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The Christian contribution and response to the actions of Nazi Germany, in particular the Holocaust, is perhaps the most apalling event in the history of Western civilization. One reads Mr. Lewy's contribution to Holocaust scholarship with an ever growing sense of rage. One's rage is not directed at the Catholic Church in particular, because there were no corporate heroes in this tragic episode. There were individual acts of heroism, to be sure, but at best the Church (and by Church, I mean Protestant as well as Catholic) is guilty of massive self-interest and moral cowardice.

This book is a case study in the behavior of one group. A sense of fairness and dry scholarship pervades this book. One will not find diatribes here; neither will one find the selective omission of facts favorable to the church mentioned by one reviewer.

One will find the facts laid out by someone who has bent over backward to give the benefit of the doubt but who has also laid out the case against the Church with the skill of a brilliant and experienced prosecutor. Only occasionally do his outrage and passion shine through, and then only in summary and conclusion paragraphs.

Is the author fair? He is at pains to describe the persecution of the Catholic Church by the Nazis. He leaves no doubt that throughout the Nazi period, the very existence of the Church as a moral force was endangered by Nazi arrogance, contempt, deceit, and betrayal. The Church was, indeed, a wounded church, dealing from a position of weakness, not strength.

And yet. In its zeal to protect the institution, the Church abandoned, perhaps forever, any claim it may have ever had to moral legitimacy (my claim, not Lewy's).

Better for the German Catholic Church to have died a martyr's death than to live as Hitler's more or less willing pawn.

People are more precious in God's sight than institutions.



The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany