Posted on 03/15/2008 10:17:55 AM PDT by big'ol_freeper
More than once during these talks I referred to Luther and what always occurred to me as his destructive influence. I pointed out that even in such an admirable book as Rohan Butler's “The Roots of National Socialism” the spiritual origins of Nazism and Luther's influence had not been given the necessary importance. Then I was asked if I would be prepared to elaborate to them—about a dozen of the very senior boys, that is—my own views on Luther and Lutheranism. I agreed—with the proviso that they would be my own views and nothing else. Admittedly, I had read more on Luther and about Luther than on most other subjects. But I wanted to make it quite clear that I would not speak to them with the voice of a great authority, but would merely give them my own interpretation. I told them, moreover, that I should try to prove how dangerous it is to accept legends; and that the picture I had of Luther and his influence was thoroughly contradictory of the customary Luther of the legend.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicapologetics.info ...
Nope. Campion told us that Hitler's baptism into the RCC made him a Catholic even if he was excommunicated.
Time to get the story straight.
This is utterly false.
Mit Brennender Sorge, printed clandestinely and read from every Catholic pulpit in Germany in 1937. Pay particular attention to paragraph 8.
Summi Pontificatus, written on the eve of war, condemning both the war and the Nazi Fuhrerprinzip (see paragraph 71).
The New York Times, March 14, 1940, wrote under the headline "Pope Emphatic About Peace, Jews' Rights Defended":
Twice in two days, Pope Pius XII has gone out of his way to speak for justice as well as for peace, and Vatican circles take this as an emphasis of his stern demand to Joachim von Ribbentrop [Hitler's foreign minister], that Germany right the injustice she has done before there can be peace ... It was also learned today for the first time that the Pontiff, in the burning words he spoke to Herr von Ribbentrop about religious persecution, also came to the defense of the Jews.
I believe this story refers to the incident in which von Ribbentrop visited the Pope in the Vatican. The Pope did not conduct any smalltalk with von Ribbentrop; he simply opened a large book he had and began reading aloud, in German, accounts of the atrocities the Germans were committing in Poland. (This was well before the Holocaust had started, remember.)
Also in 1940, the Pope sent out a letter entitled Opere et caritate ("By work and by love") instructing Catholics to aid victims of racial persecution at the hands of the Nazis, and stating (again) that racism was incompatible with the Catholic faith.
There are many other examples. The claim the Pius never protested the crimes of the Nazis unless they were committed against Catholics is a slander.
Canon law says that one becomes a non-Catholic by formally defecting, that is, publicly renouncing the Catholic faith and/or embracing another.
Arguably, Hitler did that at least once, when he called himself a "pure heathen".
Nope. Didn’t say that. Nice try tho.
By the way, the article referenced has nothing to say about excommunication, Hitler’s religion, or purgatory. It IS a proposal that Martin Luther created an environment that made Nazism possible or probable. I’d be interested in your well thought out refutations of the authors points. Right now all I can figure is you have none, as evidenced by your, and others, efforts to throw up as many straw men as you can to avoid the topic of the article.
Your welcome.
Amen.
In post 74, Campion wrote:
Hitler claiming he "was a Catholic and would remain one" may have been technically true -- an excommunicate Catholic is still a Catholic.
We know Hitler was baptized as a Roman Catholic. While we can agree none of us knows anyone else's salvation but our own, from Campion's post we learn that because Hitler was baptized into the RCC, he remained a Catholic even if and when he was excommunicated.
Apparently, according to the RCC, even if someone excommunicates himself, he is still a Catholic.
Therefore, according to the RCC, Hitler remained a Roman Catholic for his entire life. Perhaps that's one reason for the RCC's passivity in the face of his evil. One among many.
Particular sins result in latae sententiae excommunication. They're spelled out in canon law.
One such sin is a violent attack on a priest or religious. When Hitler ordered or approved the shooting of priests during the invasion of Poland, that qualified.
This is interesting seeing as it was written at the time:
“the last war and throughout the present one, the Germans have committed atrocities which are impossible to imagine by those who have merely read or heard about them. This is not teaching hatred, but an undeniable though most unpleasant fact. Not once in either war has any section of the Lutheran clergy protested—such as have the churches of Norway and other occupied countries where the Gestapo is at least as strong as inside Germany. With the exception of a few refugee pastors in Britain, I do not know of any section of the German Protestant Confessional Church whose pastors have refused to preach, to serve, to ordain and bless the atrocities and horrors committed by the German armies and their leaders.
These facts are unpleasant and horrible. I maintain that we can understand them and explain them only if we look at the dark figure from whom the German Lutheran clergy has for four centuries taken their orders: Martin Luther. Do not defy the authorities even if they are unjust, worship war, murder and slay the enemy, pray for a German God, exterminate the Jews, praise the authorities—all this, as I tried to show, was first preached by Luther, and has been propagated ever since from Lutheran pulpits and universities...”
Hitler's spirituality has nothing to do with the church as a matter of fact he hated it.
Almost every autocratic ruler in history has had problems with priests, it’s the nature of the beast. You’re saying they all were excommunicated?
That "passivity" saved 860,000 Jewish lives.
This was while many Protestant churches in Germany put Mein Kampf on their altars alongside the Bible.
That's not "passivity," it's something quite different.
On that we can agree.
There's something called evil out there and it can infect people.
Evil is inside, and the only thing that disinfects it is Christ on the cross.
“I myself went to a Lutheran school in Berlin. We had Lutheran teachers, and 99 per cent of the boys were Lutheran. We celebrated every year “Luther Day”. Throughout my school life in Germany Luther was shown to us as a great man fighting for freedom, tolerance, independence—the man who exclaimed, “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, May God help me, Amen!” Luther, the honest, cheerful, decent German who fought a corrupted, immoral Rome. Luther, who proclaimed the advent of the modern world; Luther, honoured by Protestants everywhere—the hero of Germany and the Protestant world.
This view was maintained by all scholars, as I said, until the end of last century. Every Protestant saw in Martin Luther almost a demigod, and any views to the contrary were put forward by Catholics who were guided more by emotion and dislike...”
Kinder, Kurche, Kuchen are culturally Germanic Protestant.
Very Hitler.
Doc, that would make for an interesting argument on a thread about excommunication, and maybe we should have one, but I fail to see what that has to do with Martin Luther creating a culture in Germany that fostered Nazism. Nice straw man though.
As I said pretty clearly, the offenses which result in latae sententiae excommunication are specified in canon law.
Canon law is not engraved in stone, and has changed over the years.
Canon law in force during Hitler's rule, as does the law in force now, specified that a violent attack on a priest or religious resulted in latae sententiae excommunication.
“There is nothing in Scripture that supports the praying of dead people’s souls out of something considered “Purgatory”.’
Sola scriptura for dummies...blah blah...yawn.
“However, if you do believe it’s up to God, but still based upon, in part, prayers of the living on behalf of those who are dead”
Your words, not mine. Also, not the Catholic belief. The creation of your strawman by being dishonestly creating words and thoughts that are not mine - makes me question your good intentions on behalf of defending your relligion.
Prayers out for you.
That's all they have.
Well, the RCC doesn't anathematize actions, but men themselves. In fact, the RCC calls up the demons from hell to curse the head of anyone who has been anathematized for believing they are justified by faith alone and by believing they are saved.
Kindly spare me from that kind of "affection."
Scripture says that "nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]".
I guess Scripture rebukes Christ, too?
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