To my dear Christian friends, but especially to my Catholic friends,
The picture I am about to paint is very dark, and I pray to God that I am wrong, but just as when one hears the thunder one knows the storm is coming so I too have been hearing the thunder and counting the minutes between that and the lightning strikes and I know the storm is very nearly upon us. I would be remiss in all things if I did not say something to you now. Perhaps these words may yet help avert a tragedy, or at least help to prepare you for what is coming.
For decades before the Holocaust, the Germans laid the blame for their every woe at the feet of the Jew. Every economic trouble, every sin, every hardship they found a way to blame the Jew for it. This blame created anger, and the anger allowed them to excuse themselves for passing laws that struck against them. First, laws were passed requiring them to wear identification marks whenever going out. Then, laws were passed limiting how much money they could have on them at any time. Then, laws were passed restricting when they could go out and where they could go when they did. Then, laws were passed relocating them and forcing them to live only in certain areas. Then, laws were passed that allowed them to be rounded up and shipped to labor camps. Finally, they were slaughtered and all because of their ethnicity.
Perhaps all of the Jews might have been saved if the largely Protestant nations of Europe, Canada, and the United States had been willing to offer them asylum, but they failed them. Protestant England took in many of their children, but refused the adults because they feared that the Jews would take over their country. The United States, rather than opening up its doors, shut them more tightly allowing in only a half million of the refugees which begged to come in during that time. Canada offered no refuge for any of them. The tiny country of the Dominican Republic did offer them asylum, but this only saved the lives of three thousand out of the millions who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany - perhaps because of the $500 per person tax that was placed in order to prevent those who had no money from coming in to the country. $500 in that time was the rough equivalent of a little more than $6,000 today.
The Catholic Church did much to save her Jewish brethren under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. The Pope directed monasteries and convents to hide them among their number in spite of the dangers; priests of the parishes were directed to issue false certificates of baptism in order to pass Jews off as Christians; and Catholic families were charged with doing whatever was necessary to offer refuge to the suffering Jews. Those who did so put their lives and the lives of their families in great peril, but the result was that many Jews were saved by the bravery of these men and women. If, during the War, there were not many speeches against the Nazis given it was not because the Catholic Church approved but because she learned early the price that would be paid for being so outspoken.
"In one tragic instance, the Archbishop of Utrecht was warned by the Nazis not to protest the deportation of Dutch Jews. He spoke out anyway and in retaliation the Catholic Jews of Holland were sent to their death. One of them was the Carmelite philosopher, Edith Stein." Joseph Lichten, "A Question of Moral Judgment: Pius XII and the Jews" in Graham, 30.
The point in all of this that I am making is that the tide of public opinion was being stirred up against the Jews for decades before the first law against them was enacted. I see the same thing happening in our world today. Christians, and especially Catholics, are being blamed for every evil in the world. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hawkins, and other popular writers like them have stirred up hatred in the hearts of many for all things religious - blaming us for the problems of the world today. Blame is easier than taking responsibility for your own faults and sins, after all. Our own governments have participated in this blame game, with socialists and communists laying blame at the feet of the Church for her opposition to their policies even though such opposition is justified by a close examination of the policies she opposed.
Schools are teaching children to blame Christians, but especially the Catholic Church, for the various ills of society during the middle ages without any examination at all of the facts. The Crusades are trumpeted as proof of the bigotry of the Catholic Church when the facts show that it was self-defense against an invading army that would not stop slaughtering, enslaving, and terrorizing the lands it encountered. Galileo is trotted out as proof that Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, is an enemy of science when in point of fact the Catholic Church is directly responsible for the creation of the Scientific Method and has a long, proud history of scientific development and discoveries to her credit. Schools are further teaching children to hate the Church for her "backward" stance on abortion, birth control, sterilization, contraception, sexual purity, and the importance of marriage to the health of society at large - yet the science backs up the church and not the school.
