Priests giving the Hitler salute at a Catholic youth rally in the Berlin-Neukolln stadium in August 1933.
Don't blame it on Gawd. Blame it on His followers.
Is the New Elected Pope a Nazi ?
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Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Göring (Trial of The Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945, Vol.9)
Adolf Hitler was a Catholic
Heinrich Himmler was a Catholic
Reinhard Heydrich was a Catholic
Joseph Goebbels was a Catholic
Rudolf Hoess a Catholic who as commandant at Auschwitz-Birkinau pioneered the use of the Zyklon-B gas that killed half of all Holocaust victims, had strict Catholic parents.
Signing the Concordat is Cardinal Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII). Standing at the far right is Vatican prelate, Montini, later to become Pope Paul VI.
"Why, it has been asked repeatedly, did the Pope not utter a solemn denunciation of this crime against the Jews and against humanity? . . . Why, it has been demanded, did he not give a clear moral and spiritual lead to Catholic priests throughout Europe? In June 1941, when the Vichy French government introduced ‘Jewish laws' closely modeled upon the Nuremberg Laws, the Pope responded to appeals from French bishops by stating that such laws were not in conflict with Catholic teaching. Later efforts by the British, Americans and Poles to persuade the Vatican to publish a specific condemnation of Nazi extermination of the Jews fell on deaf ears. The Pope, came the reply, could only issue a general condemnation of wartime atrocities."
"A strong and openly voiced papal line might have silenced those Catholic bishops throughout Europe who actively and fervently collaborated with their Nazi masters. . ." —Ronnie S. Landou, The Nazi Holocaust, pp. 216-217.
Hitler wth Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin, 1935
Hitler greets Müller the "Bishop of the Reich" and Abbot Schachleitner
Hitler Greets a Catholic Cardinal
Catholic Bishops giving the Nazi salute in honor of Hitler (Joseph Goebbels is far right)
See also:
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What is troubling about Pius's preocuipation with diplomacy is that Jews would continue to be murdered as peace negotiations were underway.
. Pius knew this, of course. A high-ranking official in the Papal Secretariat of State, Monsignor Domenica Tardini, told the German ambassador that the United States would probably object to Weizsaecker's (latest) proposal for negotiations because of the 'Jewish matter.'
The difficulty with Pius's inadvertence to the Holocaust lies in the fact that Catholics in high and low stations kept reminding him of it. The most persistent of these was Konrad Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, who wrote to Pius thirteen times in fifteen months during the most active period of the Holocaust. When Pius finally responded to his friend from the Weimar era, it was not the fate of the Jews but the fate of Christendom and of the Church that preoccupied him.
While the Vatican showed keen interest in getting the perpetrators of the Holocaust freed, and, as we have seen, had to be restrained by its trusted envoy Bishop Muench, it showed little or no interest in the question of restitution for survivors of the Holocaust.
As did most Italians, Pope Pius sought to save native Italian Jews during the Holocaust, but he did not allow the Jewish tragedy to upset his world vision which remained fixed on his church and the Marxist danger.
If the Holocaust was not sufficient cause for Pius to break with Germany during the war, it is not surprising that antisemitism, restitution, and strict justice for war criminals would not be his priorities during the Cold War.
More:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/catholic.shtml
See also:
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH'S ROLE IN THE NAZI HOLOCAUST
http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol12.htm
Old news? Water under the bridge? No, I don't think so...
Pope John Paul II Continued to Support the Nazi Ante Pavelic
Croatia, Oct. 3, 1998
Pope John Paul II beatified Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac at a huge open-air service at the shrine of Marija Bistrica, the most important place of pilgrimage for Roman Catholics in Croatia. This is the final step to making him a saint in the Roman Catholic Institution.During World War II the Independent State of Croatia was to be 100% Roman Catholic. Anybody not conforming was to be totally liquidated.
More:
http://www.kjbbn.net/is_the_new_elected_pope_a_nazi.htm