Posted on 11/03/2003 8:27:06 AM PST by Brian S
Where he did not protest, was in Germany, where they were being gassed, until near the end of the war, just as he promised to do in the accords he signed with Hitler.
But Pius didn't flick a lightning bolt from the Holy See and stop the murder of Jews in a country where Catholicism for almost all intents and purposes was outlawed!
"all intents and purposes, eh"? That would be a good trick if it were true, since about half of the German army, like the German population, would have been catholic. I'll say this one more time, for those with apparent ADD--Pius protested the gassing of infirm old catholics and protestants, and it stopped dead in it's tracks. He did not protest the gassing of ALL jews, and it did not stop dead in it's tracks.
Let me just point out that the Pope is not primarily some lame italian prince who is supposed to read Machiavelli, and defend the holy see at all costs (in this case, probably virtually no cost). He is supposed to be the Shepard of the Lord and the Voice of Jesus. He is supposed to raise his voice to protest vast moral iniquities--like he did for the infirm in Germany. Why are the infirm worthy of such high moral concern, and the jews are not?
The answer is pretty obvious, unless you are just determined to ram your head into the sand as hard as you can by considering anything other than the relevant facts. Lithuania, indeed. Dinner testimonials indeed.
The Communists always march to the beat of the Vatican's drum, we all know that.
Uh, huh. That must be why Pius the silent excommunicated them all.
He should have sent more protests to the Lithuanian government over the poor treatment of Jews! The fact that he didn't proves he didn't care!
It's so sad, it really is. The Communist propaganda tactics are obvious for anyone who cares to see it.
It's so sad, the hysterical irrelevancies Pius's defenders manage to dredge up.
You dismiss the documentation provided of the Pope being responsible for the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives as irrelevant
You dismiss the universal praise by Jewish leaders around the world as irrelevant
You dismiss the Nazi's own record of hating the man as a great enemy irrelevant
You dismiss the conversion of the Grand Rabbi of Rome as irrelevant
To you, the fact that throughout the war, Pius was universally recognized in the press as being an anti-Hitler beacon, despite the fact that he had no secular authority or military might, and was entirely within truly hostile territory is irrelevant
It seems to me that the only hysterical person on this thread is you
You dismiss the documentation provided of the Pope being responsible for the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives as irrelevant
I'd have to see it before I can dismiss it. There is plenty of documentation of Christians saving jews. The documentation that actually ties any significant portion of that to direct action or commission by Pius don't seem to survive rigorous inspection, despite several scholarly attempts.
You dismiss the universal praise by Jewish leaders around the world as irrelevant
Yes, I dismiss dinner testimonials as irrelevant, when I have primary sources to look at.
You dismiss the Nazi's own record of hating the man as a great enemy irrelevant
That is correct, 10 pounds of hatred and a buck and a half will buy you a cup of coffee at starbucks. They didn't hate him enough to remove him from the the holy see, despite it being in axis territory, did they? Apparently not--I guess this was one of Hitler's cream puff hatings, eh?
You dismiss the conversion of the Grand Rabbi of Rome as irrelevant
Pius the Silent did make a somewhat belated move to save some jews in the vatican's own personal forced ghetto in Rome. I am not as overwhelmed as the Grand Rabbi with the universal implications of this.
To you, the fact that throughout the war, Pius was universally recognized in the press as being an anti-Hitler beacon, despite the fact that he had no secular authority or military might, and was entirely within truly hostile territory is irrelevant
Like I said--the pope is not supposed to be some mincing little machiavellian political machine peeping up only as he dares. This is the lame, lame excuse the newpapers offered for his silence. He's supposed to be the Voice of Jesus. vague-as-to-facts Hosannas from newspapers are worth just about as much as dinner testimonials to historians.
It seems to me that the only hysterical person on this thread is you
Which of the facts I have talked about here do you think are in contention? I will leave a space below for you to list the catholic SS death camp commanders who were excommunicated by Pius the Silent.
