Emil Kapaun was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in the U.S.A. in 1940, when Pius XII, who had helped bring the Roman Catholic thug Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, still hoped for a Catholic triumph over atheist-communism in World War II. We don't know what Emil thought of Hitler, or the other Roman Catholic dictators of that era (Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Petain in France, and a host of lesser lights).
By all accounts Father Kapaun was a good guy, within the limitations of his narrow view of the world. Almost his entire career was spent encouraging soldiers in the practice of war as a U.S. Army chaplain. Quite a few people think this means he should be made a Saint. Our war-loving President, doubtless with an eye on the Catholic vote, awarded Captain Kapaun a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2013. While that does not count towards sainthood, it certainly encourages the deluded people who like to believe in saints and miracles.
A military guy can be considered for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church because the Church believes military action against non-Catholics is laudable. In the 20th century, until the Church was defeated in World War II, the main enemy was seen as atheism, along with socialist and communist economic tendencies. Sainthood for warriors is no novelty, as historically the Church has made such warriors as the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Reich emperor Charles the Great (Charlemagne) saints.
War Service
During World War II Kapaun served as an Army chaplain first in the United States, but in April 1945 he was sent to Burma. The Burmese, who were mainly Buddhist, had long sought independence from the British Empire. Kapaun's unit fought both Burmese and Japanese soldiers.
After a few years of civilian life he again became an army chaplain, was transferred to Japan, and then transferred into the Korean War. The Korean civil war was being won by Korean atheists led by communists, but the U.S. intervened, which would be a war crime if international justice were blind.
Not content with restoring the south of Korea to a pro-capitalist U.S. puppet dictatorship, when U.S. (and Korean puppet) armies reached the old north-south border, they kept attacking to the north, and eventually captured almost all of the populated areas of Korea, causing great suffering and destruction. But China came to Korea's aid when the troops under General MacArthur's command approached the Chinese boarder.
Among those troops, as chaplain to the 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 3rd Battalion, was Father Kapaun. He kept the killing spirit of the troops up, but his prayers did not work during the Battle of Unsan on November 2, 1950, which the United States lost. Father Kapaun was taken prisoner. As prisoner he reportedly stole food from the guards. Despite his later-claimed miraculous powers, Father Kapaun became sick, was transferred to a hospital, and died of pneumonia on May 23, 1951. It is notable that other U.S. POWs survived and were
Miracles
Since no one is even arguing that he performed any miracles during his lifetime, it is hard for non-Catholics to see why the Catholic Church would call him a saint. Apparently deluded individuals have been praying to this war criminal for decades. In 2008 apparently God's bureaucrats finally got around to granting a miracle, in which a Catholic 20-year old man had a serious head injury in track practice, but his folks prayed to Saint Kapaun, and he recovered. Then in 2011 a Catholic guy running a 5K race collapsed, and apparently died, but then magically arose from the dead when his cousin prayed to Saint Kapaun.
The Light of Reason
Maybe God does like Catholics to kill Atheists. Catholic Popes certainly like Catholics to kill atheists. But miracles, really? If the guy had curative powers he could have cured his own pneumonia. If he had the power of conversion he could have converted his guards to Catholicism and walked back to U.S. Army lines.
Nope, Emil Kapaun's story just proves that some Roman Catholics are just vicious and stupid. Roman Catholics get sick like anyone else and die like anyone else. The only difference is that they keep the world mired in superstition and violence while they are alive. Individual Catholics may play well with others, and do good as individuals, but that is true of individuals of almost any group you can name, including atheists.
Showing posts with label saints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saints. Show all posts
Monday, June 2, 2014
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Saint Adolf Hitler
The creation of saints has been one of the Vatican's best propaganda tools. Saints encourage national or ethnic affiliation with the Roman Catholic faith, and they may also represent vocations or other attributes people can identify with.
It takes a while for a dead person to achieve sainthood. partly this is because Rome requires three "miracles" to be attributed to a person. In ancient times the miracles usually occurred before death. In our times the miracles are almost always cures that sick people achieve after praying to the potential saint. The Vatican has rules for what is a medical miracle and what is not, and they seem to follow the rules, so it may take quite a few decades of pretty many sick people praying to someone to build up the case for sainthood.
Right now Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day is being promoted as a potential saint. She would have been appalled at such nonsense. She would have had a thing or two to say about Spanish-Civil War era Catholic fascists priests who are in line for sainthood, too.
