DanW, your talking crap, Hitler was born into a Catholic traditon, but as far as I know it is generally not the policy of the Catholic church to excommunicate people who did not identify themselves as Catholic. If you take to time to read what hitler siad about Catholics and Christians in general then it is clear he was not a Catholic.
Most of the death camps, notably Auschwitz were situated in Poland, but to connect the fact that Catholism is the main denomination there with this is ludicrous. They were situated there for other well-known reasons, primarily in order to hide them from the German public.
In 1937 Pius XI issued a papal bull directed at Nazi Germany, in which which ‘with burning concern’ he condemned those who worshipped the idols of race, people or state (Goebels responded by issuiing articles in the media claiming all the brothers of the Menage monsatry in Belgium were homosexuals). read the article by Mark Riebling above.
The idea of any mutual support between the Nazis and Catholics during WWII is laughable as most of their beleifs were diametrically opposed. substaique, there is nothing wrong with ‘anti-anti-semitism’ as anti-semtism is a form of racism.
As to the claim that more Jews died in Catholic countries:
"This Catholic reluctance to facilitate genocide lies at the root of the fact — one particularly relevant to a consideration of Hitler’s Pope — that the survival rates for Jews in Catholic countries were almost invariably higher than for Jews who found themselves under Nazi occupation elsewhere. Probably the most striking example of this may be found in a comparison of Jewish losses in Catholic Belgium as compared with the largely Protestant Netherlands. In the Netherlands, approximately 104,000 of 140,000 Jews living there in 1939 perished, the highest percentage of any Jewish community in Western Europe. In adjacent Belgium, it seems probable that “only” about 28,000 of 90,000 Jews perished. In other words, 31 percent of Belgian Jewry perished, compared with 74 percent in the Netherlands, despite the latter’s justified reputation as a bastion of liberalism and tolerance. In France, despite the viciousness of the Vichy regime, it is usually estimated that about 78,000 of 300,000 Jews (26 percent) perished, nearly all state less or foreign Jews who had come to France as refugees. In Italy, there were no deportations at all until the German invasion of September 1943. About 7,700 of Italy’s Jewish population of 44,500 (17 percent) perished in the Holocaust.
Rubinstein, William D. “The Devil’s Advocate.” First Things 99 (January, 2000): 39-43. "
Of course Poland is the BIG exception, but Hitler considered Poland his backyard and Poles just tresspassers".
How about the Jews killed by Stalin?
I don’t want to shift the blame, and we Catholics have our slice of it, to our permanent shame, but why do Protestant Churches get by without mentioning? Especially in the Netherlands and Germany, they were the majority.
I think that the main reason the Catholic Church is singled out is the structure of Catholicism.
Other denominations of Christianity were no doubt equally complicit - or not, as the case may be; that was an individual decision of various pastors and priests. Some probably supported the Nazis, others went to the gas chambers themselves …
However, these various other denominations tend to be rather decentralized, as opposed to Catholicism. There is no one central figure, such as the Pope, whom every Protestant is supposed to obey on religious matters.
Thus, the guilt and shame of complicity or cowardice attaches to the individual religious figure in these other sects, rather than to the church as a whole.
In Catholicism, possessing a central authority and a hierarchical (or rather, more hierarchical) structure, perceived failure at the top more readily attaches to the organization.
My own read of the matter is that the Catholic hierarchy consistently deplored the Nazi extremes - but refused to take steps which would antagonize the Nazis into focusing their wrath on the Church. Thus, when they could get away with it, the Pope and Church tried to limit the damage and save a few lives. No doubt Catholic anti-semitism existed; however, I honestly do not think that any Catholic figures in authority in the Church at that time would have ever countenanced what the Nazis were doing.
What they were, was afraid that the Nazis would do it - to them; i.e., to the Church.
Did the Church have a duty to act otherwise - even at the risk of martyrdom? That has two answers:
Assuming that the Church is just another faction or organization, it really ought to put the interests of its members first - just like a nation or ethnic group tends to. So the answer would be “no”.
Assuming that the Church represents a font of Christian morality, as it claims to be, then it ought to stand for its principles - to do as Christ would have wanted. In that case, the answer is clearly “yes”.
In other words, by its choice, the Church has demonstrated what sort of organization it was - namely, one like any other. A disappointment, but not a surprise.
DanW, there is a lot of doubt in about whether Conwell was being genuine about why he wrote the book, that some his other writings at that time paint a different picture. I have also heard that he has admitted that he has many facts wrong when he was called on them, but he still insists that what he wrote was in good faith.
I’m embarrassed. That should be Cornwell of course. That was honestly a typo, possibly a Fruedian slip, but I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything by that.
