
One document from the head of Berlin's police force tells Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Third Reich's foreign minister, that the Catholic Church was providing assistance to Jews "both in terms of people and financially."
Russia's motives
In a commentary on the new documents, Sister Margherita Marchione, author and expert on Pius XII, explains the campaign against the Pope was the work of the Soviets.
"Russia's plans were to control Europe after the war. The only outspoken obstacle to Russia's plan in Europe was the Catholic Church," Sister Marchione wrote.
"The first attacks claiming that the Church had endorsed silently the atrocities of the Nazis came from Communist Russia," she explained. "Soon to control Poland, and other vast areas in Eastern Europe, Russia saw the need to break the loyalty to the Pope of Catholic majorities in those countries.
"The plan was a simple one: convince everyone that the Pope supported the hated Nazis during the war and, therefore, neither he nor the Church could be trusted after the war. The destruction of the Church would leave the field wide open for Russian influence and control."
They did? Show exactly in the document where that was ordered.
Perhaps you should read the Time Magazine link that OLD REGGIE so kindly provided at post #188 before hitting your keyboard again.
Hitler threatened to close the Catholic schools and outlaw the CCP. He struck a deal with the CCP to refrain from following through on his threats, if they would vote for the Enabling Law (Ermächtigungsgesetz). There was a lot of controversy within the party but the leaders eventually decided to vote for the Enabling Law as the lesser of two evils . . .
Time's not here making complaints. You are.
"The Vatican with one swipe of the pen put a political party out of business."
The document involves Church affairs. The Church is not involved in politics. The Church is involved in Christianity. If you can not show that the document directs Catholics to follow the thinking and directives of the NAZIs, then you have no case.
I believe you. I've seen plenty about the situation that existed then. I was makin' a funny.
" Hitler threatened"
LOL! To me that's an understatement. He was a terrorist in charge of a terrorist org. Anyone that opposed him was killed, or otherwise put out of business temporarily, until their usefulness expired, then they were killed anyway.
That's not so. The dismantling of the CCP was a precondition of the Concordat. It was part of the deal. Here is what Time Magazine said about the deal back in 1933 when it happened:
"Before the initialing took place German Catholics were forced to bow the political knee to Adolf Hitler, hoping all the while that the concordat would safeguard their religious rights. As a peace offering to the Nazis, they dissolved their Catholic Centre Party, the Party which fought Prince Bismarck so stoutly three generations ago." [Time magazine link at post #188]
Had the CCP not been dismantled, there would have been no Concordat of 1933. The deputies dismantled the party as a prerequisite for the Concordat.
I took German for ten years (jr high, high school and college), lived in Bavaria, and studied European history for quite awhile (I was a history major with a specialty in military history and wrote my thesis on the American Civil War.)
The Germans are a puzzling people. On the one hand they reach the height of the arts - music and painting and literature - on the other they produce a monster like Hitler.
Time, anticlerical as always, hoped it was true.
The Scriptures speak to us concerning why certain things happen both in this life and in the one to come. Gaining Spiritual understanding is part of our walking with the Lord, our sanctification (Phl 2:12, John 14-17, Romans 8, I Cor 2, etc.)
The Law prescribed rewards and punishments based on earthy behavior. The exile to Babylon was caused by rebellious earthy behavior. Conversely, the Commandment to honor our fathers and mothers is the first commandment with a promise attached, i.e. "that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." (Exd 20:12)
Paul's thorn in the flesh was so that he would not be exalted (2 Cor 12:7) Herod spoke a divine oration and because he did not give God the glory he was killed and eaten up of worms (Acts 12). Job spoke words without knowledge and was summarily rebuked by God (Job 38-42). Ananias and his wife, Sapphira were struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5)
I could go on with this all night - but instead will redirect to the speculation at hand, belief. The point I raised at 160 was this:
There would be no injustice if Pius XII “sank” as a result of signing the Concordant out of fear instead of faith. After all, it happened to Peter – he sank because he feared the water even though Christ was standing right there telling him to walk to Him (Matthew 14.)
If God would allow Peter to be humiliated for 2 millennia by keeping this in the Scriptural record, why would it be troubling to any Christian if He allowed Pius XII to be humiliated in the historical record?
Again I assert that this seemingly unending dispute may be God's will. We cannot know for sure because whether Pius XII acted out of fear or faith is known only to God and to him.
At bottom, I maintain that we Christians ought to be very careful in discerning between our will and God's will lest we be duplicitous every time we say the Lord's Prayer "Our Father who art in heaven... thy will be done..."
And yes, AnAmericanMother, the church will always have enemies. Christ said that we should expect the world to hate us. (Matt 10:22-26) If we complain about people hating us without cause, we're effectively telling God we don't believe Him and/or trust Him.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. - Col 3:3
Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. - Matt 5:11-12
May God bless all of you and your loved ones this Easter and ever more.
Happy Easter Alamo-Girl!
Happy Easter!
I take serious issue with you here.
In your words (NOT scripture's) you are promoting a totally passive attitude to slander. We're not talking about persecution here, we're talking about gossip and slander.
If gossip and slander are not counteracted -- and if they are not vigorously fought at the source -- what you are actually doing is not only NOT preaching the Gospel as you are commanded to do, but worse -- shutting up and allowing evil men to lie.
When a good Christian man is slandered without any basis in fact or evidence -- in fact, with all the evidence running to the contrary but evil-wishers simply maintaining that there must be some evidence out there, they just haven't found it yet -- that harms every Christian.
Moreover, if it is allowed to happen just because some people don't agree with that good Christian man's brand of Christianity, then it emboldens the enemy and they choose another brand of Christianity for their next target.
