Hmm. I assume you are referring to old church baptismal, birth, or marriage records. While there was (sometimes enthusiastic) cooperation between church “officials” and the Nazi’s, I am not clear that these can be lumped as the fault of religion (especially since no where in the Christian Bible does Christ or his Apostles command the faithful to kill Jews), but rather the fault of humans, who seem to have an unbridled ability to rationalize their own bad behavior or impulses, even though these rationalizations don’t follow any kind of logical sense.
There were some German Bishop’s that spoke out against Nazi policies. These men were following their faith and beliefs, too. I am not talking about official church policy (and note: IIRC, these Bishops were not sanctioned by the Church), but an individuals personal faith, put in to action (in the form of sermons).
The Pope did sanction those statements by the Bishops. What recent scholarship has confirmed is that not only did Pope Pius actively cooperate with the Allies in routing intelligence information to them, but that he actually green-lighted several assassination attempts against Hitler. There was extensive theological discussion as to whether assassination of a tyrant was permissible under St. Thomas Aquinas’s “Just Warfare” doctrine, and the Pope finally decided it was and provided material and financial assistance to the plotters. The Pope, who had been the Vatican’s ambassador to Germany, was under no illusions about Hitler, National Socialism, and what he intended for Catholicism.
The best book on this subject is the extensively documented “Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler” by Mark Riebling, which is largely based on original transcripts from the Vatican’s archives from wire recordings that were placed throughout the Vatican’s offices - the surveillance set up was created by the inventor of radio, Marconi. The Pope was concerned that in meetings with the German and Italian ambassadors, they could later claim that agreements were made that were not, so like Nixon (but with higher motives) he began recording all conversations with diplomatic personnel.
The Pope’s own letters and encyclicals against Nazi policies were read throughout Germany and Austria from the pulpits, so it’s not like they weren’t considered officially sanctioned. They also enraged Hitler, but stirred up enough anger in the German Catholic population that the Nazis suspended, initially at least, the euthanasia of the handicapped.
Clarification: When I typed “sanctioned”, I meant that the Church did not to seem to punish the Bishops for speaking out against the Nazi’s. I did not realize that “sanction” might also mean the opposite (as in sanction = supporting).
Example one, my meaning: “The U.S. took (economic) sanctions against Iran for it’s actions in the Straits of Hormuz on such-and-such date.”
Example two, your meaning: “President Obama does not sanction the comments made in an Anti-Muslim movie that appeared on Youtube.”
I’m not saying it’s true or false. I’ll readily admit to knowing absolutely nothing about sanitation and medicine in medieval Japan. I’m wondering where you got your information from.
He grew up in heavily Catholic Austria, not among Lutherans.
While the below numbers are made up, I would suspect that they are close enough to accurate that it wouldn’t affect my point.
Let’s say that in Ancient Greece, homophobia occurred at a 1% rate in the population. Now let’s say that in modern America, 30% of people are homophobic, with Christians at a 33% rate and atheists and agnostics at a 20% rate.
If the atheists and agnostics have no more reason to be homophobic than Ancient Grecians, having no religious reason to be so, why would they have a higher rate of homophobia than Ancient Grecians? Obviously, it is not because they are religious. But it would, likely, be because they are from a culture that has had a long history of homophobia due to religion.
The Jews were not particularly dark colored. They were generally middle or upper-class. They probably committed crimes at a lower rate than other Germans.
Nazi persecution of the Gypsies makes sense from a Nazi-thought paradigm. Nazi persecution of Jews and of homosexuals makes no sense unless you include the general culture that they were born in and how that influenced them into perceiving particular groups.
I couldn’t say where exactly. Different sources, over the years, I assume. Though, I’ll grant, not all of it would have necessarily been completely historical so it is probably worth checking.
Average life expectancy, Edo period Japan: 50
Average life expectancy, Georgian period England: 40
General information about sanitary practices in historic Japan:
The effects of the lack of sanitation in hospitals: