Humberto
Callooh! Callay!
I think that's more akin to blaming Marx for Stalin.
The Virgin Mary
- Thread starter Humberto
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Stalin's regime killed thousands of priests and bishops ans sent others to Gulags. When Hitler invaded Poland the clergy were among the first to be imprisoned. The Chinese are still imprisoning christian leaders. Church goers were discrimnated against in communist Russia when it came to jobs and housing etc, and their children could not go to university.
But this isn't because the politicians were atheists and hated the victim's beliefs. It was because the churches represented an alternative source of authority that might critique what the governments were doing from an ethical standpoint, and believers held alliegance to that alternative authority. It wasnt about dogmas, it was about sources of power and authority. Ideally autocrats would like religions to be puppets of the State as they were up to the 18th century and as the Russian Orthodox Church was under communism (and still is under Putin.) That way whatever the politicians do can be given a false legitimacy by the religion.
When you have the support of the Pope, though, it can hardly be said that you’re an atheist attempting to wipe out Christianity.
That is hotly contested by historians on both sides because the hard evidence is mighty thin of cooperation and absolutely zero of support. He was very cautious. Was the pope trying to protect his co-religionists in Germany from possible reprisals? Then there is the fact that a large number of Jews were given Vatican passports so they could get out of Europe. Its complex and as I said there is little hard evidence.
I've read a couple of spy novels in which spies supposedly loyal to Russia turn out to have been deep cover Catholics for years, and then defect off somewhere else. I think I'd enjoy a novel about a ring of Vatican-based spies working through the mid-20th century.
PTK
Paul Kegan
Stalin changed his attitude to the Russian Orthodox Church when the USSR was invaded by Nazi Germany, and used it to drum up support for the war effort.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
PTK
Paul Kegan
The Christian churches in Germany did go along with, if not actively endorse, the Nazi regime.
Christian churches in Germany and elsewhere had promoted anti-Jewish sentiment for centuries.
The Vatican helped organise the “rat line” whereby Nazi war criminals escaped after the war. The Vatican endorsed the fascist regimes in Italy, Spain, and Croatia, which all claimed to act in the interests of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Nazis had teams of archeologists running around the world looking for all kinds of religious artifacts. Hitler was a nut on the subject. Crazy. He was obsessed with the occult.He was heavily into the occult, afaik, so you could say he had a spiritual side
PTK
Paul Kegan
I correct that to "certain Vatican officials" helped Nazi war criminals to escape. They provided official Vatican documents on which the criminals were able to escape to South America and elsewhere. Nazi war criminals were travelling on documents provided by certain offiials in the Roman Catholic Church.
Humberto
Callooh! Callay!
Was it officially condoned or otherwise? I understand passports were given to European Jews as Alan29 refers to above. To be honest, it wouldn't be greatly surprising if there were Nazi symapthising individuals at some levels of the church. That's not necessarily 'The Vatican'.
Another aspect that broadens the chaotic picture somewhat is the fact that hundreds of German priests were sent to Nazi concentration camps during the war.
Yes..you have a point.....I blame all British nationals for the deaths of 1.5 million Irish who starved in 1845 - 1947. And the many thousands of Irish who were killed under British rule for 800 years...
PTK
Paul Kegan
Well, if someone is issued with a Vatican travel document, then it has to be said that the Vatican is responsilbe for that.
The Vatican has always had persons there who were corrupt...its huge...and corruption is something that does exist in most if not all bureaucracies. I don't think the Vatican is immune to corruption. Obviously it SHOULD be an honest truthful place..
But it's huge with thousands of people working there. And people are not immune to corruption anywhere. (Not an excuse )
You'll also find there were many Jews brought to safety via people working in the Vatican..
During the Holocaust, the Catholic Church played a role in the rescue of hundreds of thousands of Jews from being murdered by the Nazis. Members of the Church, through lobbying of Axis officials, provision of false documents, and the hiding of people in monasteries, convents, schools, among families and the institutions of the Vatican itself, saved hundreds of thousands of Jews. The Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide estimated the figure at between 700,000 and 860,000, although the figure is contested.[1]
The Catholic Church itself faced persecution in Hitler's Germany, and institutional German Catholic resistance to Nazism centered largely on defending the Church's own rights and institutions. Broader resistance tended to be fragmented and led by individual effort in Germany, but in every country under German occupation, priests played a major part in rescuing Jews. Aiding Jews met with severe penalty and many rescuers and would-be rescuers were killed including St Maximilian Kolbe, Giuseppe Girotti, and Bernhard Lichtenberg who were sent to the concentration camps.
