Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

[Spearmint Rhino]

Whose orders is he "only obeying" this time?

[Duncan Gardner]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

Whose orders is he "only obeying" this time?

God's, presumably.

[G-Man]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

OK, let's hear the case how Pius XII deliberately was complicit in the Holocaust, why people like Rome's Chief Rabbi in the 1940s and Golda Meir praised Pius XII's efforts, and how the Vatican and the RCC in Italy was able to shelter thousands of Jews.

The case against Pius XII is mainly based on Rolf Hochhuth's stage play, Cornwell's factually suspect book, and Goldhagen's polemic.

The toss can be argued whether Pacelli was right in not forthrightly condemning the Holocaust. But if silence means acquiescence, what are we to make of the silence of Churchill or Roosevelt or almost any country in the world?

Pacelli's supporters refer to Nazi reprisals in Holland and Belgium when bishops spoke out against the persecution of Jews. I think it is a legitimate reason to at least give the guy the benefit of doubt.

I'm no admirer of Pius XII. And I'll happily concur with those who wish to slam him over the diplomatic protection afforded to Nazi criminals through the Vatican's diplomatic channels. I don't know whether he sanctioned those things — there is no evidence that he did — but as the top guy he must bear some responsibility for that.

[Gerontophile]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

They are making this person a saint? Where are the miracles?

[G-Man]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Oh, and as for "Hitler Youth veteran", why don't you fuck off, Rhino?

I may be taking a gag a bit personal here, but it fucks me off every time I hear it. Kids in Nazi Germany didn't have much choice about whether to join the HJ. Ratzinger's family was consistently anti-Nazi. To smear Joseph as some sort of old Nazi over having been coerced to be a member is pretty shitty.

My father was a member of the HJ. He had not much other choice. His father was a Social Democrat who after WW1 was a prison warden (evidently of a very humane sort) and then became a captain in the police. In March 1933, within six weeks of the Nazis assuming power, he was summarily fired from the police force, with no rights to a state pension. Because he was a Social Democrat.

From there on, he was virtually unemployable. He got by doing bookkeeping jobs that came his way from family and friends. I think it's fair to say that his family was not a Nazi family. Yet, my father joined the HJ. Not because the Nazis were so great, but because you pretty much had to. Especially if you came from a family were your parents did not have impeccable Nazi credentials.

After the war, my father joined the Social Democratic Party the moment it was legal to do so again.

So, yeah, I do take the smears directed at Ratzinger in that regard personally. It is a profoundly shitty slander.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

If you were an 80 something year old german SR you'd have been in the hitler youth too. They weren't big on conscientious objectors.

Ratzinger is defo a bit of a cunt and well worthy of abuse, but It's only fair to be accurate about it.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

As for Pius XII, I think you have to consider his actions in the context of the Clericalism that has strangled the Roman Catholic Church. The natural instinct of the hierarchy is always to protect the institution of the church.

In Ireland, when confronted with allegations of child abuse, their primary concern was to protect the institution of the church, and they tried to keep it quiet. So they moved paedophiles to protect the good name of the church.

I think it was fairly obvious what the nazi's would do if the pope came out against them. So the pope was never going to rock the boat to the point where the Nazis started rounding up priests and seizing property. Again it may not have been the right thing to do, but it was only going to be the path that the pope followed.

No pope was going to be refused the sainthood because he put clericalism before doing the right thing. From Benny's position, Pius XII was in charge of the church and had to protect it, and they came out the other side intact.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Interesting stuff Gman, shows how complex the situation was back then.

[Just Say No To Vorderman]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Surely if Pius actually believed in his religion he should have done the right thing rather than the safest thing? After all, the whole charade is built on martyrdom isn't it?

Do they deny that he asked the yanks to not post any blacks in the Vatican?