"When they came for the Communists, I didn't say anything because I wasn't a Communist. When they came for the Jews, I didn't say anything because I wasn't a Jew . . . " and so forth.
They were toast with or without the Vatican's approval. (The Concordat was the Vatican's attempt to get something in return ... worthless though it was.)
Even the Socialists didn't attempt to fight, although some of them cached weapons (which were never used).
The Communists were the only party which attempted to stay "open for business". Those who were stubborn about it ended up in the concentration camp or dead.
The right-wing parties were simply "bought out" or absorbed by the NSDAP.
Nonsense. Even Christ spoke in his own defense to the High Priest and to Pilate.
The Vatican is a Sovereign State.
The Pope is the sole leader of the Vatican.
The Pope appoints the Nuncios (Diplomats) of this State.
The Nuncios represent the political interests of this State.
The Vatican is a Political entity.
Also, the CCP was Catholic in name only, and had already given its votes to Hitler at the time the Enabling Legislation was passed, well before the Concordat was signed. The Concordat had absolutely nothing to do with the surrender of the CCP to Hitler.
Would you have us believe the Catholic Centrist Party was completely independent of the Vatican and in no way was influenced, pressured, or coerced by the Vatican during the negotions preceding the signing of the Concordat?
The Holy See’s concessions included the concordat’s requirement that clergy not engage in political activities and not hold political offices. Bishops were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Reich and its legally constituted government. The bishops would sponsor only those lay organizations dedicated to charitable works and to social activities of a religious nature. Although it was agreed that a list would specify which organizations were protected under the concordat, this list was never completed. In addition, diocesan newspapers and church-affiliated publishers were left vulnerable to the state’s interference and suppression, because the concordat did not explicitly protect them.
The Concordat of 1933 embodied a problematic theology of the church, for it implicitly reduced the church to an organization concerned solely about a private, otherworldly realm unrelated to the social and political aspects of human life. It devalued the fuller reality of the church expressed in German Catholicism’s rich tradition of social and political activism, as realized in the Kolping Society, the programs of Mainz’s Bishop Wilhelm Ketteler (d. 1877) and the Catholic Center Party. As a result, it lost sight of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) and Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno (1931). Moreover, it cast ambiguity upon the church’s civil autonomy by requiring the bishops’ oath of loyalty to the Reich.
The Vatican Concordat With Hitler's Reich - AMERICA - The National Catholic Weekly.
The CCP was independent of the Vatican. However, quite a number of priests and religious were involved and a priest was the party chairman. That doesn't mean that the Vatican was involved, any more than if a Baptist preacher is sitting on a board of directors that he's taking his orders from the Southern Baptist Convention.
The party chairman was a friend of then-Cardinal Pacelli. But then again so was von Papen who hated the CCP.
Of course there are people who have a pet theory that the Pope, and the Vatican, could have made no errors in their dealings with Hitler. There is nothing and will be nothing to change the minds of these people. Don't waste your time with them.
There are those who believe the truth lies somewhere between these extremes. Where this is will probably never be known. It seems that you fall into the category of "Pope cannot be held responsible to any degree" as evidenced by "Except it's the other way round, all the evidence found so far (including evidence in STASI files completely unknown when this controversy began) points to Pius XII's innocence and indeed his heroic efforts . . . while the conspiracy theorists are hoping they can still smear a good and brave man."
Is your mind completely closed on the subject?
The CCP was independent of the Vatican.
Baloney! Directly, or indirectly, the CCP, a Political Party, took it's marching orders from the Vatican, a Political entity.
There is NO evidence that Pope Pius out of cowardice or anti-Semitism neglected to help (Die Stellvertreter theory) or actively plotted against (the Hitler's Pope theory) the persecuted Jews.
THAT is what we are discussing, not whether he made "no errors" or whether his actions were the best that could have been in the best of all possible worlds. He was a fallible man, but he did what he thought was best in a terrible time to save others. Not all his decisions were for the best . . . but nobody's ever are, in hindsight. That is an impossible standard to set for anyone, because he could not predict what all the actors in the drama were doing. Nobody could. . . of course we know now the depths of Hitler's depravity. But a Jewish Austrian friend of mine said that many of his friends and relations died in the camps (he almost did) because they couldn't believe that anyone could be that depraved.
It is undisputed that Pope Pius saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis and the Italian Fascists. Ever since the Soviets funded the slander that the Pope stood by idly while the Jews were rounded up and killed, useful idiots have bought into that theory without any evidence. There is still no evidence . . . despite people on the Commission who were looking for evidence and quit in disgust when they couldn't find any.
At some point, you have to say that since all the evidence that HAS been found (including these STASI files previously unknown) points to the Pope's innocence of the charges . . . and no evidence points the other way (other than the Soviet-funded play of 1965 and Cornwell's book which he has now retracted) . . . the truth doesn't lie in some hypothetical middle but where all the evidence is.
He did his best, he could have done some things better, but he didn't act to harm the Jews or ignore their plight.
That's all I'm saying.
You are completely wrong in your assertion that Pius XII helped bring the Nazis to power. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have based your whole view of this matter on a fictitious play, “The Deputy,” that was written by an East German communist. This would be like basing your views of modern U.S. history on an Oliver Stone movie. There is no point in even arguing with someone who knows as little as you do and who has entirely closed his mind against the truth.
You’re right of course but the detractors of Pius XII always fall back to the argument that “he didn’t do enough” that he “didn’t speak out” against the Nazis. Their argument is rubbish, of course, but it sounds good. The pope’s calumniators don’t care about the fact that he saved thousands of Jews in Italy, particularly in Rome during the Nazi occupation. It suits them to repeat the lies made by Hochhuth because it allows them to bash the Church, which is really all this whole thing is about. Bigots like “Uncle Chip” are pathetic and I pity them.
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