Rodrigo, also, correlation doesn’t prove causation. I think the article shows that the claim is untrue, but it’s more important to understand that just because a country is predominantly one religion doesn’t mean that is is the major influence responsible for what percent of Jews died there. As I understand it Poland, for instance, was the worst because Nazis took direct control over that country.
Malthus, martyrdom isn’t supposed to be something someone seeks out. A person is supposed to do everything they can to avoid losing their own life without losing their soul. It is only when absolutely no other options are available save stay alive without losing your soul where martyrdom is appropriate. A thought experiment might be someone threatening your life unless you steal something for them compared to someone threatening your life unless you kill someone else. That being said, I think you might be right that the church might have been able to sacrificed itself to save some lives, but I wonder what exactly you thought they should have done.
Here’s a quote (in response to request): From “Christian Antisemitism” (by William Nicholls, formerly an Anglican Minister): “Hitler had a Catholic childhood, and indeed (like several of his closest associates) he died still nominally a Catholic, paying his church taxes and technically in good standing, never having been excommunicated”–on the last page of Chapter 10, Secular Antisemitism. Sorry, but he doesn’t footnote that statement.
Of course, Hitler hated Christianity, but he also knew that he couldn’t fulfill his prophesies in Mein Kampf if he was not able to work with it. With the world being powerfully Christian, had Hitler been denounced by the Vatican, it would have been powerful.
Pius XI was under Eugenio Pacelli’s (the future XII) influence. He was very ill. He did speak out against the rise of National Socialism, but couldn’t put any teeth to it, since his Right hand man was working on the Holy See’s Concordat with Hitler, in which he reigned in Catholic opposition and Pacelli forced the hand of the Catholic Political party to disband. Hitler expressed of the Concordat that it “had created an atmosphere of confidence that would be especially significant in the urgent struggle against international Jewry.”–from “Hitler’s Pope”
To Malthus, I would say, you might want to read the book. It’s not that Catholicism has a Pope so there’s a place to put blame. He wasn’t just complicit. His actions before he became Pope which he then completed as Pope were not passive, they were active. It wasn’t that everyone was silent, so we blame the Pope; the Pope silenced dissent. He reigned in the Catholic Church with all the power of his office.
I personally am not saying that Catholics are more to blame or more anti-semitic than other Christians. I just commented on this issue of a particular Pope. I’m fine with saying that everyone hated the Jews. But I re-emphasize that the florid anti-semitism allowed Hitler to have other countries do his dirty work. Also from Christian Antisemitism: “In Eastern Europe, among Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Poles, the Nazis had no difficulty in finding people who hated Jews enough to join the SS in carrying out the Final Solution, as prison guards and as killers. Hitler had chosen his victims well.” "If they had found antisemitism morally repugnant and measures taken against Jews horrifying, enough of them would surely have stood up against the actions they were asked to carry out to frustrate their implementation. The fact that some did, even though they were few, demonstrates that there was still a moral choice, even when the Nazis held all material power. " To which I would add to keep it in context, if the Pope says it’s wrong maybe it would be harder to keep Aushwitz running.
To Rodrigo, who commented on the high killing rate in The Netherlands, I would refer you to IBM and the Holocaust, by Edwin Black. IBM ran the communications aspect of the Third Reich. IBM was well ensconsed in the Netherlands before the war and the communications infrastructure was such that the Nazis could waltz in one day with the names, addresses, occupations of all the Jews in the country. Though there were more people there who stood by the Jews, they couldn’t stop it…it was too fast and powerful. BUT, remember, they didn’t die in the Netherlands. The trains took them away. The people there would not have been good workers in a killing factory, and Hitler knew it.
To Von Weber, I am interested in sources of information about any missstatements by Cornwell. Of course, what he said is controversial, and people will speak against it, but, if he’s full of it, I’d like to find out since I do quote him
And to all who speak of how much Pius XII did to protect Italian Jews, you should read chapter 17 --The Jews of Rome
Dan W
Church taxes? What are those, and why have I (a Catholic of 26 years good standing) never been asked to pay them?
And contrary to what you might think, the Catholic Church has no method to expell a member. Once a person is baptized Catholic, he or she is considered Catholic for life. Excommunication is intended as a corrective measure, not an expulsive one. Maybe Pius should have excommunicated Hitler anyway, but it wouldn’t have made any difference.
I have to say it is highly unlikely that Hitler paid any tax to the church.
I’ll say it again DanW but the assertaions in th book just don’t fit in with the wider historic evidence. Going back to the concordat Eugenio Pacelli who was stae secretary at the time strenously stressed that the concordat did not amount to any sort of approval of the Nazi’s regime. The concordat was completed to protect the interests of Catholics in Nazi Germany.
“One tax that will be new to most visitors is the Church Tax. It’s at least nine percent of the amount that is due as income tax. If you follow a certain faith and wish to practice it in Germany, it’s best to ask at the Municipal Registration Office if you need to pay the church tax. Non-church goers and members of the Orthodox and Anglican Church are exempt from the tax.”
