Catholics & Catholicism

Question:

Hitler was a Roman Catholic,

Hitler embraced no religion. He attended no established Church. He believed in the occult, astrology, and was obsseded by conspiracy theories prevalent at the time (specifically that Communism and World War I were orchastraed and caused by Zionists). Hitlers rein was named the Third Reicht (the third rule of the Roman Empire). With the advise of his top officers (especially Gerbells) thy tried to replace the then beliefs and established expression of Christianity with a occult like Christianity based upon the idea that Christ, a supposed Arian, had come to establish the Aryan race as the temporal power on earth. To do this they mixed Chrristianity with Viking myth and Roman myth and cult.. Hitlers rein was named the Third Reicht (the third rule of the Roman Empire). During the power of Hitler, the Protestant Lutheran Church was tolerated in its German form because at the time, it was staunchly anit-Catholic.. like Luther himself. And most Germans were Lutherine. Hitler would have replaced even Lutherine with his own occult religion. Catholics were tolerated in the begining while thier beliefs were being underminded by propganda. Once Hitler had consolodated his national party and won elected control of Germany, Cathilcs as well as Jews, Communists, Gypsies, retarded people, and blacks, along with others were shipped off for forced labor and eventual extermination camps under the guise of  "protecting them." About 11 million people were exterminated at camps, six million were Jews, five million were from the groups I named above. Hitler never felt strong enough to go against the entire Catholic Church world wide.. but he had standing orders to destroy the Catholic Church by propaganda and murder in any nation the German army invaded. and the Spanish Inquisition was all Catholic.

I am not prepared to chat about this. I would need more background myself. As a whole the Church is ashamed of the actions of some of its members. But I do not know the truth here of the Inqusition or the context of the times. I’m aware that it was a time of great political intrigues and many bishops of the Church apparently trying through desperate and political means to not only maintain the temporal power of the Church, but thier own personal wealth. It was a mistake even of Peter to swing his sword even that once when Christ was arrested… it is a mistake to panic and fall back on violence in a mistaken attempt to further the temporal Church. It was a time of blood baths (The Frech revolution where all Catholic religious were put to death), rising political power of the occult in Rosecrusion, Free Masonry, Alchemists, and such… the seesaw invasion of Spain by the Moors, etc..  and not that many people bathed either (eyic!). The Inqusition, which I believe was isolated to portions of Spain was but one pocket of insanity which claimed the authority of the Roman Pope – in a world of insanity and bloodbaths gone rampent. It is no secret that some who wore the clothing of the Church felt it was thier God given duty to regulate the conduct of all men,  by force if nessasary. Not to mention the Crusades … yet another example of Christian charity and love.

If you had lived in the times – you would have been in the Crusaders ranks. Moslems followed Mohammed’s then rule, "convert to Islam or die by the sword" and were sweeping into the west as a mandatory commandment by Allah to convert the world by the sword. To you, a Christian of the time, you would have either gone to war or faced the inevitable invasion of your culture and people and death for being a Christian. No matter the complicated political intrigues of the crusades and admitted selfish reasons of many (the East had many commodities which would bring wealth to western merchants)… the Moslems had risen from a few hundred to conquered one third of the known world by the sword and no mercy.  The crusades put a stop to that, but not instantly. In fact, during the last invasion of the Christian Byzinetine East.. the West refused to mount another cursade despite the many pleaes from Constantinople – and this had contributed to the East West Catholic schism because the Moslems took the city (center of temporal Eastern Christianity) and the Byzinetine empire disappeared as a political world force – forever. As regards the Catholic Church apologizing to the Jews… this too I know little about. People should keep in mind that no one really needed to speak out and convince anyone Hitler’s killing Jews and blitzkrieg invasions of surrounding nations was wrong. If you came upon a man stabbing a woman in the street – would you need to say out loud "Hey – that’s wrong?" and then go around preaching how wrong it was? The world knew Hitler was wrong and crazy. At the same time there -is- record of the Church speaking out against Hitler. How loud was it? I do not know. Difficult times.. on one hand the Church tried not to provoke Hitler into killing more people than he was already doing (remember he was killing Catholics, Jews, blacks, Gypsies, the handicapped, mentally ill people, …  too..) The WHOLE world tried not to provoke Hitler – the WHOLE world waited a bit to see if this nightmare might go away. America said "It is not our war"… England flew over and got a treaty signed. Hitler kept saying "Poland, we yeah but that was all I wanted, I stop here." …. Checklsovakia(sp)? Well, yeah, that too but that’s all I want."..  Stalin and Hitler joined forces at the beginning of the war, they agreed to divide Europe together, until Hitler turned on him. Hitler just wanted to keep Russia sleeping a bit longer. Everyone hoped Hitler would go away before they had to shed their own blood to do it. Unlike other governments which have the power and authority to declare war and send troops – the Vatican has no authority to do so and has no troops (The Crusades were raised by the Kings of countries which were in the path of the Moslem steam roller). It is very documented and many movies have been made on Catholics who risked or lost their life in protecting or smuggling Jews out. Witness Maximillion Kolbe.. a Catholic Priest brought to the camps for extermination because he was a Catholic Priest.. when a Jew was picked out for the oven, Maximilion stepped forward and said "Take me instead".. the Nazi asked "Why do you offer that?" .. Maximillion said "Because I am a Catholic Priest"… the Nazi was pleased to oblige because a leader that could keep God alive in others was more dangerous to Hitler than even a common Jew. Maximillion joined his Lord in the ultimate sacrifice of dying for another. The final verdict of history may be that the Catholic Church did all it could – but did not do all that everyone expected or wanted it to do. Many Catholic people certainly stood by thier faith and were murdered by the Nazsi for it. Sorry to bring up such an unpleasant topic, but I seek the truth.

