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To: Dr. Eckleburg
During his years as Chancellor and then dictator of Nazi Germany, he was never excommunicated or condemned, even though the Vatican knew much of his policies and activities. The only major complaints from Rome regarded interference in Church matters. And those were largely silenced by the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican, under Pope Pius XII, which to Hitler meant that the Catholic Church recognized the Nazi state.

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.

102 posted on 03/15/2008 12:48:39 PM PDT by Campion
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To: Campion
The oft-quoted articles from the NYT are EDITORIALS. Not news stories.

And as we all know, actions (or the lack of them) speak louder than words.

"And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:

All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." -- Mark 7:20-23


128 posted on 03/15/2008 1:15:59 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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