Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

In his own sweet way. He was under no illusions about the Nazis, hitler had never made his plan to crush communism a secret. He knew they were coming. The Molotov Ribentrop pact was trying to forestall the inevitable war until about 1943 when he'd be good and ready. People did all sorts of things to buy time in the 1930s.

[Nefertiti2]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

The German Catholic Church is tarred with the brush of the Holocaust. It was prepared to admit it in 1975 at the Würzburger Synod. Shame that you find it so hard to admit it, or respond nearly 35 years later.

The Catholic Churches in Hungary, Croatia, Austria and Slovakia at the very least have serious cases to answer about their direct involvement with and support for National Socialism and the mass murder of Jews from those areas.

There is also the wider point, which you have also refused to acknowledge or respond to, about the ongoing anti-semitism of the Catholic church, throughout the previous millenium.

But you know, why not resort to personal abuse? It saves you having to answer difficult questions.

[Kurt Bafokeng]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

"tarred with a brush" - that's a very poetic expression and as such is both right and wrong - because it doesn't mean anything. You could say it about any major organization that existed between 1942 and 1945 in Germany. And just as many other organizations the RCC in Germany had its heroes, too. Those, who resisted. Unfortunately that was a tiny minority.

As far as the anti-semitism of the past is concerned, I don't think there's any disagreement between G-Man, Toro, certainly me and the other posters here. Your sentence makes little grammatical sense though, as it also includes the "ongoing". This I, as a German living in Germany who is in, but on the fringe of the RCC, would dispute. So would the Central Council of Jews in Germany, btw.

[G-Man]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

There is no "on-going" anti-Semitism in the RCC today, hasn't been for four and a half decades. Unless Nefertiti meant anti-Semitism that had been going on for a long time but does not exist any longer. Maybe one might apply the charitable interpretation that Nefertiti was not precise enough.

There are lapses of good judgment in the RCC, of course. The Williamson affair last year, or the obscure anti-Semitic prayer that slipped through when B16 authorised a long-abandoned Mass which can be said only privately once a year.

In both cases, B16 was quick in trying to fix things: a statement (again) strongly condemning Nazism and the Holocaust following the Williamson affair, and a revision of the offending prayer.

The RCC, as an institution, is very much aware of its deplorable history of anti-Semitism. JP2 explicitly acknowledged that and offered an apology for it.

[G-Man]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

G-Man - what is the point of sainthood?

Depends from which perspective you look at it. I think the College of Saints is best described as the Catholic Hall of Fame, with the added bonus that those who believe in such things can pray to the saint of their choice for intercession with God, because Saints HQ is closer to the Celestial Oval Office.

Of course, to become a saint you must have done a fair bit of interceding to get those required miracles out of the way, so you can pray to practically any dead Catholic to intercede for you.

JP2 canonised saints at an astonishing rate; in his time he more than doubled the number of saints that existed (and many not!) before he took office. He certainly saw the elevation of people to sainthood as the creation of role-models. Some of these were actually pretty good — with some really great background stories. But some of them...oh dear.

[Bruno]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Every time I see 'B16' I automatically add 'bomber', as it goes.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

We've got an unofficial modern saints/martrys thing going on with the statues at the west front of Westminster Abbey. It's rather nice.

Basil Hume was part of the committee deciding it. You can take that as being commendably inclusive of other denominations, but it was probably just because there weren't enough Anglican martyrs to fill all the niches.

[Bruno]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

The point of sainthood was originally, and more appropriately, to glorify martyrs. And of course, the dead remains were used to work miracles by those whose adoption of Christianity apparently required preserving a lot of the hocuspocus of paganism.

Nobody has ever put it better than Gibbon of course:

The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the persuasion, that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic Church; and that the individuals, who imitated the example of their faith and piety, were the peculiar and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were compelled to obey. The immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace; or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the Monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.

[sw2borshch]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

And now celebrities are the new aspect gods?

[Guest]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

Toro: Count On It wrote:

Nefertiti2 wrote:

I'm pointing out that the existence of a single photo of members of some institution reluctantly saluting does not establish that the institution in question is irreparably and forever tarred with the brush of the holocaust, as you seemed to imply.

As you well know there are literally thousands of photos of the Catholic hierarchy offering the Hitler salute and actively supporting the Nazis. You may not like the fact and you may feel it necessary to resort to abuse because you find this thought disturbing.
The institution in question is irreparably tarred with the brush of the holocaust. Forget pacelli How about Archbishop Gröber of Freiburg for example?

FFS.

My "resort to abuse" was a direct and explicit response to your own. That's why it began with "as far as your personal insults are concerned..."
Dumbass.

And my point was not that the photo was unique, it was that only a fool would post it as though it put an end to all argument on a difficult and nuanced topic.

As is said in Glasgow, "Sniff sniff".

[MsD]

Hitler Youth veteran venerates Holocaust-ignorer

[minor point re. Stalin which I withdraw rather than get the textbooks out on Christmas Day, and which may not be correct anyway]