Religion, Rome and The Reich

[GenMarshall]

It's all from dear old Wikipedia, where most of your quotes are from.

Actualy, From what I quoted and written from in my previous post was from The Holy See vs. The Third Reich by Ronald J. Rychlak. There is more resources than just Wikipedia ya know .

 

[nonconformist]

Yes, but many countries had concentration camps at that time. Even America had concentration camps. They were large prisons. Only after Germany turned them into Death camps in the 40's did other countries start changing the names of their camps.

The Concentration Camps set up in 1933 (Orianburg and Dachau) were political prisoner holding camps, not for criminals, but for communists, and religious dissdents.
Torture was somewhat common, so comparing it to large prisons is fallacious.

Hitler was as anti-Catholic as some of the posters here. He was anti-Christian. He knew Jesus was Jewish and considered Christianity as a Jewish attempt to control Europeans. But he knew he couldn't come out against them right away, or he would loose popularity. If the Church had made major moves against the Facists, the Church leaders would have been replaced by more docile Church members. The Pope remaining quiet about teh Nazis kept many Catholics out of the death chambers themselves.

As I said, half of Germany was catholic, and anything the Nazis attempted to do to weaken the hold of the church on everyday German life failed,
There is absolutely no way that the Nazi could do anything about the Vatican, while keeping the support of loyal Catholics.

 

[atreas]

You take this out of context. Be either warm or cold in regards to faith in God - the lukewarm he will spit out upon the ground. Its not a proscription to be pro or con everyday issues, but rather a call to either be a believing christian or not, but dont be a fence sitter when it comes to God.

I take nothing out of context - you just deliberately forget the text. Let me remind it (I had to look a bit to find the version in your language):

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

 

[Mirc]

Pathetic affirmations. Vatican was certainly not anti-semitic and saying that the catholic church was pro nazism is clearly another bad attempt at a propaganda that is surrounding us. No, I'm not saying this like an old man with it's stupid fixed ideas that says the same thing always. We are surrounded by a propaganda about anything that happened or happens.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Please name any particular people involved in this allegation that are still alive today. You dont want to see justice done......you want to see the catholic church vilified.

If the Vatican co-operated/sympathised with the Nazi's then people should know. What is your problem, with this? Other than it makes Catholics look bad?

Why not? Athiests, while not believing in the existance of god(s), shouldnt turn a blind eye to facts surrounding religion, both GOOD and BAD. However, the large majority of athiests, LIKE YOU, choose only to focus on the bad, in some crazy effort to promote their own brand of religion: Athiesm.

Well naturally when confornted by peopel who believe in what i think is a falsehood I want to change their minds and open their eyes to reality.

Just so happens I am also correct in what I say.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Some of us have lives outside of CFC ya know . Plus I am not realy in the mood to refute that anti-Catholic tripe.


What you have to understand is that the Papal States only consists of Vatican City during World War II unlike centuries past when there were a bunch of Papal States and the Pope had control over his land. With only one Papal State, the Vatican City is threatened by fascist dictators that were bullying other smaller and weaker nations at the time.

Hitler agreed to terms that were favorable to the Church, but he also made it clear that if the Vatican refused this offer he would impose harsh terms on Catholics throughout Germany.. Between 1933 and 1936, The Vatican filed more than 50 protests with the German govemment. The first protest - objecting to a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses - was one of 45 that the Nazis never even deigned to answer.

The Vatican was not immune to this and are forced at gunpoint to pull a Chamberland in order to ensure it's survival. Pope Pius XII and the Vatican had infact supported and aided the Jews to their safety, "During World War II, the Catholic Church, on the instructions of Pope Pius XII, sheltered Jews and other victims of the Nazis, provided falsified travel documents to those who could benefit from them, distributed food and clothing to those who suffered, comforted the injured and grieving, and transmitted vital infonnation to the Allied military leaders." (Rychlak, R)

If you go back to history during World War I, The Catholic Church along with Pope Benedict XV when Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) was charged with presenting Pope Benedict XVs peace plan to German leaders. He carried out the assignment and, while it did not directly lead to peace, several of Benedict's proposals were included a year later in President Woodrow Wilson's 14-point plan that helped bring the hostilities to an end.

" Pacelli remained in Munich after the war, and on behalf of the Holy See he negotiated a concordat (agreement or treaty) between the Vatican and the state of Bavaria. Such concordats were important to the Holy See because without them the Church might be denied the right to organize youth groups, make ecclesiastical appointments, run schools., or even conduct religious services. Later Pacelli moved to Berlin as the Vatican's representative to the Weimar Republic, where he tried, without success, to secure a concordat to guarantee the Church's rights throughout all of Germany. He was called back to Rome in December 1929, elevated to the cardinalate, and named the Vatican's Secretary of State in 1930." (Rychlak, R)

The Catholic Church has wrote the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning anxiety") which is the strongest condemnations of the Nazi regime that the Holy See has ever published. The Vatican also had plans to make sure Nazi officals could not prohibit the distribution of this document. Unlike other encyclical documents, which are writien in Latin, Mit brennender Sorge is writien in German and smuggled into German parishes and dioceses and secretly distributed and read at the Masses on March 14, 1937. "Mit brennender Sorge condemned not only the persecution of the Church in Germany but also the neopaganism of Nazi theories, the idolizing of the state, and the use of race and bloodlines to judge human value." (Rychlak, R)

First point about a life outside of CFC - well you answered another point, so I thoguht youw ere just ignoring my post. Anyways..

That doesn't answer the question about the agreement made in 1933, before World War 2 and before the Nazi's had the capability to 'impose harsh terms on Catholics throughout Germany'. It just steps around it by trying to claim that the Pop had to play ball otherwise the Germans would have surpressed catholics, which wasn't very likely given the large numbers of Catholics in Germany at the time...