The Pope is not a Nazi, and Hitler was not a Catholic?

It's absolutely fascinating how Protestants and Catholics love to pass the buck for their centuries of Judenhass/Jew-hate and deny any connection with the apogee of violence that came directly out of it.

Hitler was a madman, but the hate he was able to tap into wasn't his alone.

Read that again. It absolutely needs to be understood.

The hate that led to the Holocaust was common through much of Europe. The churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were prime agents in perpetuating it. SIX MILLION people were killed because of their religion.

One man cannot do that alone.

+ Pope Benedict XVI + Pope Benedict XVI was drafted into the Hitler Youth and the Nazi German Army just like every other non-Jewish German male. He was not given a choice. The Pope is not and never has been a Nazi. He unfortunately was born and grew up in a country ruled by the Nazi party. Every draftee into the Hitler Youth and the Nazi German Army was not a Nazi. Just hope and pray that you do not have to make a decision to be executed or live and fight for a government in which you do not believe. Thank God that you and I live in a very different world that the Pope did in 1930s and 1940s Germany. Or do we? + Adolf Hitler + Although Adplf Hitler was raised in a Catholic family, he left the Church early in life. Automatic excommunication happens when Catholics commit certain offensives. This happens as soon as the offense is committed. Adolf Hitler committed the following offenses resulting in automatic excommunication: - Apostasy - the formal renunciation of one's religion. Hitler specifically rejected the Catholic Church, as well as Christianity in general. He described himself as "a complete pagan.” - Heresy - a doctrine in theology, religion, philosophy, or politics at variance with those of the Catholic Church. Nazism is definitely heretical to Christianity. There was no reason for the Catholic Church to excommunicate Hitler. He did it all by himself. + With love in Christ.

Hitler’s references to providence and God and the ritualistic pageantry of Nazism were more than likely pagan than Christian. Earthly symbols of German valour and Teutonic strength were to be worshipped - not the forgiving, compassionate representative of an “Eastern Mediterranean servant ethic imposed on credulous ancient Germans by force and subterfuge” (the phrase is Burleigh’s own, in Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: a New History, Pan, 2001). A Hitler Youth marching song (Grunberger, A Social History) illustrates it:

We follow not Christ, but Horst Wessel,

Away with incense and Holy Water,

The Church can go hang for all we care,

The Swastika brings salvation on Earth.

(Horst Wessel was an early Nazi party Sturmabteilung street-fighter murdered by communists and turned into a martyr by propaganda chief Josef Goebbels.)

The SS were particularly anti-Christian, and officers and men were encouraged to leave the Church, although those that refused to renounce their Christian faith were not visibly punished, perhaps because their otherwise faithful adherence to SS codes of behaviour gave the lie to any claim of true Christian affiliation. The SS also brought in its own neo-pagan rituals for marriage ceremonies and baptisms.

Catholic regions generally didn`t vote for the Nazis were most Protestant regions did. Catholics mostly voted for the Bavarian Peoples Party and the Catholic Centre Party which refused to form a coalition with The Nazi Party and were forced to disband by the Nazis in July. The German bishops actually did excomunicate all Nazi party members from 1930 onwards which was only retracted when the Nazis achieved dictatorial powers, Catholics started to opose the Nazis less openly purely out of fear and in spite of this they were often prosecuted.

In the early summer of 1933 Hitler arrested 92 priests, searched the premises of 16 Catholic Youth Clubs and shut down 9 Catholic publications all in the span of just 3 weeks. Hitler even intended to kidnap Pope Pius XII. He also oposed his election in 1939 and was the only leader of a Europian nation to not sent an ambassador to Pius XII`s ordination.

So no Hitler wasn`t Catholic.

The Pope is not Nazi. As you said, the Hitler Youth was compulsory, and he didn't just go up and say, "Hi! I want to support the Nazi Party as one of the Hitler Youth!"

However, Hitler was a Catholic. A very depraved individual who twisted the antisemitism taught by the Church at that time into something horrifying and grotesque, but he was insane enough to honestly believe that this is what God wanted him to do. (He states as much in Mein Kampf.)

Until word got out that Hitler was actually torturing, killing, and experimenting on the Jews, Roma, Communists, and homosexuals in his camps, outsiders (including the Pope) actually thought he was a pretty good guy. Remember, antisemitism was a very common sentiment throughout the Church (and society in general) at that time. And things have been bad for the Roma to this very day.

That said, just because Hitler was a Catholic doesn't make Catholics bad. Hitler was also a vegetarian, but that certainly doesn't reflect on the moral status of vegetarianism!

I know what you mean. There are many criticisms of religion that atheists have made over the years that are very valid, if only subjectively so. But 'The Pope is a Nazi' and 'Hitler was Catholic' are really not good examples, I think.

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"Weeks before Nazi troops abandoned Rome, Adolf Hitler personally ordered the SS to kidnap the then pope so he could be brought back to Germany and locked up in a castle"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/17/second...

That doesn't sound like something a Catholic would want to do, somehow...

Don't let it get to you, Tattoomom! :)

Who cares whether he was Catholic or Protestant. He was definitely Christian as were ALL the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Things might have been different if the Paul had not negated the commandment, “Do not stand by while your brother’s blood is being spilled.” Leviticus 19:16

In the judgment of Konrad Adenuaer, first chancellor of the Federal Republic, writing in 1946: “The German people permitted itself to be nazified without offering resistance-yes, even with enthusiasm. Therein lies its guilt.”

.

Catholics knew Hitler was Catholic in 1940. We always knew.

You better unblock him. He gave you honest evidence.

The proof of fortitude is facing the evidence, not running

from it.

Vatican 2 Conciliars think they know the facts about

doctrinal matters, too, but they are finally learning they

were lied to.

Brainwashing isn't hard to do. It only needs willing

victims who will believe new swill and who will not check

for evidence.

.

Why do people find this so hard to deal with?

Hitler was raised not-particularly-strictly Catholic. In his twisted mind, he was doing God's work. That doesn't mean anything about Catholicism or Christianity in general - he was a lunatic, and plenty of lunatics think they do God's work. Most of them (fortunately) don't get to run an advanced, militaristic nation.

The current Pope fought as a gunner (as I recall) in an auxillary anti-aircraft battery during the war. As part of the Total War idea, he didn't have much choice, nor should he be ashamed of this. His country was being invaded - I'd have been shootin' at the Brits and Yanks too.

None of this impacts on the meaning, validity or worth of any religion. Why get so up tight about it?

Honey, let me remind you that people, including The History Channels continually push this piece of blatant anti-Catholicism across the airwaves in their programs (or is that pogroms/U.S.S.R.), that Pope Pius XII was in favor of Adolf Hitler and actually helped him. And people watch those lying tv stations and the network regularly, while The History Channel continues to push that anti-Catholic lie across the tv world every chance it gets. Their anti-Catholicism can only be matched by the "anti-Jewery" of Hitler himself.

The truth about it is that Hitler disliked all religions. He had it worked out between himself and Pope Pius XII who also disliked the Jews to look the other way during WWII. However, Pope Pius XII didn't represent the Roman Catholic Community with his personal beliefs. You also have to realize that the Vatican was behind enemy lines, what were they suppose to do? There were Roman Catholic Priest and Catholic Parishioners that harbored Jews and were sent to the Nazi Death Camps along with the Jews that they protected. Also to point of the Franklin D. Roosevelt was also Roman Catholic.