Except that it didn't. It went on throughout the entire war. Oh, they covered it up more effectively, but it still happened.
Your entire screed is based on historical falsehoods like this.
There was no "Vatican ghetto" in Rome in the 1940's, it had ceased to exist a century before, under the reign of a different Pope Pius.
Historical irrelvancies? More like outright myths and fables coming from you, donh. And you have no "primary sources" whatsoever.
Maybe you ought to list the Catholic SS death camp commanders first. You can strike Hoess (Auschwitz) off your list, because he says in his autobiography that he ceased to be a Catholic in the 1920's.
Once again, could you please give the links to these sources?
uh huh. The "modern" christian interpretation. Meaning the fluffy bunny coverup we've all agreed to in the aftermath of WWII. So as soon as WWII is a sufficiently distant memory we will go back to reading what it plainly says in Matthew?
Matthew 27:5 serves only as an anti-semitic verse to those who want an anti-semitic cop out.
It is not a cop out. It is exactly what I explained to you it was in my first post. The church does not deny any more that it was explicitly intended to condemn jews as it was written at a time when christianity was struggling to win converts from the orthodox jewish faith. And it reads like it condemns jews, just as it was intended to. It is, furthermore, exactly the case, as I stated, and which no one has denied, for obvious reasons, that the fundamental doctrine of salvation through the crucifixion holds that those who know OF Jesus, but do not accept him as savior are condemned, condemns specifically the central sacred teaching of the orthodox jews embodied in the Shema.
This is not an accident, and it is not a trivial point. It was the basis for the Church condemnations of jews for 1400 years up until the Holocaust--and to suggest it had little or nothing to do with the holocaust, to be charitable, unhistorical.
Any reasonable person reading these threads from beginning to end and reading the links provided to Pius's historical defenders (who, I'm sure, do not overwhelm you, since, after all, they are just leaders of countries, Orthodox Rabbis, nobody as well read as you) will peg you as a propogandist, bigot, or worse. The point is made, you have labled yourself, and no more time need be wasted. Good day sir.
If it isn't in a propogandistic play by an East German socialist or a piece of anti-historical agitprop by an anti-Catholic, it just doesn't carry any weight, don't you see...
The charge would be that the movie has anti-semitic elements because the early church had such elements, and elements of them therefore appear in the gospels. That this is at least possible is admitted by the present catholic church.
There was a fight against anti-Jewish heresies in the first 3 centuries (e.g. the Marcionites, who condemned the old testament), so it was a live issue at the time, one the church was aware of, and combatted. Acknowledging that there were factions within the early church esposing such views.
Nor is it the position of the church that the gospels themselves are in any way infalliable. It has maintained that they are approved by the church, not the other way around, and has consistently limited the status accorded to passages appearing only in a single gospel, as opppose to the substance they agree on. Protestant literalists might disagree on that subject, but that is a disagreement between them and the church, not between the church and secular or Jewish critics.
But to the substance of the issue. The theological defense is that all sinners are to be regarded as guilty in the death of Jesus. As a point of theological doctrine this may be important, it may be moral, it may have no trace of anti-semitism. But from a secular or ecumenical point of view, this is a freely offered doctrine, not anything it is a dictate of reason or justice for everyone to embrace regardless of their other views.
Now this creates a bit of an issue for a non-catholic who disputes this theological point, and prefers the ordinary sense of guilt and innocence in human affairs to this theological understanding of common human sinfulness. He may understand the offered defense but still not regard it as remotely sufficient.
That is, someone, say me, says "look, I didn't kill Jesus so kindly stop accusing me of having done so." The reply is, "we are all sinners, and as sinners we are all guilty of it." To which I may reasonably reply, "it is all very well for you to admit your own sinfulness. You may call that humility I suppose. You perhaps know the depth of your own heart, I don't pretend to. But when you move on to asserting *my* sinfulness, you pass the bounds of humility and enter the realm of accusation. I repeat, I didn't kill Jesus; please stop saying that I did. Kindly leave me out of your "we all". I don't recognize that "we", and I simply deny the charge."