Whatever, they've made far worse into saints in the past :-)

[Spearmint Rhino]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

G.Man wants a hyphen wrote:

The toss can be argued whether Pacelli was right in not forthrightly condemning the Holocaust. But if silence means acquiescence, what are we to make of the silence of Churchill or Roosevelt or almost any country in the world?

In the case of Churchill and FDR, actions speak louder than words. In the case of the guy whose job was to offer moral guidance for one sixth of the world's population, some words would have been nice, don't you think?

And that's before we even get onto the diplomatic immunity (which you mention), and the laundering of Nazi gold under Pius' watch (which you don't).

And while you may be right that Hitler Youth membership alone is not enough to convict, the present incumbent's enthusiasm for pushing Pius XII along the track towards sainthood makes the case against look ever-stronger.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

The Mighty Kubelgog!!! wrote:

As for Pius XII, I think you have to consider his actions in the context of the Clericalism that has strangled the Roman Catholic Church. The natural instinct of the hierarchy is always to protect the institution of the church.

In Ireland, when confronted with allegations of child abuse, their primary concern was to protect the institution of the church, and they tried to keep it quiet. So they moved paedophiles to protect the good name of the church.

I think it was fairly obvious what the nazi's would do if the pope came out against them. So the pope was never going to rock the boat to the point where the Nazis started rounding up priests and seizing property. Again it may not have been the right thing to do, but it was only going to be the path that the pope followed.

No pope was going to be refused the sainthood because he put clericalism before doing the right thing. From Benny's position, Pius XII was in charge of the church and had to protect it, and they came out the other side intact.

The Nazis did start rounding up priests, but they were Polish ones so it didn't matter.

The rest of your post is essentially "Well, they would do that, wouldn't they?" Yes, they would. And they're cunts for it.

[Wyatt Earp]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew the unspeakable evils wrought upon the bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime. The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazi's first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity. He has borne and continued to bear a burden that might have seen beyond endurance. He has not allowed it to break his spirit; he has never lost the will to resist. Assuredly in the day of victory the Jew's suffering and his part in the struggle will not be forgotten.

Winston Churchill 1941

... the most bestial, the most squalid and the most senseless of all their offences, namely, the mass deportation of Jews from France, with the pitiful horrors attendant upon the calculated and final scattering of families. This tragedy fills me with astonishment as well as with indignation, and it illustrates as nothing else can the utter degradation of the Nazi nature and theme, and degradation of all who lend themselves to its unnatural and perverted passions.

Winston Churchill 1942

There is no doubt this is the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe. It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved.

Winston Churchill 1944

Stop beating about the bush Winnie, tell us what you really think.

[G-Man]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

SR, are you arguing that Ratzinger might not be a Nazi, but the case that he is a Nazi is strengthened by his support for somebody of whom we don't actually that he was a Nazi? Really?

[Wyatt Earp]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I keep coming back to this sort of thing with Catholicism. I can see how playing it safe, as Pius did, might be the action of a skilled and shrewd practitioner of Realpolitik. I can't see how anyone can think it the action of a saint.

The Vatican cannot be a small nation state like any other, with the grubby compromises that often entails, and at the same time claim any kind of moral authority or leadership. People can't consistently say, in effect, "Wurl, what do you expect, he's only human?", and then move towards canonising the bugger.

These people, your popes and cardinals, are mostly unimpressive, venal, self-serving little bastards. That's not unusual: most people in power are unimpressive, venal, self-serving little bastards. But most people in power don't claim to be holy and get to be saints.

[Guest]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

But why do people who think all religion is stupid and all clergy are cunts etc etc give a shit who is considered a saint? Surely being a saint or finding someone else to be worthy of sainthood is just yet another idiotic part of their delusional worldview? You don't buy into the concept of saints, so why should you care if I decide to make my cat one? You don't go round saying Well, homeopathy is practised by morons but I'm really pissed off that they made that guy the Head Homeopather, he doesn't deserve it. If holiness is a meaningless concept, who cares? You might as well get cross because capitalists call themselves Chief Executive.

