For all of you that seem to think the Catholic Church was part of the enemy during World War II?

Question

Please read spirit roamings post and then tell me how much we hurt the Jewish people
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AmyrXQ41DcQAVVE4zlKMh6Hty6IX?qid=20070615071052AASHCKM&show=7#profile-info-gjZlqvuGaa

Answer 1

They prefer to cling to the lies and distortions. Of course there were 'bad' Catholics and 'bad' Protestants who did nothing...but they were the MINORITY, not the majority.


No group’s victimization has been more distorted in American film, television and journalism than the Polish nation, which lost 3 million of its largely Catholic citizenry, most of whom died at the hands of the Nazis. Among the last few refugees of bigotry in the United States are the anti-Catholicism and anti-Polonism. Since most Poles are Catholic, they have been especially vulnerable.

During World War II, only minorities of Christians approved or collaborated with the Germans in their grisly campaign against the Jews. There never was mass Polish participation of Poles in the slaughter of anyone. Bob Lamming perceptively observed, “Holocaust denial makes frequent straw-man appearances in the U.S. media. I have never seen this thesis seriously advanced in any reputable venue. Yet, across the spectrum, from left to right, the doctrine of Polish complicity in the Holocaust—a similarly insolent deception—cannot be recognized for what it is.”

The insidious mythology of Christians, especially Catholic, complicity in the Holocaust is so persuasive that even many Catholics, including the clergy, subscribe to it. Little wonder there is a conspicuous paucity of commemorations in Catholic and Protestant churches of Hitler’s other victims during Holocaust Remembrance Week.

Unlike the Jews, most of whom perished in gas chambers, Christians died in slave labor and concentration camps, were shot to death in individual or group executions, and died of hunger and ill treatment. Years ago, a Polish Catholic who had the unique experience of surviving two internments in Auschwitz, told me, “Death is death. I don’t understand why Christian victims of the war are ignored by their own churches.” In order to find our moral and historical compass in this matter, we Americans should ask ourselves how we would feel if foreign invaders tried to impose a racial reconstruction of our society and after the war was over, witness commemorations of some but not all of our citizens.

The failure to broaden our understanding of World War II imposes a narrow, distorted interpretation of historical events. This view of history can only be partial and incomplete. One of its terrible consequences is that the Christian victims of yesterday have become the victimizers in today’s journalistic pop history. Ignoring or falsifying the victimization of Catholics and other Christians diminishes the magnitude of German totalitarianism. Is this the historical message we want to convey?

Christians of all denominations should realize that the tragedy of non-Jews during World War II must not be high jacked and manipulated to serve objectives that have nothing to do with history.


Read this book by RABBI Lapide.

In Three Popes and the Jews Lapide estimated the total number of Jews that had been spared as a result of Pius XII’s throwing the Church’s weight into the clandestine struggle to save them. After totaling the numbers of Jews saved in different areas and deducting the numbers saved by other causes, such as the praiseworthy efforts of some European Protestants, "The final number of Jewish lives in whose rescue the Catholic Church had been the instrument is thus at least 700,000 souls, but in all probability it is much closer to . . . 860,000."[21] This is a total larger than all other Jewish relief organizations in Europe, combined, were able to save. Lapide calculated that Pius XII and the Church he headed constituted the most successful Jewish aid organization in all of Europe during the war, dwarfing the Red Cross and all other aid societies.

Answer 2

No serious scholar contests the evidence that Pius XII took direct and indirect measures to save Jews from the Nazi death machine.

At the start of World War II, Pope Pius XII’s first encyclical was so anti-Hitler that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. Here is a link to the Summi Pontificatus: Encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Unity of Human Society, October 20, 1939: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus_en.html

Unfortunately the Soviet Union and others had been trying to convince the world that the Catholic Church was pro-Nazi since the death of Pope Pius in 1958. Here are some sources:
+ The KGB made corrupting the Church a priority: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTUzYmJhMGQ5Y2UxOWUzNDUyNWUwODJiOTEzYjY4NzI=
+ The KGB campaign against Pius XII: http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/021607/difference.htm
+ Pius XII and the Jews: http://web.archive.org/web/20010919100700/http://www.weeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_6_23_01/dalin_bkart_6_23_01.asp
+ http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/ww2jews.html

See also "The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews From the Nazis" by David G. Dalin which has compiled further overwhelming proof of Pope Pius Xii"s friendship for the Jews beginning long before he became pope.

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

I don't know why everyone is going nuts over what the Catholic Church did in WW II.
Any church cannot go against any country. The church did apologize for not doing anything. But no religious church can ever declare war on any country under any reason. The church adopted this doctorine after the wars in Jerusalem and the Middle Ages. But for all the ones who love history. Many people not priest or representatives of the church were placed in power of the church in that area. The Vatican did not keep track of every bishop placed around the world, like they can now. And they were responsible for many murders of innocent people. Many people were killed in the name of God. But every religion has killed innocent people in the name of God.

Answer 4

People prefer the dirt even if it's false to the truth. So many believe the book Hitler's Pope. Even though the man who wrote it recanted and is now a member of the Catholic Church, people want to believe the book.

There are two DVDs I recommend.

Assisi Underground
and
Assisi In Silence

Also a book.

The Myth of Hitler's Pope - by RABBI Dalin.

Rabbi Dalin is leading the call to have Pius XII proclaimed righteous among the Jews for his work during the war.

