Posted on 11/03/2003 8:27:06 AM PST by Brian S
Too late for what? I think the war dragged on for a few more years. BTW, have you come up with any creditable sources for your fantasies yet?
What dose anything you have posted have to do with the fact that Hitler was in no way recognizable as a Catholic?
Ah, after about 10 or 15 repetitions, someone actually notices. Good for you.
We have also demonstrated that you mischaracterize evidence. While you also sidestep issues, but I'm willing to let that pass for now.
Good plan, since you'd fall on your face trying to demonstrate this.
Now, moving forward, do you acknowledge that Pius XII used his papal authority to save a large number of Jews?
Sure. Do you acknowledge that he saved most of the jews he did save through stealth and silence? Such as by forging Holy See citizenship papers? Which would make a great deal of sense, since he drafted a document between the church and Hitler to shut about the jews, along with every other politically sensitive issue?
I'm not your hand puppet, make your point if you have one, without the condescending socratic dialog, if you don't mind.
Oh, let me think--I've got it: a couple of dozen quotes from Hitler's speeches in which a affirms the nazi intention to carry out the agenda of the Catholic church. Dozens of private quotes in which he contrasts his own catholicism with lutheranism, & various other similar remarks. Several extracts from respected autobiographies. Uncontested references to the undisputed fact that he was born, and spent most of his life as a baptized catholic. As for Hitler being "unrecognizable" as a Catholic, I'd remind you that the Pope who genocided the anabapists was a catholic, and so was Torquiemada.
So, since Bill Clinton talked about being a Christian, carried a Bible and quoted from it, was born one, was seen singing in the choir, and went to church every Sunday, does that mean he was a Christian? Even though he didn't lead a "Christian life"?
Face it, even IF your quotes exist (links to them would be a nice change), tyrants have misused religion for political purposes for millennia.
And since you have, shall we say, "moved away" from your "Pius the Silent" slur, can we now take it that you admit the numbers posted (around 800,000) are true?
Well said.
In order to be rude, I guess, since it helps your argument not an iota. If Hitler can be forgiven his sins, according to catholic doctrine, than, contrary to what has been argued here--nothing that he did could have put him permananently, irredemably outside the church.
It's not a point of being born or babtized a Catholic. It is a point of how you live your life and practice your faith. Hitler wasn't Catholic-you are not Catholic,
Based on what? My criticism of the church? Church officials, including Popes, criticize the church all the time, without being automatically tossed out. Explain to me what, that you have observed, puts me outside the church? Nothing, of course. You are just sucking air here, looking desperately for something to be on about, other than to defend against the charges brought.
regardless of what is on paper or on church roles. It's not a matter of a label but a state of being.
Hitler was sufficiently serious about catholicism to have been a catholic choir boy. Some statements critical of the catholic church do not, contrary to some overboard public opinions expressed here, automatically exclude anyone from the church. As you just explained regarding the doctrine of salvation. Neither does being a political opponent of the Pontiff's. Neither does expressing loopy natural philosophies of various brands. Here is a snippet from The History Place that's fairly typical of most of his autobiographies that cover this subject:
For young Adolf, the move to Lambach meant an end to farm chores and more time to play. There was an old Catholic Benedictine monastery in the town. The ancient monastery was decorated with carved stones and woodwork that included several swastikas. Adolf attended school there and saw them every day. They had been put there in the 1800's by the ruling Abbot as a pun or play on words. His name essentially sounded like the German word for swastika, Hakenkreuz.
Young Hitler did well in the monastery school and also took part in the boys' choir. He was said to have had a fine singing voice. Years later Hitler would say the solemn pageantry of the high mass and other Catholic ceremonies was quite intoxicating and left a very deep impression.
As a young boy he idolized the priests and for two years seriously considered becoming a priest himself. He especially admired the Abbot in charge, who ruled his black-robbed monks with supreme authority. At home Hitler sometimes played priest and even included long sermons.
That's a good deal more passion for the church than my sister, for example, ever displayed--but no one is threatening her status as a catholic--just as no one is threatening my status just because I haven't been to mass in a coon's age. Apparently, because no one feels--I might suggest, justifiably--embarassed about it--unlike the case with Hitler.
Should a serial murderer go free because he's not being prosecuted for all the people he's killed?
BS polemikos, BS. Because you haven't the apparent capacity or willingness to stand up the the charges and debate in open court, you hope that cherry-picking my arguments and acting like an condescending schoolmarm will give you an out. Put up or bug off. Did or did not PIUS XII engineer the accords between the Holy See and Hitler which was an explicit promise to shut the hell up--all by itself making PIUS the Silent an appropriate sobriquiet whether it was the best strategy for saving jews (which I doubt) or not? Did or did not PIUS excommunicate participants in the "FINAL SOLUTION"? Did or did not the Pope tell church officials such as the prelates of Slovokia, Father Coghlin in the US, and the priests attending the German army to stand down? How hard can this question be? Whether you think it was a good plan or not--he was plainly silent on some very big issues.
Are you paying no attention at all? Of course it did not. Much of catholic germany was anti-semitic and anti-jewish to the bone, including participants in the Jewish solution, including high ranking clergy in Slovokia. The church supplied the SS with her marriage and birth documents to help ferret out jews, unless they were jews who'd converted, in which case the church kindly refrained. As I have cited, for those who actually engage in arguments by absorbing what their deponents say.
It is, in fact, as thoughoughly documented in the first and second of my long list of cites, absurd to think that a country that was 90% avowed christians could have foully, pornographically, murdered 6 million of their brethern who were jews, in their midst, unless the "jewish solution" just didn't seem so extraordinary a response to the "jewish problem".
They tell you no such thing.
The church did much to save the Jews as you have acknowledged. The Pope did much to save the Jews as you have acknowledged.
Some serial murderers are not doubt loving parents. Does that mean we should let them go free?
The Church today as part of the Jubilee year made an effort to apologise for any and all actions it ever failed in to live up to the standards it should have.
Indeed. In the "We Remember" document. And the church almost, but, not quite, will give up it's commitment to jews being second class citizens of God's world. See here, near the bottom for details:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol1.htm
Could it have done more or differently? The lense of hindsight is often used by bigots.
It takes no hindsite to read Dominus Iesus or Nostra Aetate, and see that jews are still, for all the self-flagilation of "We Remember" doctrinely deficient in catholic eyes.
The Church today is one of the primary efforts of charity in the world.
So is the communist party. "from each according to his efforts, to each according to their need." Does that mean we shouldn't talk about the 50 million or so that Stalin and Mao killed? Or the intellectual birthmother of those genocides: Karl Marx?
The message of Christ from the Church he founded is undiminished after 2,000 years. The church is still a light to those in darkness. Why don't you pick up a catechism and a Bible and look again. Let go of the hatred. God's love and mercy are infinate. That is why Hitler could have been forgiven. It's also how you can heal yourself from your bitterness.
God gave us bitterness for a reason, which the jews understand. The catholic roll in the holocaust should be painted on the side of every catholic church, for about as long as anti-jewish policy was prominent in the church: about the next 1400 years. Failing that, I believe I'll continue to bring it up any time I get a convenient chance.
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