Suffice it to say, brothers and sisters, that a very ugly and very false portrait of the Church is being painted to the youth. She is being shown to them as the reason for all their unhappiness with the only obvious solution to exterminate her, and this has been going on for more than four decades now. Already we are sued at every turn for attempting to live our faith in the open. When America's economic circumstances go from bad to worse and the present shortages of jobs become shortages of food as well, when the Obama administration's health mandates fail to be the panacea he has promised the public it would be, when Christians continue to refuse to give in to demands that they cooperate with evils that go directly against the teachings of Christ, the persecutions will begin in earnest.
First, we will be forced to identify ourselves by wearing signs that mark us as Christians. Then, we will be restricted in how much we can buy, when we can go out, and where we can go. Then, we will be relocated to areas selected by the government. Finally, we will be put to death. Only this time, who will speak out for us? Who will be the voice to stand up for us, as we did for the Jews? Where will the leader come from who will offer us shelter? Brace yourselves, brothers and sisters, for I doubt there will be such a group or person. I think we are facing dark times. Our hope, of course, lies in the fact that if we die for Christ so also we will live for Him. Be brave, be strong, and above all remember the words of Christ:
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28
The picture I am about to paint is very dark, and I pray to God that I am wrong, but just as when one hears the thunder one knows the storm is coming so I too have been hearing the thunder and counting the minutes between that and the lightning strikes and I know the storm is very nearly upon us. I would be remiss in all things if I did not say something to you now. Perhaps these words may yet help avert a tragedy, or at least help to prepare you for what is coming.
For decades before the Holocaust, the Germans laid the blame for their every woe at the feet of the Jew. Every economic trouble, every sin, every hardship they found a way to blame the Jew for it. This blame created anger, and the anger allowed them to excuse themselves for passing laws that struck against them. First, laws were passed requiring them to wear identification marks whenever going out. Then, laws were passed limiting how much money they could have on them at any time. Then, laws were passed restricting when they could go out and where they could go when they did. Then, laws were passed relocating them and forcing them to live only in certain areas. Then, laws were passed that allowed them to be rounded up and shipped to labor camps. Finally, they were slaughtered and all because of their ethnicity.
Perhaps all of the Jews might have been saved if the largely Protestant nations of Europe, Canada, and the United States had been willing to offer them asylum, but they failed them. Protestant England took in many of their children, but refused the adults because they feared that the Jews would take over their country. The United States, rather than opening up its doors, shut them more tightly allowing in only a half million of the refugees which begged to come in during that time. Canada offered no refuge for any of them. The tiny country of the Dominican Republic did offer them asylum, but this only saved the lives of three thousand out of the millions who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany - perhaps because of the $500 per person tax that was placed in order to prevent those who had no money from coming in to the country. $500 in that time was the rough equivalent of a little more than $6,000 today.
The Catholic Church did much to save her Jewish brethren under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. The Pope directed monasteries and convents to hide them among their number in spite of the dangers; priests of the parishes were directed to issue false certificates of baptism in order to pass Jews off as Christians; and Catholic families were charged with doing whatever was necessary to offer refuge to the suffering Jews. Those who did so put their lives and the lives of their families in great peril, but the result was that many Jews were saved by the bravery of these men and women. If, during the War, there were not many speeches against the Nazis given it was not because the Catholic Church approved but because she learned early the price that would be paid for being so outspoken.
"In one tragic instance, the Archbishop of Utrecht was warned by the Nazis not to protest the deportation of Dutch Jews. He spoke out anyway and in retaliation the Catholic Jews of Holland were sent to their death. One of them was the Carmelite philosopher, Edith Stein." Joseph Lichten, "A Question of Moral Judgment: Pius XII and the Jews" in Graham, 30.
