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Posts: 957
Oct 5 06 1:45 PM
Posts: 5277
Oct 6 06 4:48 AM
Registered User
Posts: 1197
Oct 6 06 4:51 AM
Posts: 3711
Oct 6 06 8:02 AM
Quote: No, Sid, it had to do with siding with the lesser of 2 evils....fascism or communism.
Oct 6 06 10:58 AM
Quote:While many other reviewers choose to launch polemical attacks on Kertzer's book, I think it likely that most never read it. Far from their assertion that Kertzer seeks to equate Nazism and Catholicism broadly, the author instead offers a nuanced analysis of the relationship between the Catholic Church's activities particularly in the 19th and early 20th Century and the birth of modern anti-Semitism. Having been given considerable access to the archives of the Church, he develops, brick by brick, the Church's complicity in the rise of the modern hatred of Jews. While the book is far too large for a close examination here, several examples of the Church's contribution stand out.Many consider Blood Liable an ancient scar on the Church, but one so old that it bears little attention. For those unfamiliar, Blood Liable refers to the collection of charges that Jews use the blood of Christian children to make Matzos on Passover in a perversion of the communion wafer. This evil myth began in Europe in the Middle Ages and was frequently leveled against Jewish Communities before they suffered oppression and murder at the hands of the Christian majority. Kertzer demonstrates that, far from being an ancient myth, this horrible liable held sway in the Church into the 20th Century. Documenting Blood Liable allegations at the beginning of the 20th Century in respected Church newspapers, Kertzer then uses the notes and letters of high level Church officials to show how this sick belief was wide spread within the Vatican. Blood Liable was an instrumental piece of the fabric of modern anti-Semitism.Kertzer goes further to show how the Church spread the idea of an evil international Jewish conspiracy, an idea Catholics did not invent, but spread widely through Western Europe. Further, Kertzer shows how when important Catholics tried to denounce anti-Semitism within the Church, their co-religionists quickly branded them as dupes or traitors to the international Jewish conspiracy. Such myths of the power hungry blood drinking Jew went a long way to creating the view of Jews as less then human that eventually enabled Catholics across Europe, from France to Poland to willingly aid in the slaughter of their Jewish neighbors.As Kertzer points out, the Church clings to two shaky pillars to profess their innocence. The first, that while individual, even high ranking Catholics may commit evil, the Church is, by definition, pure and guiltless. The theological basis of this argument makes it difficult to counter, but suffice to say, none Catholics have no such beliefs and hold all institutions accountable for the evil committed within their walls and by their leadership. The second, defense argues that Catholics were a target of fascism and, as victims, cannot hold any responsibility for their evil. This argument is only partially true. Yes, Christianity was a target of Nazism, though not of fascism in general (in Italy, France, Romania, other countries under fascist rule no such conflict existed). However, in several places the Catholic Church worked with Hitler's army, in such things as allowing Catholic chaplains to serve in the Nazi army, even for such morally dubious units as the Waffen SS.Popes Against the Jews goes a long way towards documenting the largely buried history of Catholic attacks on Jews in the modern era. While that surely makes many unhappy, it is a crucial step for real healing to begin.The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
Posts: 1302
Oct 6 06 1:59 PM
Quote:Why did the Vatican crawl in the sack with Hitler and Mussolini quick, fast and in a hurry. .
Posts: 1706
Oct 6 06 2:09 PM
Leaven Rooster
Oct 6 06 2:20 PM
Quote:You don't know that is all Sid has to go on, lies and innuendo. He does believe in anything except he must bring down the Catholic Church no matter what.
Quote:Ga 4:16Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
Oct 6 06 2:25 PM
Oct 6 06 2:28 PM
Oct 6 06 2:31 PM
Posts: 2472
Oct 6 06 7:23 PM
Quote: Why did the Vatican crawl in the sack with Hitler and Mussolini quick, fast and in a hurry. . .. . . and then didn't recognize the Nation of Israel until 1993?Looks like there are not Catholic Answer Men/Women available. . .
Oct 6 06 7:27 PM
Oct 6 06 7:30 PM
Oct 7 06 4:46 AM
Quote:Why did the Vatican crawl in the sack with Hitler and Mussolini quick, fast and in a hurry. . .. . . and then didn't recognize the Nation of Israel until 1993?
Oct 7 06 5:25 AM
Quote:Catholic Internet Apologists can simply dismiss us with magic pixie dust responses like hate-filled, bigoted, basher or their really big gun: anti-Catholic.
Posts: 526
Oct 7 06 7:29 AM
Much Loved
Oct 7 06 11:23 AM
Quote:Pope Pius XII has often been criticized for his silence during the extermination of European Jewry during World War II. In his defense, some have alleged that the pope was doing a great deal to help the Jews but that his efforts were necessarily behind the scenes. This meticulously researched and balanced book examines exactly what the pope, his advisers, and his assistants at the Vatican Secretariat of State did to help the Jews of Italy. It finds that they did very little.The book begins by discussing prewar Vatican and Jesuit publications, in which Zuccotti uncovers a hitherto little-known prevalence of anti-Jewish sentiment. These publications, along with archival documents, indicate that Vatican protests against Italian anti-Jewish laws were limited to measures affecting converts and Jews in mixed marriages with Catholics, as was help with emigration; the papal nuncio's visits to foreign Jews in Italian internment camps did not differ from those to non-Jews and in no way eased their material discomfort; and interventions by diplomats of the Holy See for Jews threatened with deportation were rare, always polite, and seldom decisive.Above all, Zuccotti finds no evidence of a papal directive to church institutions to shelter Jews and much evidence to suggest that the pope remained uninvolved. The notion that Pius XII was outstandingly benevolent and helpful to Jews behind the scenes proves to be a myth.Under His Very Windows : The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy
Oct 7 06 8:07 PM
Quote: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
Oct 7 06 8:15 PM
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