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Yes..the history of individual leaders in the Catholic Church speaking against Jews is nasty.
Definitely not representative of the peace love and kindness which was preached by Jesus.
Even in Ireland there were places in the early 20th century that were influenced by individual priests against Jewish residents. I remember my dad's mother's best friend was an elderly Jewish lady. My dad used to be the one to light the elderly lady's fire on the Sabbath. And help with heating up her food.
There was one priest (not representative of all priests) who made a sick sermon about the Jews killing Jesus. It caused a lot of grief for Jewish people living in that town. Many left. It was an appalling thing to do. The man was an ignoramus and antisemite..and this was in 1904.
It was only around 10 years ago that descendants of those Jewish families who left were invited to a reconciliation with people now living in that town. I know this because my dad was involved in organising the reconciliation movement
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Hitler was born to a RC mother but Hitler abandon Christianity early on.
Historian Laurence Rees found no evidence that "Hitler, in his personal life, ever expressed belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church".Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend from his early days in politics, says Hitler "was to all intents and purposes an atheist by the time I got to know him".
He kicked up at his Confirmation and did not want to say the words required. He was by no means a practicing Christian / Catholic by the time he was 18.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
Excellent post!
Richard46
Talking Backwards
I am not sure that comparing the behavior of Nation States with a Religion is valid for a couple of reasons. States do not declare that upholding moral values and valuing universal compassion etc etc are among their prime reasons to exist. Religions, certainly most kinds of Christianity, do make such claims for themselves. Religions must be judged by their own pretentions not those of Nation States.Yes..you have a point.....I blame all British nationals for the deaths of 1.5 million Irish who starved in 1845 - 1947. And the many thousands of Irish who were killed under British rule for 800 years...
Secondly membership of a religion is ultimately a choice, nationality usually is not. Hence the degree to which individuals can be held responsible for acts of the whole is at least different.
Regardless of the exact details of the extent to which Hitler and the Catholic Church were in bed with each other, it still remains patently absurd to refer to Hitler as an atheist trying to wipe out Christianity. And that, let me remind you, was the claim I was responding to.
Maybe..
But individuals within the Catholic church who made decisions that led to for example the Crusades.. were not representing Jesus. No matter what they thought..
Also membership of a church is very often not a choice. Many babies were baptised into Catholicism ...they definitely did not have a choice. Their parents made that decision on their behalf. And they'll more than likely receive sacraments of confession communion and confirmation by the time they are 12. However there are parents who choose to not baptise their babies and choose to send their children to non denominational schools.
They would not be baptise. They have choices...
Absurd maybe..but Hitler was known to detest the Catholic Church and especially wished to destroy it.
“In Hitler’s eyes Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves,” wrote Alan Bullock “Hitler, A Study in Tyranny,” a seminal biography. “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle of the fittest.”
By 1942, Hitler vowed, according to Bullock, to “root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches,” describing them as “the evil that is gnawing our vitals.”
“I can’t at present give them the answer they’ve been asking for,” Hitler said. “The time will come when I’ll settle my account with them. They’ll hear from me all right.”
Richard46
Talking Backwards
I don't think we can start saying who is and is not a Christian (or a Muslim etc) on the basis of their conformity to our own ideas about what that religion represents. In any event the logical implication of that analysis is that nothing we find abhorant can be layed at the door of religion. i.e. X does not conform to my version of a religion therefore they are not religious. It is a free pass for Religion.
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Richard46
Talking Backwards
For sure but I stand by 'religion is ultimately a choice' it is certainly different than being of a certain nationality. Indeed if religion is not ultimately a choice then it is simply a cultural identity and I am sure most religious people would deny that that is all it is.
I was being facetious...
I'm in Ireland..and for most people of my parents generation they had no choice whatsoever. And you would find that Catholicism was very much tied into a culture of Irish Nationalism as opposed to Protestantism which was aligned to Britain and the Crown.
It's been very much part of Irish Identity for hundreds of years because it was made illegal and practicing the Catholic faith was punishable by death. Nothing helps solidify a Faith like persecution.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
and also purposefully almost put to genocidal extinction by Cromwell
I would not say that my lack of religious affiliation is a choice, it's what I'm obliged to do on the basis of my beliefs.