The point in all of this that I am making is that the tide of public opinion was being stirred up against the Jews for decades before the first law against them was enacted. I see the same thing happening in our world today. Christians, and especially Catholics, are being blamed for every evil in the world. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hawkins, and other popular writers like them have stirred up hatred in the hearts of many for all things religious - blaming us for the problems of the world today. Blame is easier than taking responsibility for your own faults and sins, after all. Our own governments have participated in this blame game, with socialists and communists laying blame at the feet of the Church for her opposition to their policies even though such opposition is justified by a close examination of the policies she opposed.
Schools are teaching children to blame Christians, but especially the Catholic Church, for the various ills of society during the middle ages without any examination at all of the facts. The Crusades are trumpeted as proof of the bigotry of the Catholic Church when the facts show that it was self-defense against an invading army that would not stop slaughtering, enslaving, and terrorizing the lands it encountered. Galileo is trotted out as proof that Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, is an enemy of science when in point of fact the Catholic Church is directly responsible for the creation of the Scientific Method and has a long, proud history of scientific development and discoveries to her credit. Schools are further teaching children to hate the Church for her "backward" stance on abortion, birth control, sterilization, contraception, sexual purity, and the importance of marriage to the health of society at large - yet the science backs up the church and not the school.
Suffice it to say, brothers and sisters, that a very ugly and very false portrait of the Church is being painted to the youth. She is being shown to them as the reason for all their unhappiness with the only obvious solution to exterminate her, and this has been going on for more than four decades now. Already we are sued at every turn for attempting to live our faith in the open. When America's economic circumstances go from bad to worse and the present shortages of jobs become shortages of food as well, when the Obama administration's health mandates fail to be the panacea he has promised the public it would be, when Christians continue to refuse to give in to demands that they cooperate with evils that go directly against the teachings of Christ, the persecutions will begin in earnest.
First, we will be forced to identify ourselves by wearing signs that mark us as Christians. Then, we will be restricted in how much we can buy, when we can go out, and where we can go. Then, we will be relocated to areas selected by the government. Finally, we will be put to death. Only this time, who will speak out for us? Who will be the voice to stand up for us, as we did for the Jews? Where will the leader come from who will offer us shelter? Brace yourselves, brothers and sisters, for I doubt there will be such a group or person. I think we are facing dark times. Our hope, of course, lies in the fact that if we die for Christ so also we will live for Him. Be brave, be strong, and above all remember the words of Christ:
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28
http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/Catholic/NaziLeadership.html
ReplyDeleteThe German author Walter Hagen reported: 'The Jesuits' general, Count Halke von Ledochowski, was ready to organise, on the common basis of anti-communism, some collaboration between the German Secret Service and the Jesuit Order'.(121) As a result, within the SS Central Security Service, an organisation was created, and most of its main posts were held by Catholic priests wearing the black uniform of the SS. The Jesuit Father Himmler was one of its superior officers.
After the Third Reich's capitulation, the Jesuit Father Himmler was arrested and imprisoned at Nuremberg. His hearing by the international tribunal would have apparently been most interesting, but Providence was keeping a watchful eye: Heinrich Himmler's uncle never appeared before that court. One morning, he was found dead in his cell, and the public never learned the cause of his death.
Walter Hagen was not an author, in point of fact. He was a major general who fell into American captivity 05/09/1945 and died 1963.
DeleteFurthermore, the statement this website uses is actually pulled from a badly written, very anti-Catholic book written by one Edmond Pope in 1959. I did look through google to try and find verification for his facts, but every single site that had this information posted used almost identical wording - which means that it all came from the same source and hence cannot be considered verification.
There may well have been Catholic ordained men who participated in Nazi oppression, but this does not prove that the Pope was part of it, that the Pope sanctioned it, nor that the Catholic Church herself supported it anymore than finding out that some few priests and their bishops were guilty of engaging in pedophilia and the coverup means that the Catholic Church and her Pope approves of and sanctions child sexual abuse.
