Does the Roman Catholic church accept any blame for the Holocaust?
Do they regret they didn't do enough to speak out against it? Or do they have a clear conscience?
So Miss Dementia, by your logic the Roman Catholic church cannot be held accountable for the murder of women and children during the crusades, or of non-Catholics during the Inquisition.
Misty: It seems ironic the church is not silent about preventing contraception even if it means a wife getting infected by her HIV positive husband. However they were so quiet in the knowledge of millions of innocent Jews being sent to the gas chambers. Furthermore they claim a higher moral ground than those who do not share their beliefs.
Andrew Church militant: You quote missing history, but you forget the Jehovah's witness took a stand which they paid heavily for. Many priests actively wove Aryan supremacy into Christian theology claiming Jesus was in fact Aryan. Many took a stand over euthanasia, but were silent over the killings of Communists, Trade Unionists and Jews.
DaveD: Are you aware most of those 2 million Catholics were Ethnic Poles who were murdered due to their 'inferior' ethnicity not their religion?
Oscar: The Catholic church does speak out against things not within their control. Preventing Turkey joining the EEC. Telling their congregation how to vote in Italian elections. Persuading the EEC to recognize Croatia after it split from Yugoslavia due to its Catholic population. Refusing to recognize Israel sovereignty until 1992.
Misty: A very nice pro Pius article, but why is the Vatican refusing to open up its archives on him to Jewish researches before his canonization?
The question could be posed in many situations.
There have been many instances when if Social Services had been more pro active, a child's life could have been saved - child abuse at the hands of immature parents.
The management of British Rail ignored safety warnings from their own workforce and a couple of weeks later, a train crashed killing 150 people at the very spot they had been warned about.
I'm not sure what power you think the Church has these days. It is quite honestly not their business to "speak out" against situations outside of their control
I take it you don't believe in the concept of "personal responsibility". Each individual bears the burden for their actions and only their actions in my view. When you blame an entire group of people for the actions of a few - especially a group that didn't engage in those actions - you make the concept of personal responsibility moot. Just as we should hold each individual responsible for their own actions, the flip side of that is we cannot blame them for the actions, or inaction, of another. It's simple common sense coupled with honorable and polite behavior.
Are you serious? Do you not recall that the Holocaust was at the hands of Hitler? Although he was born a Catholic, he did not remain a Catholic throughout his life.
The Catholic Church as is usual was completely ambivalent and took no side so however it ended they would be blameless. Many individual priests actively helped the Nazis but there were a few priests who helped the Jews.
I don't know that there is any blame to accept. No one had a crystal ball to know just where Hitler would go with this hate and persecution.
The Catholic Church was one of the only ones who stood up against the Nazi regime.
The Israeli consul, Pinchas E. Lapide, wrote a book called Three Popes and the Jews. According to his research, the Catholic Church under Pius XII was instrumental in saving 860,000 Jews from Nazi death camps (p. 214). Could Pius have saved more lives by speaking out more forcefully? According to Lapide, the concentration camp prisoners did not want Pius to speak out openly (p. 247). As one jurist from the Nuremberg Trials said on WNBC in New York (Feb. 28, 1964), "Any words of Pius XII, directed against a madman like Hitler, would have brought on an even worse catastrophe... [and] accelerated the massacre of Jews and priests."
The famous Albert Einstein testified to that. According to the December 23, 1940 issue of Time magazine on page 38, Einstein said:
Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
In another, similar statement, Einstein referred explicitly to the Catholic Church (Lapide, p. 251). This is an extraordinary testimony by an agnostic German scientist of Jewish heritage. Even though there were traitors in her ranks, the Church still opposed the Nazi movement.
Also Pope Pius XII was not completely silent either, especially in his Christmas messages. His 1941 and 1942 Christmas messages were both translated and published in The New York Times (Dec. 25, 1941, p. 20 & Dec. 25, 1942, p. 10). To prevent retaliation, he did not refer to Nazism by name, but people of that era still understood him, including the Nazis. According to The New York Times editorial on December 25, 1941 (Late Day edition, p. 24):
The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace.
Also The New York Times editorial on December 25, 1942 (Late Day edition, p. 16) states:
This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent... Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were lifeless things.
Both editorials recognize and highly praise Pius' words against Hitler and totalitarianism.
Now there were traitors in the Church who were Nazis or helped Hitler. There were Catholics who committed sins of bigotry. There were also Catholics, who, out of fear or indifference, sinned through silence. The Church is full of sinners for whom Christ died. We killed Jesus with our sins (Is. 53: 5-6). But Pope Pius XII and many Catholics did not remain "silent." Could 860,000 Jewish lives be saved by "silent" indifference? In our own day, there are people who claim to be Catholic but promote and participate in abortion, assisted-suicide and artificial birth control. In the next century, will the world also falsely accuse the Church and the Pope for being silent during the "culture of death" holocaust?
Wow, another Internet historian that doesn't know history. What did the Protestants do? What did the Atheists Do? Nothing! And you are going to accuse the Church of not doing more?
Ask all the Catholics who died in the Holocaust how it was, the Priests that were martyr there....
The fact that the Vatican was producing fake documents to smuggle Jews out of the country....
If you are going to attack the Church at least have the decency to do your research.....
Everybody should accept blame for the holocaust including the USA. You should read your history before you post questions and make statements like the above. People like you blame The Pope and the Vatican for establishing diplomatic relations with Hitler's Germany. Yet The USA, Britain,France and Russia did the same thing at approximately the same time. The American Ambassador was Joseph Dodd. His Daughter danced to entertain Hitler, danced with Hitler, and dated several officers in Hitler's army. Do not forget The German steamship. with it's load of Jewish passengers. The passengers were denied permission to enter the US. as refugees. Some were returned to Germany. A lot of them died in the camps
BTW. Catholics were the second largest amount of victims in the camps.
Does the Roman Catholic church accept any blame for the Holocaust?
