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 themabout a dozen of the very senior boys, that ismy own views on Luther and Lutheranism. I agreedwith 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 ...
“No, it (picture)says nothing. It insinuates a lot, which is the purpose.”
LOL, yeah like when Louis Farrakhan gets into numerology and adds a bunch of meaningless numbers up and says, “see”?
I get upset when Catholics and Protestants don’t get along in a political forum and arena when they are on the same side in the cultural wars. It’s sad and pathetic. It’s no wonder secularism keeps advancing.
I don't believe he ever met Hitler, did he?
He was Cardinal Secretary of State from February 1930 onward, and his career in Berlin ended the year before.
I know that on at least one occasion when he was Pope and Hitler visited Rome, he made it a point to be out of town that day.
As to Hitler being Catholic. My distant relative was Hitler’s Sponsor for Confirmation.
He had to drag Hitler by the ear, kicking and screaming to the church.
I think you are correct.
HACKSAW: Wow - I'm going to archive that. Useful information there. DrEck and Alex, here's some more info for y'all. I'll be sure to repost it after you "forget" you saw it.
Promise? Because it shows the Protestant church in Germany rightfully accepting blame for complicity and apologizing.
Something the Vatican has yet to do outside its lame, half-hearted attempt in 1994 in something called "We Remember."
lol. Yeah, right. The Vatican "remembers;" it just doesn't "apologize."
Remember while your flunky is now telling us the files only went up to 1922, the Vatican and the flunky and Cornwell were operating under the assumption Cornwell's book would shed positive light on Pacielli's life.
I doubt the Vatican denied Cornwell much of anything. But he certainly got more than he expected.
Read the book for yourself. It's all there.
And in comparison to the other two books I mentioned written by Jewish historians, Cornwell's book is tame.
For anyone interested, those books are "The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism" by David I. Kertzer, historian and professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University; and "A Moral Reckoning: the Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair" by Daniel Goldhagen, Harvard professor of European Studies and recipient of Germany's Democracy Prize for his earlier book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners."
Both books are available new or used on Amazon.
> I would think that this is not much of a stretch for those that also believe that Darwin gave rise to Hitler.
Likewise, I would thing that this is not much of a stretch for those that also believe that The Easter Bunny gave rise to Hitler.
Well, I’d say that whoever declared that Catholic priests may not marry would be the one at fault.
It was a fairly recent decision, historically speaking. Polish priests could have wives up at least up to the 1200’s - probably even later.
Maybe the older traditions of allowing marriage should be reinstated?
Excommunicated twice? I would think once does the job.
Not at all. But while we’re at it, don’t many Protestants think he just had to repent and call out to Jesus in his last second to be in Heaven right now? Besides don’t most believe he killed himself, which would be a Mortal Sin if I’m not mistaken.
Hitler is in Hell and can’t be “prayed out” of that. Now if he was in Purgatory he still couldn’t be “prayed out”. Only God can do that, not the prayers of human beings.
bttt
You wrote:
“Actually it was 1871 if quibbling over details is your thing.”
Good quibble, but 1871 was the year of the proclamation of the German Empire. 1870 was the year that states other than Prussia joined together in the Franco-Prussian War. Their armies co-operated on the field. The proclamation was a formalizing of the state.
“Although I dont think it is, since you have Martin Luther
being a German Nationalist a mere 324 years before there was a Germany.”
Again, you are ignoring the fact that Germany was still considered an entity within the Holy Roman Empire. The duchies were weakening that Germania but were not yet kingdoms. I pointed out that Luther’s biographer, Roland Bainton, a Protestant, discusses all of this and even provided a link. You ignore all of that of course. Why deal with evidence when it doesn’t work with your cause, huh?
“Your admirable attempt the make the German princes of the Holy Roman Empire into the German Nation is impressive,...”
It’s not my attempt. That’s what they themselves actually believed.
“...but Im sure the idea would have been eye-opening to them since they routinely warred with each other.”
The one issue has nothing to do with the other. Warring against one another in no way violated the principle of Germania within the Empire. We’re talking about the 16th century. These were medieval states in the early stages nationalism. Again, Bainton, a Protestant scholar, discusses this issue, and you ignore what he said.
“But what the heck, a few inconvenient details like that deserve to be ignored when they get in the way of a good story.”
You’re the one ignoring details. I’m not. I know that Luther considered himself a German. I don’t deny that. You do. I don’t deny what Protestant scholars like Bainton all acknowledge - that nationalism played a part. You do deny that.
Ever even hear of Eva D. Marcu’s Sixteenth Century Nationalism? No, probably not.
How about A. G. Dickens classic The German Nation and Martin Luther? No, probably not.
You are apparently forgetting - or conveniently forgetting - that Luther wrote “An Open Letter to The Christian Nobility
of the German Nation” in 1520. Notice “German Nation”? Did you see that? Apparently Luther knew something you don’t know. Luther wrote about things like:
“I am minded to issue a broadside to Charles and the nobility of Germany against the tyranny and baseness of the Roman curia.”
Germany?
“On this account, I fear, it came to pass of old that the good Emperors Frederick I[8] and II[9] and many other German emperors...”
German emperors?
“In our own times, too, what was it that raised the bloodthirsty Julius II[10] to such heights? Nothing else, I fear, except that France, the Germans...”
Germans?
So, did Martin Luther talk about something that actually existed or did he just make it up out of thin air like so much else? You choose.
You wrote:
“I get upset when Catholics and Protestants dont get along in a political forum and arena when they are on the same side in the cultural wars. Its sad and pathetic. Its no wonder secularism keeps advancing.”
It is sad, but I don’t believe we are on the same side really. This may upset many people - including my fellow Catholics - but Protestants are Liberals. Catholics, that’s ORTHODOX Catholics, are the true conservatives in the Christian sense. I am more than happy to work with Protestants and just about anyone else to keep Obama and Clinton out of the Oval Office, but I’d rather they would all realize how their sects foster the very secularization they decry.
You wrote:
“Excommunicated twice? I would think once does the job.”
Nope. The first was self-imposed, or automatic. It was not a public excommunication. The second one was.
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