Now something of a dialogue of the deaf can hear ensue. One is reading as a particular accusation what the other intends as a universal theological doctrine. When the latter insists, not it is perfectly universal, he thinks he is clarifying and in doing so removing all just cause for offense. Which amounts to seeing possible offense only in a particular charge. But the former is not concerned with the particularity of the charge, but that it is a charge at all. Of which he considers himself quite innocent. He is not appeased by being accused along with a whole flock of other people, including the accuser. Because to him the offense lies in being unjustly accused, not in any invidious particularity in the charge.
What this amounts to, however, is taking offense at a theological doctrine of human sinfulness. All are sinners, says that doctrine. I'm bloody well not, says the objector, or at least not that particular sin. If you find another to condemn me for that I actually have committed, we can talk about that. But of this particular misdeed I am utterly innocent.
I do not think this disagreement is unreasonable. But I see no anti-semitism in it. Instead it ought to be formulated as an ecumenical objection to a piece of theological doctrine taught by another faith. Which is a plane on which reasonable dialogue is possible, and on which both can understand the other's position. A catholic could then argue in favor of this doctrine as reflecting a profound moral understanding of failing mankind. An objector might argue against its possible misinterpretation or misuse, or indeed on principle oppose its tendency to lump the truly guilty in with the comparatively righteous. That is a productive disagreement and a basis of moral dialogue. Mutual accusations over past injustices are not.
Indeed, there is a curious and almost comical reversal in the positions people take in these matters, when the subject shifts to present human politics. Some who are completely opposed to the idea of any kind of association with past misdeeds allegedly - and no more than allegedly - committed by some adherents of a certain faith, turn right around and accuse whole faiths of such responsibility for later deeds. Others defending the doctrine of human fallenness and inherent inadequacy, turn right around and justify particular leaders as entirely righteous in their conduct.
One should laugh. The most I manage is a thin smile.
So...you find one lapsed catholic and you think to suggest the catholic church is off the hook in this matter? Fat chance. The catholic church is perfectly capable of condemning classes of people due to their actions through excommunication. Hence the popes capacity to excommunicate all communists.
Has anyone answered my original, rather specific as to detail, points? Has anyone denied that Pius signed the accords? That priests blessed with holy sacrament the butchers of the SS? That the church handed over records? That the church could have excommunicated participants in the holocaust, but chose not to? Is there some historian that denies any of this, or even thinks it's obscure?
Why am I obligated to wrestle with the usual piles of flack that are thrown up around Pius the XII, when no one feels obligated to wrestle with the essential issue: that, whatever the good works and motive of Pius XII, 1400 years of official doctrine prevented him from seeing that he could do just as well for the jews, as, say, for the converts, or the cripples, in hauntingly similar circumstances.
Boldly saving a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand, out of 6 million might impress you and the Rabbi of Rome, once the door's been open and the wolf let in, but it doesn't absolve you of helping to hold the door open for 1400 years previously. Or, being more specific, of being the current embodiment of that failure during xmas of 1942. The first time, loquacious intimations to the contrary offered here notwithstanding, that the Pope (the signer of the accords which first lent Hitler the legitimacy of sanction by another state, I'll remind you) was willing to seriously throw the formal weight of Jesus behind his condemnations of Hitler--long after the wolf had eaten most of the sheep.
I am, by the way, quite used to dealing with boatloads of flack on the subject of Pius doing good works for jews, when I try to bring this up. Pius was a good man, and he helped some jews. He was not calloused, cowardly or hypocritical or an anti-semite, but he was an accurate embodiment of his churches very long standing overt dotrinal inability, which I have detailed here, to see jews as worthy of the same moral regard as christians. Which is why, for whatever worthy acts he might have performed, he chose to be a firefighter, instead of a fire inspection warden to prevent the fires in the first place.
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