The fact that you are showing such a strong anti-Catholic bias and are so willing to believe the worst is proof of my warning, not denial of it. You do not bother to check facts, or even to do some of the most basic research which would disprove and discredit your accusations.
Despite many claims to the contrary, the Catholic Church is not now nor has she ever been guilty of anti-semitism. There may be individuals who have been, but that does not mean the Church supports or promotes anti-semitism.
http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/Catholic/NaziLeadership.html
ReplyDeleteWhen Dr, Edoardo Senatro, the correspondent of L'Osservatore Romano in Berlin, asked Pius XII whether he would not protest the extermination of the Jews, the Pope is reported to have answered, "Dear friend, do not forget that millions of Catholics serve in the German armies. Shall I bring them into conflicts of conscience?"
As a papal envoy to Germany from 1917-29, Vatican Secretary of State in the 1930s, and Pope during World War II, Pius XII established a clear record of supporting the Jewish people against the German National Socialist Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazis. Because of a defamatory drama in the early 1960s, Pius XII’s wartime record has been unjustly tarnished. By their own testimony, the Nazis knew they had an enemy and Jewish leaders a faithful ally in Pius XII. To maximize Church efforts and minimize Nazi backlash, Pius XII modified his tactics during the war, but his pro-Jewish efforts continued unabated. As former Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide says, the Jews saved by the Catholic Church under the Pope’s direction—an estimated 700,000 to 860,000—“exceed by far those saved by all other churches, religious institutions, and rescue organizations combined.”[1]
Deletehttp://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=116
If, as you assert, that the Pope was a friend to the Nazi party ask yourself why they occupied the Vatican for 272 days in 1944 and also plotted a kidnapping against him. He was not, as you assert, immune to the plight of the Jewish people and thorough examination of historical documents as opposed to propoganda put out by anti-Catholic sources will substantiate my claims.
Read, for example, the encyclical the Pope released directly opposing the Nazis when he was working as the Papal Ambassador to Germany in 1933. Entitled Mitt Brennender Sorge "It was the first official denunciation of Nazism made by any major organization and resulted in persecution of the Church by the infuriated Nazis who closed all the participating presses and "took numerous vindictive measures against the Church, including staging a long series of immorality trials of the Catholic clergy." - Wikipedia's own entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII
http://jesuswouldbefurious.org/Catholic/NaziLeadership.html
ReplyDeleteFranz Von Papen had headed the powerful Catholic "Center Party" and been a close friend of Pope Pius XII from the time that he had been the Papal Nuncio to Germany. Were it not for Papen, President Von Hindenburg might never have been persuaded to make Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany. He beame Hitler's first Vice-Chancellor and the Catholic statesman who negotiated the infamous Cordordat of 1933 on behalf of the Nazi government. After the war, the allies spared his life, eventually freed him and he returned to the good graces of the Catholic Church. He declared, "The third Reich is the first power which not only recognizes, but puts into practice the principles of the papacy."
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen ( listen (help·info)) (29 October 1879 – 2 May 1969) was a German nobleman, General Staff officer and right-wing politician. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934. He belonged to the group of close advisers to President Paul von Hindenburg in the late Weimar Republic. It was largely Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, who persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a cabinet not under Nazi Party domination. However, Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives, during which some of his confidants were killed by the Nazis. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Papen
Delete"After Pope Pius XI died in 1939, his successor Pope Pius XII did not renew his honorary title of Papal Chamberlain." - Doesn't seem to me they were such good friends, now does it?
I appreciate your reading of my blog, and your responses. However, I have a few questions for you. Do you consider yourself Catholic? You were raised Catholic, does that make you still Catholic? Simply because you were raised in a home where faith was practiced does not equate to you being a person of that faith as an adult, wouldn't you of all people agree? Hitler never set foot inside a Catholic Church once leaving his mother's home. Can he then rightly be called Catholic? If you violate every principle held by a religion, should you rightly be considered one of them?
ReplyDelete