[wingco]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I suppose because it's not as if we're talking about some private, hermetic, Masonic organisation here - that this sort of (self) sanctification helps bolster and spread the undue power and influence of the Catholic church around the world.

[Guest]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

But only if you already believe in it.

[Bruno]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I suppose because it's not as if we're talking about some private, hermetic, Masonic organisation here - that this sort of (self) sanctification helps bolster and spread the undue power and influence of the Catholic church around the world.

How does that work exactly? Are people converting to Catholicism (or rolling over for it) because they've got saints? I thought the saints just fulfilled a weird need for people who already believe in Christianity.

[Wyatt Earp]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Lyra wrote:

But why do people who think all religion is stupid and all clergy are cunts etc etc give a shit who is considered a saint?

I can't speak for those people, particularly as I'm not one of them. But for my own part, I'm not sure the idea of "holiness" is entirely meaningless. Obviously it's connected with a belief in the divine that I don't have, but the absence of that belief doesn't, I think, render the idea opaque to me.

So while I think I sort of get your analogy with homeopathy and capitalism, I'm not quite sure I follow the reasoning. You're saying, if I read you right, that some of us are criticising Catholicism for being false to ideals we don't share. But the thing is, I think we do share some of those ideals, in their ethical dimension; just not the connection with the posited divine. We know (or at least, have opinions on) what moral leadership looks like, and can evaluate claims to it. It's not like saying "That homeopath doesn't even believe water has a memory, what's she doing running the London Homeopathic Hospital"?

[Wyatt Earp]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I do want to dissociate myself from any suggestion that religious people are "idiotic" or something like that, by the way. Indeed, I think any such claim is provably false. It's really much more complicated and interesting than that, I reckon.

[Wyatt Earp]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Sorry Andy C.

[Guest]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I agree, and I think we lose a lot when we blanket condemn all religion & all religious people. And I didn't mean you because I know you don't do that WoE.

I suppose what I mean is that holiness and sainthood seem to be so exclusively religious concepts that I find it hard to see why the areligious should feel affronted by them. I understand that the areligious should have equal investment in ideas of morality and in constructions of moral or ethical leadership, but I'm not so worried about Catholicism in this context. Most of the saints that ignorant people like me know about are either Biblical characters, early martyrs or people who've experienced miracles (or more modern humanitarians). (I apologise to Catholics if I've got this totally wrong). I don't see it as some kind of universal stamp of 'this is someone you should copy' or 'this is someone you should aim to be like'. Within the Church, sure, but I don't feel under pressure to equate my notions of 'good' or 'moral' with those of the Church or to use its language.

[Gerontophile]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I first mentioned the point of canonisation of this guy, because my memory of this, from a catholic background, means that you have to have 2 provable miracles to become a saint.

What are they in this guys case?

[Guest]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I do sort of see what presumably worries some - that those already Catholic may take this as some sort of authorisation of Naziism. I don't know.

should my religion decide to beatify my cat Hobbes (which so definitely should happen) then I would expect it's possible that fewer people might support my religion. But maybe instead more of my followers will start to believe that yowling for food at 4am is acceptable behaviour, I dunno.

[Kurt Bafokeng]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

I keep coming back to this sort of thing with Catholicism. I can see how playing it safe, as Pius did, might be the action of a skilled and shrewd practitioner of Realpolitik. I can't see how anyone can think it the action of a saint.

I completely agree. Pacelli (Pius' civil name) played a major role in brokering the 1933 accord between Nazi Germany and the RC Church in the 1930s, which said, in a nutshell, leave our organization, our priests, our whole religious life alone, and we're fine and won't criticize anything you're doing. This has always struck me as a horrible contract, one that's morally so wrong it can't be righted by pragmatic considerations. Indeed the German RC Church criticized the concordat after 1945. Apart from its content the accord also served was one of Hitler's early diplomatic successes and made the regime legitimate in the eyes of many German Catholics.