A rather large number of miracles have been unofficially attributed to Adolf Hitler, the former Chancellor of Germany. The Vatican is keeping them under wraps for purely political reasons. Hitler was the boy wonder of the Catholic Church in the 1920's and 1930's. When the Catholics lost World War II they had to do an abrupt about-face on Hitler. Most Americans think Adolf was a pagan, so effective has the re-write of history been effected.
You have to understand the Hitler, the American political establishment, and the Pope all had a common enemy back then: atheistic communism. Their epitome of evil was Joseph Stalin, leader of the openly communist Soviet Union (USSR, essentially Russia). But people were falling away from Catholicism in droves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The system of simply killing Protestants, agnostics and atheists had broken down even in Spain and Italy. Fascism, Pope Pius XI realized, could be made into the ideal tool to insure that only one religion was allowed in the world.
Benito Mussolini only converted to the Roman Catholic faith after he had achieved power in Italy, but most of his supporters were Catholic and the Pope was willing to work with anyone who could crush the secularist and socialist movements after World War II. Mussolini and the Pope were willing partners.
Adolf Hitler was raised Catholic and first rose to prominence after World War I in Bavaria, which had (and still has) a Catholic majority. His first miracle might be said to be surviving World War I unscathed, despite constantly being on the frontline, except for a leg wound and later temporary blindness from poison gas used by the British near the end of the war. His party, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party was just one of many tiny parties created in the chaos after World War I, and it used Socialist in a sense opposite to its common meaning..
The Nazi Party was not officially Catholic: its membership also admitted Lutherans, a few pagans who wanted to restore the worship of pre-christian German gods, and even modern, non-religious members. The Catholic Center Party was the main Catholic party, but the Pope did not feel it was aggressive enough and in the end pushed to have Hitler as German Chancellor. So perhaps it was not a miracle that Hitler, the leader of the largest party legally elected to the German Reichstag, was given the position of Chancellor on January 30, 1933. The Pope did not feel that his friend Franz von Papen was sufficiently iron-willed enough to destroy socialism and atheism, but as second in command von Papen was supposed to watch out for the Pope's interest.
Hitler's next miracle was a pretty impressive one: helping General Franco establish a purely Roman Catholic, fascist regime in Spain by killing everyone who believed in religious freedom and democracy, even including a large number of Catholics. The Pope was very happy with Hitler and Mussolini about that. Priests killed in the fighting on Hitler's side of Spain's Civil War have been nominated for sainthood. Priests killed on the pro-democracy side have been ignored, but then maybe no one prays to them, and hence they are unable to show their miraculous healing powers.
Hitler and the Pope did quarrel quite a bit from time to time. Each wanted to be top dog. But the Pope was more than happy that Hitler forced German Lutherans into a "unity church" with Catholics. He was thrilled when Hitler's armies defeated the French Republic and replaced it with the Roman Catholic, Fascist, Vichy Government. Most of all, the Pope was thrilled when Hitler's bombers and tanks went for the heart of the Russia.
What was president-for-life Franklin Delano Roosevelt doing about Saint Hitler? At first not much, because he needed American Catholic votes to stay in power. While Catholics were, and still are, a religious minority in the United States, they had power beyond their numbers because of their political and geographic concentration. They were almost all in the Democratic Party, and they were almost all in the northeastern states. The Democrats needed them as badly as they needed white segregationists in the southern states. Thus President Roosevelt refused to allow the Republican (democratically elected) side in the Spanish Civil war to buy arms from the United States.
Roosevelt may have shed a tear for France, but he actually did nothing because he knew the French empire would be up for grabs. He planned for the British Empire, Soviet Union, and Germany to chew up each other in Europe, and for Japan and China to chew up each other in Asia, so that in the end he could conquer the world. Roosevelt was smarter and more patient than your average dictator.
American Catholics would probably have kept this nation out of World War II if it had not been for the war between the Japanese and China, which had much to do with colonialism but nothing to do with religion. When Japan and Germany declared war on the U.S.A., suddenly Catholics here put aside their religion in favor of American nationalism.