Good for you! Finding it requires a lot of objective study of history and culture. Too much for me. A short cut might be to try to harm no one and attend yourself to only your immediate life and the peole you touch. Carry you own pain and be aware when you are tempted to come down off the cross or think by changing something out there in the world you change something in your soul  keep silent and mount the cross again. May we all to this.

Response:

I am not prepared to chat about this. I would need more background myself. As a whole the Church is ashamed of the actions of some of its members. But I do not know the truth here of the Inqusition or the context of the times.

You may be interested in reading Henry Kamen’s "The Spanish Inquisition – A Historical Revision."  Kamen argues – convincingly – that the Inquisition was, in some ways, exagerrated and overdemonized by Protestant apologists.  However, the picture he paints is still far from a defense, and still really, really lousy – even if a bit less totally reprehensible than has usually been stated. As for the Crusades, it depends on which crusade.  We *might* be on the Crusader’s side in the 1st or 3rd Crusade.  But the 4th was an abomination, and I don’t think the Eastern Church has ever forgiven the Western for it, and I don’t see how they can.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hitler was a Roman Catholic, though no doubt many of his followers were Lutheran, and the Spanish Inquisition was all Catholic. Certainly many Nazis were Catholic.  And many of them murdered Jews six days a week, and spend Sunday mornings engaged in Catholic piety, under the religious aegis of a Church that felt that explicit opposition to killing six million Jews was impolitic. The Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, wasn’t simply carried out by Catholics.  It was done in the _name_ of Catholicism, as a sacred ritual. Not to mention the Crusades … yet another example of Christian charity and love. You may want to do a little reading on Jewish and Catholic history, and perhaps learn precisely why it is that the Church has made moves (perhaps half-hearted) to apologize to the Jews. And why it is that so many Jews find those attempts unconvincing.

The above quote was posted in a different newsgroup. Sorry to bring up such an unpleasant topic, but I seek the truth. Is the quote historically accurate? ****to send email to me, please remove the  x  from my email address (this helps to get rid of most of the junk mass email – aka SPAM).

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No, it is bigotry. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The above quote was posted in a different newsgroup. Sorry to bring up such an unpleasant topic, but I seek the truth. Is the quote historically accurate?

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The above quote was posted in a different newsgroup. Sorry to bring up such an unpleasant topic, but I seek the truth. Is the quote historically accurate?

Adolf Hitler was baptized Catholic as an infant.  However, in adulthood, he said the Church was his greatest enemy.  He espoused a form of religion that was sort of a resurrection of German paganism, which was condemned by the Theolgical Declaration of Barmen.  A few times he also gave some lip service to religion, in an attempt to gain support. The Inquisition *was* an arm of the Church.  However, in fairness, is was *also* an arm of the secular Government.  The fact that it was under *two* authorities – the Government of Spain and the Church – with no one deciding which of two had *final* authority, was one of the things that enabled the Inquisition to bwhave autonomously, in reality answerable to nobody but themselves.

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