Here's a clip from an article:

Dalin, who lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, made the comments during a panel discussion at the annual "Rimini Meeting" sponsored by the lay Catholic movement "Communion and Liberation." Pius XII "is a great friend of Jews," Dalin said, "and merits to be called 'Righteous among the Nations.' He saved many of my 'brothers', more than Schindler... At least 800,000 according to some statistics." The venue for the week-long meeting is the steamy resort town of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast just south of Venice. Dalin, along with the Italian Senator Giulio Andreotti, answered questions posed by host Andrea Tornielli, an Italian journalist who wrote a book entitled "Pius XII: The Pope of the Jews." Some 5,000 people, mostly Italians, gathered under the sweltering-hot circus tent, while thousands more gathered around the outsides of the tent. The majority of the crowd outside listened to the hidden rabbi's words with great intensity, surprised to hear what had not been said publicly in Italy since shortly after World War II ended in 1945. "We haven't heard any of what you said in at least 50 years," burst out Thomaso Toschi, a professor at the University of Bologna, after the presentation, "and we are all in complete agreement with you." Indeed, many others in the crowd said they felt the same way.

To hear Papa Pacelli (Pius XII's name before he became Pope was Eugenio Pacelli) defended so actively for his wartime activity, and from the lips of a Jew, was something many in the crowd thought would never be possible in their lifetimes. The words were also heard across the country as at least three Italian radio stations, including Vatican Radio, transmitted the discussion live. Andreotti recalled a Jew who had been positive about Pius XII, but who has not been around in the last 50 years to defend him. "After the war, the chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, went to pay homage to the Pope; Zolli converted and took the name Eugenio." He also said: "Pius XII was very firm against the onslaught of Communism." The comment received loud audience approval.

Dalin, the author of a landmark article entitled "Pius XII and the Jews", originally published in America in the "Weekly Standard" magazine, and reprinted in the most recent issue of "Inside the Vatican" (August-September, 2001) responded to a hypothetical question posed by Tornielli regarding whether the Pope should have formally excommunicated Adolf Hitler. "First of all, it would have been a merely symbolic act, seeing that when one commits such sins he is automatically excommunicated," Dalin replied. "Secondly, it would not have prevented or stopped the Holocaust, but rather made it much worse.

The American rabbi pointed out that the ex-chief rabbi of Denmark said he could testify that had the Church formally excommunicated Hitler, he would have killed many more Jews. Dalin then posed a question: "What could be worse than the death of six million Jews? The slaughter of thousands and millions more Jewish lives."

Answer 5

The photos don't impress me. The clerics don't look too enthusiastic. But the historical evidence suggests that Catholic leaders were far too worried about the threat of Communism and with their own survival to resist Hitler. Out of fear of reprisals, Pius XI forbade Catholic participation in German politics, effectively crippling the Christian Democrat party, the only effective opposition to the Nazis. His successor, Pius XII was obssessed with opposinging the communists and protecting Catholics from harm. He spoke out on behalf of Catholic Croatians, but ignored their own assaults on Bosnians and Serbians. He passively watch the Nazi trucks carrying the Jews out of the ghetto in Rome without saying a word. He may have been simply terrified, but he was hardly being a "Pastor Angelicus".

A few Catholic leaders spoke out, but they were often suppressed by their own superiors, probably due to fear. During such a time, when choices are a matter of life and death, it's hard to judge people's motivation. They tend to opt for their own survival.

That's why true Christianity is so hard.

Answer 6

from the links imacatholic2 gave:

Chruschev started a secret campaign of discrediting the Vatican in eastern Europe. The object of the attack was Pius XII, because, "dead men can't deffend themselves"

The code name of this operation was "seat-12"

The Romanian Communist Government, in exchange for restoration of relations, was told to ask the Vatican for a 1 billion dollar interest free loan and access to its archives, under the lie that Romania was ready to convert, and needed the archives to give evidence for this conversion.

The Vatican agreed, and the Romanian agents were able to send photocopies of documents relating to Pope Pius XII to Moscow, where it was compiled in a falsified work to prove that Pius XII was a Nazi sympathiser. The work had no apparent links to Russia and started a wave of books condemning the Pope.

... very interesting, thanks for this link.

Answer 7

Sweetie, you've dug a whole here. The Catholic church has perpetuated more crimes against the jewish people than any other faith, including Islam.
The inquisition in Spain, where all jews were forced to either convert to Catholicism or be expelled from the country, which was for some jews, no choice.. many were slaughtered by the church when they were found to be practicing judaism..
In the holocaust, the church deemed jews to be sub-human and did nothing to assist them. I'm sorry, but that's the history of your church. It's not something you can sweep under the rug.. SOME catholics went against their church edicts and hid jews.. but that was an individual thing, and you don't want us separating you from your church.

Answer 8

Historically the conflict over Papal non-involvement in the Holocaust revolves around the Church KNOWING of the dreadful suffering of the Jews, and CHOOSING to do nothing. Rome was after all under Fascist authority, Both Italian and German. They knew, they saw, they did NOTHING to help !

Answer 9

Many Catholics were killed for hiding Jews and for opposing the Nazis. Whoever says clergy and other Catholics did nothing is very ignorant. Churchmen apologized for not doing enough,but I know of nobody who apologized for doing nothing as Catholics.

Answer 10

Midge, do a little study on history and you will see what the catholic church is. In the dark ages the church was killing and persecuting Christians. God says thou shalt not kill. That is exactly what that church has a history of doing.