The atheists in Russia, while losing about 20 million dead (see Atheist Holocaust), defeated Hitler, and apparently would have even if the U.S. had stayed out of the war. When Stalin's soldiers started marching towards Berlin, the Pope began to hedge his bets. He flipped when U.S. troops invaded Italy. Suddenly he could only remember the fights he had had with Hitler, not their love affair. When Hitler was no longer producing miracles, the Pope needed a more practical basis for the long-term survival of his church in Europe. America made a natural ally because at its core it was anti-communist and pro-capitalist. While the Pope preferred the fascist economic system (with God's blessing, as enshrined in Papal encyclicals that they don't want you reading anymore), given the choice between communism and capitalism, the Pope went with the U.S. and Britain. The Cold War started before Hitler had even died.
Hitler died on April 30, 1945. On his death certificate his religion was marked Roman Catholic. He had run out of miracles.
But he fought the good fight, doubtless went to Catholic heaven, and is due for a revival. Now may not be the time. But be assured, the Vatican is keeping a list, and when the time is ready, the miracles of Saint Hitler will be revealed.
It takes a while for a dead person to achieve sainthood. partly this is because Rome requires three "miracles" to be attributed to a person. In ancient times the miracles usually occurred before death. In our times the miracles are almost always cures that sick people achieve after praying to the potential saint. The Vatican has rules for what is a medical miracle and what is not, and they seem to follow the rules, so it may take quite a few decades of pretty many sick people praying to someone to build up the case for sainthood.
Right now Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day is being promoted as a potential saint. She would have been appalled at such nonsense. She would have had a thing or two to say about Spanish-Civil War era Catholic fascists priests who are in line for sainthood, too.
A rather large number of miracles have been unofficially attributed to Adolf Hitler, the former Chancellor of Germany. The Vatican is keeping them under wraps for purely political reasons. Hitler was the boy wonder of the Catholic Church in the 1920's and 1930's. When the Catholics lost World War II they had to do an abrupt about-face on Hitler. Most Americans think Adolf was a pagan, so effective has the re-write of history been effected.
You have to understand the Hitler, the American political establishment, and the Pope all had a common enemy back then: atheistic communism. Their epitome of evil was Joseph Stalin, leader of the openly communist Soviet Union (USSR, essentially Russia). But people were falling away from Catholicism in droves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The system of simply killing Protestants, agnostics and atheists had broken down even in Spain and Italy. Fascism, Pope Pius XI realized, could be made into the ideal tool to insure that only one religion was allowed in the world.
Benito Mussolini only converted to the Roman Catholic faith after he had achieved power in Italy, but most of his supporters were Catholic and the Pope was willing to work with anyone who could crush the secularist and socialist movements after World War II. Mussolini and the Pope were willing partners.
Adolf Hitler was raised Catholic and first rose to prominence after World War I in Bavaria, which had (and still has) a Catholic majority. His first miracle might be said to be surviving World War I unscathed, despite constantly being on the frontline, except for a leg wound and later temporary blindness from poison gas used by the British near the end of the war. His party, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party was just one of many tiny parties created in the chaos after World War I, and it used Socialist in a sense opposite to its common meaning..
The Nazi Party was not officially Catholic: its membership also admitted Lutherans, a few pagans who wanted to restore the worship of pre-christian German gods, and even modern, non-religious members. The Catholic Center Party was the main Catholic party, but the Pope did not feel it was aggressive enough and in the end pushed to have Hitler as German Chancellor. So perhaps it was not a miracle that Hitler, the leader of the largest party legally elected to the German Reichstag, was given the position of Chancellor on January 30, 1933. The Pope did not feel that his friend Franz von Papen was sufficiently iron-willed enough to destroy socialism and atheism, but as second in command von Papen was supposed to watch out for the Pope's interest.
Hitler's next miracle was a pretty impressive one: helping General Franco establish a purely Roman Catholic, fascist regime in Spain by killing everyone who believed in religious freedom and democracy, even including a large number of Catholics. The Pope was very happy with Hitler and Mussolini about that. Priests killed in the fighting on Hitler's side of Spain's Civil War have been nominated for sainthood. Priests killed on the pro-democracy side have been ignored, but then maybe no one prays to them, and hence they are unable to show their miraculous healing powers.
Hitler and the Pope did quarrel quite a bit from time to time. Each wanted to be top dog. But the Pope was more than happy that Hitler forced German Lutherans into a "unity church" with Catholics. He was thrilled when Hitler's armies defeated the French Republic and replaced it with the Roman Catholic, Fascist, Vichy Government. Most of all, the Pope was thrilled when Hitler's bombers and tanks went for the heart of the Russia.
