Posted on 02/23/2010 5:58:17 AM PST by Ravnagora
New math.
So why defend the Pope if he helped in enabling the deaths of fellow Catholics?
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
That's right folks, we have yet another Croatian Ustasha apologist in our midst, next you'll be claiming that Jasenovac wasn't really a death camp but halfway house for displaced people.
So Pope Pius XII helps defend clergy who were responsible for the deaths of fellow Catholics and you are calling this anti-Catholic.
Wow.
grand wazoo is a crypto fascist masquerading as a conservative.
Your whole premise is preposterous and not worthy of serious discussion. Martyring oneself to the Nazis would have been a waste the entire world was fighting them. whatever dream on as to how the pope needed to commit suicide. I’m sure if you search your soul you can find something to martyr yourself over and get back to me so we canm canonize you.
I guess this is the new level of Catholic hating. The pope didn’t die soon enough for you.
The Catholic Church had nothing to do with it. Like most of Central Europe, Croatia was caught between two forms of evil, totalitarian socialism—Nazi and Communist. Pretty hard to distinguish between them. They were both amazingly evil, vile, and destructive.
As for the various killings, most of it was done by Stalin and Hitler. But they did stir up the old tribal hatreds in the region. Those were far from one sided. The Serbs, the Croats, and others had been killing each other for centuries, and who was originally responsible was pretty well lost in the sands of time.
Because the Communists and leftists have pretty much controlled the propaganda machines since Hitler went down, the Croats have gotten a worse rap than some of the others. Hard to justify. There’s plenty of blame to go around—not least against the invading Muslim hordes.
This wasn't about "tribal hatreds", Cicero. This was about a clerico-fascist regime:
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, Europe, edition 1995, page 91, entry: Croatia
Quote:
Slavko Kvaternik [the second in command to the Croatian WWII fuehrer, Dr Ante Pavelic] explained [on the day of formation of the WWII "Independent State of Croatia", on April 10, 1941] how pure Croatia should be built - by forcing one third of the Serbs to leave Croatia, one third to convert to Catholicism, and one third to be exterminated. Soon Ustasha bands initiated a bloody orgy of mass murder of Serbs unfortunate enough not to have converted or left Croatia on time. The enormity of such criminal behavior shocked even the conscience of German commanders...
Jasenovac was the only deathcamp in Europe NOT run by Nazi Germany, but instead was run by the Croatian Ustashi themselves.
The distance between Rome and Zagreb, Croatia is only a little over 300 miles. There were Papal legates, like the one pictured above back & forth between the two cities along with a few thousand Italian troops along the Coast. It is absolutely unbelievable that with hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews & Gypsies being massacred a few hundred miles away over the course of 4 years in the name of "a 100% Catholic Croatia", that "Pope Pius didn't know".
While he may not have been able to stop the Germans, he certainly could have stopped the forced conversions and the clerical participation and blessing of this mass murder, but instead he raised no objections. He just looked the other way.
It's for God to judge the full extent of Pius' sin, but to make Pius "a saint" is to degrade the Church itself.
And by the way, during WWII, the Croatian Ustahe regime made the Bosnian Muslims into "Honorary Croats"
I wasn’t trying to say that no evil was done. I suppose there will always be defective or sometimes evil bishops, and people who do things in the name of the Church that should never be done.
Even in a time of peace, the papacy was unable to get a handle on all of the dissident, sometimes heretical bishops right here in the U.S.A. Some of them ran mafia rings of homosexual priests, some of them merely vandalized the liturgy and catechetics, driving people out of the Church by the thousands. Dissident nuns led their orders astray and abandoned the Church by the thousands. There was no Hitler to intervene if the Pope had acted, yet he was apparently unable to bring those disasters back under control.
At the same time, evils were committed on all sides, by Communists and Nazis and by the various peoples who were caught in the middle. Could Pope Pius have stopped it? I doubt it. The bishops who behaved in this way doubtless were excommunicated latae sententiae, but I doubt that it bothered them any more then than the self-excommunication of some of the worst dissident bishops here.
Similarly, just about the entire Orthodox hierarchy in Russia went along with Stalin and the KGB back in those times, and the National Catholic Church in China went along with Mao. Not much the Pope could do about that, either. There were martyrs who resisted, but they were replaced by men who went along.
Agree. Pius XII could not do much in The Third Reich nor in German-occupied countries where RC priests were sent to Nazi concentration camps.
But, Independent State of Croatia was not occupied by Nazis, it was Nazi Ally. And there, out of 1700 RC priests, some 1400 participated in slaughter of innocents. The Personal envoy of Pius XII was there during the war and it is highly unlikely that Pius XII did not know what was going on there.
Rome was liberated June 5, 1944. Pius XII supported the Nazis even after demise of the Third Reich May 9, 1945. Ratlines were run from the Vatican, surrounded by Allied forces. Not exactly definition of "antagonistic empire".
Pius XII support to Nazis after The Third Reich fell is the issue we are dealing here with.
Yeah she is so "leftist" and "failed as a comic" that she was a comedian at the Laugh Factory for the 2004 Republican National Convention delegates. She and her family escaped Russia back in the 1980's when the Soviets weren't exactly friendly to Jews and she is adamantly Conservative.
You just make this crap up as you go along, don't you?
so once again, I ask what would be a qualified response from the Pope, when he knew exterminations were going on?
Where was the public outcry from him? Where was the forth right effort to stand up for those who could not stand for themselves.
I’m not saying Pius was an evil man, but to have him placed upon a pedestal and assume he did all that was required of him is a far stretch.
Again I think you would have had a different outcome had Pope John Paul been there.
The claim of centuries old hatred between Serbs and Croats is widespread, but it is not true. In the past, until XX century, there was no bloodletting between Serbs and Croats. Slight animosity existed due to different social position in the Austro-Hungarian empire, but not hatred because of killings. Croats even decided to adopt Serbian language as their own standard language. It could not be possible if there was centuries old hatred.
Also, it is worth noting that both Serbs and Croats are ancient peoples while Serbians and Croatians were nations created by the different political will. Croatians as a nation included ethnic Croats and all other Roman Catholics living in South Hungary. Serb living in South Hungary could declare himself to be Serb or Croatian, but not Serbian. Or, Croat living in Serbia could declare himself to be Serbian, but not a Serb. All this changed with WWI when driven by racist propaganda Croatians commited first large scale murders of Serbs on Austro-Hungarian territory and later, in Western Serbia.
It all got worse some 30 years later, with genocide of Serbs in Independent State of Croatia.This is all XX Century history and much of it living history. It is not ancient hatred at all.
“So why defend the Pope if he helped in enabling the deaths of fellow Catholics?”
Thank you for understanding my point. I don’t understand the reluctance to admit there was a weakness of response from the Catholic leadership on this issue. The facts speak for themselves.
Remember folks, “anti-communist” is not synonymous with “good guy.” See the Ustashe, Mujahadeen, JP Duvallier, etc.
“And the creation of a malicious myth—such as the fictitious inaction in which you believe—is a gravely evil deed.”
Look, you are creating no fear in me over my criticisms of Pope Pius. Evil deeds? How about cowering away from direct confrontation with the Nazi's? How evil is that? Pope John Paul didn't shirk his responsibilities. He recognized and fought against the Soviets publicly.
Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. Check out his story. This is the kind of action taken by just one Monsignor.
Pastor Gustaw Manitius.
There is a long long list of real leaders who stood behind their beliefs.
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