The Atlantic had an article a few months ago on Hitler’s library, stored at Brown U. The article touches on Hitler’s spiritual and religious views as inferred from his collection of books and the included marginalia. FYI.
Well I’d like to see those tax returns. DanW it is clear what you think of Pius XII but to try to make Hitler a good Cahtolic is beyond what I have ever seen in this topic. It is clear that there comes a point where you stop being a “catholic” in any practical sense of the word (although theologically you always are) and Hitler crossed it very early in his life. I’d doubt he attended mass for the last 30 years of his life and he oversaw the killing of millions of catholics (not even counting Jews) I don’t care if he was building cathedrals on the side, the fact remains he was not a catholic in good standing even if those taxes were actually paid, unless you think that being a catholic is about “dues-paying” and not about beliving in Jesus, going to church, helping your neighbour.
So… IBM had the name of Dutch Jews and that’s why they could be found easily. I’m sure that a motivated group of SS guys could make a whole city blurt out any Jewish guys’ names without IBM’s help, Jews just didn’t blend in that well, EVERYONE knew who was a Jew and a Gentile.
** Malthus** in a sense you’re right, the Church (at least for us catholics) is not just another institution. But as someone said martyrdom is tricky stuff and you cannot force people into martyrdom. One may, and in some circumstances must, die for Christ; but one can’t force others into doing it. Dutch bishops asked for restraint lest more vocal attacks would cause even more suffering.
Your piece on Protestants seems more of an opt-out than anything else. That really saves protestants forever of any religiuous problem till Kingdom come. (Sounds like “I’m not my brother’s guardian”)
It goes down to who we believe. Jews of those days saying “thanks pope” (Einstein, Golda Meir), Nazis of that day saying “he’s a jew-lover” (von Ribbentrop, Eichman, others in Nuremberg trials) or people who have taken their biases with them to attack. It might be that secon- or third hand readers are better than those who were there. It just might be
I don’t think that I was suggesting that the Catholic Church ought to have sought out collective martyrdom.
However, I think that when the Church as an organization became aware of the truly satanic behaviour of the Nazis (and I use that term as a descriptive), it was indeed faced with the choice: attempt to do something about it, and face potential corporate death (and the risk of actual death for the hierarchy at least); or do little or nothing, and lose its collective, corporate soul.
Many individual priests made the decision to do something - and many paid the price. I don’t think it is inappropriate to consider these priests “martyrs”; nor would I suggest that they deliberately sought their deaths and thus were not true martyrs. Indeed, the Church has seen fit to honour several of them by recommending them for beautification, I believe (not being Catholic, I am unsure if “honour” is the correct term).
Now, if these brave priests made the decision that their Christian duty was to defy evil in the form of Nazism, at the risk of their own lives; and if that decision was the correct one to make, and not made out of vain-glory; and if this is true according to the standards of the Church, as the recognition of their sacrifice would seem to imply; then, why was this decision not the correct one for the head of the Church to make?
Admittedly, not everyone is a saint; people are human, and subject to human failings; you can’t expect that everyone would, when put to the test, choose to risk themselves to save others.
However, given that I believe that the Pope in question is being considered for sainthood (correct me if I am wrong in this), he ought to be judged by the criteria suitable for saints, not those suitable for us ordinary, cowardly and selfish folk.
It is not as if the question was a small one. Faced with arguably one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, the Church is seen by many to have failed the test.
Of course, there are plenty of excuses - the best being, that to do anything would have simply made the matter worse (i.e., resulted in Catholics being persecuted, without any relief from persecution for Jews, Rom and others targeted by Nazis). This may even be correct. In hindsight, it is difficult to know.
However, I can’t imagine that Christian morality is based on cost-benefit analysis. There are always excuses; making one based on this sort of rational analysis of costs and benefits seems to me to be conceding that there is, really, noting worthwhile in Christian morality, as in a time of crisis, facing a great evil, the Church did not rely on it but on this sort of rational weighing of costs and benefits…
Malthus I think we’re getting cloeser. I agree with your point that the church as a whole, and her leader in paricular, must be held to a higher standard; more so if it is beatification we are talking about (yes, you’re right).
But still my point is that, at least in the eyes of many involved, more open denunciation would’ve meant martydom not only for the leaders, but also for many hapless catholics. I’m not sure how history, or SDMB for that matter, would’ve treated Pius XII if, let’s say, he had more openly attacked Hitler over and over again by name and this had meant the gassing of millions of more Catholicss, not only of him.
