Post by TomAlciereThere's already some material about Hitler and the
Catholic Church on my site, most recently added was
http://the-holocaust.info/40015-01.htm
I had a quick look at your site, which seems to have quite a few news
clippings of the time in relation to Hitler and the Nazis. You point
out you weren't taking sides although noting the USA couldn't say it
hadn't been told.
I thought I might make a few comments of my own, although I do so as
someone who was not even alive at the time.
First of all, Britain and France had severe memories of the First
World War. The men in power in the 1930;s had either seen active
service in the Western front, or had (maybe lost) sons who had been
there, or were well aware of the conditions and fatality rate. They
wanted at all costs to avoid a repitition.
Secondly the Great Depression was taking its toll on ordinary
Westerners, who had enough worries of their own, to be overly
concerned about events occurring overseas.
Third the Catholic Church, having been warned by Mary at Fatima in
1917, when the Russian Revoluton broke out, was well aware of what was
happening in Stalin's USSR. To some extent it probably hoped that
HItler was a bulwark against the Soviet Union. In fact I believe it
was the threat of a similar state of events in Germany that gave
Hitler some political support amongst ordinary people. In the end of
course, the finished with a similar bloody soaked situation.
Fourth the infamous "Reichskoncordat" of 1933 was one of a number of
concordats which were negotiated by the Roman Catholic Church for
nearly a thousand years. The following extract was taken from
WIkipedia.
"The Reichskonkordat was ratified on September 10, 1933. In the
Concordat, the German government achieved a complete proscription of
all clerical interference in the political field (articles 16 and 32).
It also ensured the bishops' loyalty to the state by an oath and
required all priests to be Germans and subject to German superiors.
Restrictions were also placed on the Catholic organisations.
Shortly before signing the Reichskonkordat, Germany signed similar
agreements with the major Protestant churches in Germany."
You will note that the German state signed similar agreements with the
major PROTESTANT churches even before the Catholic Church signed the
Reichskonkordat. However not very much is said by Protestants when
they use the Concordat to attack Rome.
In other words, the Pope was caught in a triangle between Mussolini's
Italy, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia.
It's easy to criticise with hindsight, but I wonder what most of us
would have done in an effort to keep some autonomy within the tiny
Papal state surrounded by two dictatorships.
As for Catholic efforts to save Jews, the following extract is from
"Catholic Answers".
"In Three Popes and the Jews Lapide estimated the total number of Jews
that had been spared as a result of Pius XII=92s throwing the Church=92s
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."