Even at its most condemnitory, saying “the Catholic Church/Pope Pius didn’t do enough to prevent the Holocaust”, isn’t an attack or negative reflection on the Catholic Church. It’s an attack/negative reflection on the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. So it isn’t a matter of slamming Catholics and giving Protestants a pass. It’s a matter of saying, “This specific organization’s leadership should have done more…”
And, in fact, if you read the “Stuttgart Confession of Guilt”, signed by most of the German Protestant groups, as well as the Evangelical Lutheran “Statement on the Jewish Question”, you’ll see that various Protestant groups did take responsibillity for not doing more against the Nazis.
But, like I said in an earlier post, I think most of the debate over Pius’s role in the Holocaust is due to his actions after the war and the general debate between liberal and conservative Catholics about the direction the church should go.
I’m not sure I believe in a doomsday scenario; considering that Germany has a rather large portion of Catholics, it would not seem practical - for one half of the Germans to gas the other half. Far more likely, it seems to me, would be a denunciation of church leaders/hierarchy as “race traitors” (or something), followed by some sort or loyalty test for Catholic priests - with a sad fate for said Catholics who “fail”.
However, consider the issue from two perspectives:
Would this sacrifice, if sacrifice it was, truly be in vain? Many in Germany had doubts about the morality (and sanity) of what the Germans were embarked on; there were (unsuccessful) assasination attempts by people in the German military. A strong, unequivocal condemnation by the Pope would have, I think, done enormous damage to the Nazi efforts - if only because it would have diverted much needed energy into anti-Catholic purges, undermined the loyalty of many, etc.
Even if it did not, the Church itself would have survived - killing a Pope, and the hierarchy, could not kill the Church. I myself think that it would have emerged from the ordeal much stronger in moral purpose, in integrity, and in the perception of others had the Pope of the time taken a strong stand.
Courage and moral certainty (where justified) in the face of evil, I think, are always and at all times admired - I cannot think of an instance in which a person or leader has been condemned for standing up for what he or she thought was right (particularly when they were standing up to what is universally condemned as an evil).
Conversely, keeping quiet in the face of evil is generally seen as contemptable - even though we, as individuals, are prone to do so all the time. Inventing plausible excuses for so doing (other than, “I fear for my skin”) is, alas, also a human trait-something I believe all of us have done at one time or another.
Ultimately, the problem with the Pope’s reaction is not that it is not understandable - it is all too understandable. The problem is not that he hated Jews or Rom - he may have, at one point, shared a fashionable anti-semitism & Gypsy dislike widely prevelant in Europe at the time during his early years, but all the evidence points to his personal horror at the excesses of Nazism (in the same way, finding racist jokes funny may be racist but is not the equivalent of approving of shooting Black people).
The problem is, he failed to rise to the occasion and make a difference. I think that, like many people, he was simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of what was going on around him. He tried to deal with Hitler as if Hitler was capable of reason and compromise. Doing so, he became compromised himself - something that happened to many people at the time.
I can’t really condemn him for that, as I don’t really imagine I would have done any better. However, by the same token, I can’t praise his performance as a leader and as a religious leader, and I think that it is a mistake to attempt to canonize the man, however great his successes may be in other areas.
Human failings need not be condemned harshly; rather, they ought to be forgiven. However, they ought not to be praised and held up as an ideal of behaviour, which canonization in this instance appears to do (though I am sure he is being canonized for other reasons).
I think we’ve reached the point where we can’t get any closer on your ideas, but I respect you for them and the charitable way you’ve said them. You’re not the Pius-was-Hitler’s-dude kinda guy, more like he-should’ve-done-more-and-that-may-have-made-the-difference.
Malthus said: “So… IBM had the name of Dutch Jews and that’s why they could be found easily. I’m sure that a motivated group of SS guys could make a whole city blurt out any Jewish guys’ names without IBM’s help, Jews just didn’t blend in that well, EVERYONE knew who was a Jew and a Gentile.”
I’m sorry to have brought something extraneous into the conversation, but Edwin Black in “IBM and the Holocaust” makes a powerful argument for the power of the new information technology and how it was used to accomplish what could not have been accomplished just a decade before. And for your information, many Jews in the Netherlands DID “blend in well.” Your flippant remark, I find insulting, because, if you hadn’t guessed it, I’m Jewish. You might not know it to look at me. Not everyone knew who was a Jew and who was a Gentile. Certainly, the Jews wearing traditional garb and speaking Yiddish were easy, but how about the people with a Jewish parent or grandparent who went to Church and did not even consider themselves Jewish. Remember, Naziism was race-based. If there was Jewish blood, you were as good as dead. That information was taken by IBM in the previous census and was then rerouted to create a list for deportation. Anyone with any interest in this should check out his website, edwinblack.com or type in IBM and Holocaust. Or better yet, check out his book.
I think I’m done with Hitler’s Pope. Thanks for everyone’s input. I like your current Pope, and his behavior through WWII was impeccable.