What was president-for-life Franklin Delano Roosevelt doing about Saint Hitler? At first not much, because he needed American Catholic votes to stay in power. While Catholics were, and still are, a religious minority in the United States, they had power beyond their numbers because of their political and geographic concentration. They were almost all in the Democratic Party, and they were almost all in the northeastern states. The Democrats needed them as badly as they needed white segregationists in the southern states. Thus President Roosevelt refused to allow the Republican (democratically elected) side in the Spanish Civil war to buy arms from the United States.
Roosevelt may have shed a tear for France, but he actually did nothing because he knew the French empire would be up for grabs. He planned for the British Empire, Soviet Union, and Germany to chew up each other in Europe, and for Japan and China to chew up each other in Asia, so that in the end he could conquer the world. Roosevelt was smarter and more patient than your average dictator.
American Catholics would probably have kept this nation out of World War II if it had not been for the war between the Japanese and China, which had much to do with colonialism but nothing to do with religion. When Japan and Germany declared war on the U.S.A., suddenly Catholics here put aside their religion in favor of American nationalism.
The atheists in Russia, while losing about 20 million dead (see Atheist Holocaust), defeated Hitler, and apparently would have even if the U.S. had stayed out of the war. When Stalin's soldiers started marching towards Berlin, the Pope began to hedge his bets. He flipped when U.S. troops invaded Italy. Suddenly he could only remember the fights he had had with Hitler, not their love affair. When Hitler was no longer producing miracles, the Pope needed a more practical basis for the long-term survival of his church in Europe. America made a natural ally because at its core it was anti-communist and pro-capitalist. While the Pope preferred the fascist economic system (with God's blessing, as enshrined in Papal encyclicals that they don't want you reading anymore), given the choice between communism and capitalism, the Pope went with the U.S. and Britain. The Cold War started before Hitler had even died.
Hitler died on April 30, 1945. On his death certificate his religion was marked Roman Catholic. He had run out of miracles.
But he fought the good fight, doubtless went to Catholic heaven, and is due for a revival. Now may not be the time. But be assured, the Vatican is keeping a list, and when the time is ready, the miracles of Saint Hitler will be revealed.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Kateri Tekakwitha, New Patron Saint of Suicide
Saints have not been hard for the Roman Catholic Church to come by even in this modern era of fact checkers and scientific scrutiny. Pope Benedict XVI announced seven new, official saints on Sunday October 21, 2012, all of them with a pedigree of the minimum of three official miracles. None of the miracles seem very miraculous to me, but that is not the point. The point is to keep the Faith alive in communities that had been sadly lacking in recognized saints.
Top of the list, as far as Americans are concerned, is Kateri Tekakwitha, "Lily of the Mohawks." She is the new Patron Saint of Suicide, with a minor in self-flagellation. She is the first American Indian to become a saint (fact checkers: no Mexican or South American Indian saints? Or are we using American in the narrow, Indians almost whipped out by Anglos and French sense?)[Fact checker reply: you are right. 3 Mexican Indians were already saints.]
Benedict XVI said: "Saint Kateri, protectress of Canada and the first American Indian saint, we entrust you to the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America." That is a pretty heavy load to dump on a long-dead 24-year old suicidal virgin.
I would think the story of Kateri would repulse American Indians, or anyone else. Kateri Tekakwitha was born when the Mohawk nation was still substantial, in 1656. Her mother had been converted to Catholicism and then captured by a Mohawk chief. After a smallpox epidemic killed her parents and the French defeated the Dutch, Jesuit missionaries came recruiting. In 1675 Kateri began the conversion process and she was baptized the next year. Spurned by her unconverted village, she moved to Kahnawake, south of Montreal, under Jesuit supervision.
Along with other converted women Saint Kateri decided to practice "mortification of the flesh." She claimed Jesus as a husband. She inflicted so many wounds up herself that she died on April 17, 1680, on the Wednesday before Easter. Allegedly her skin turned white and her smallpox scars disappeared when she died, which was her first official miracle.
That sounds like suicide to me. Sounds like Child Protective Services should have rounded up Kateri and turned over the Jesuits to the police to be hanged.
Her miracles were that friends, shocked by her death, imagined she appeared to them and told them she was going to heaven, and later the usual people recovering from diseases (that people sometimes recover from) after praying to her. You can find better miracles in any psych ward.
Here is the miracle I am looking for: and end to this plague of crazy people. Crazy Catholics and Protestants, crazy Islamics and Buddhists and Jews and what-have-you.
It is not surprising that Pope Benedict XVI would encourage young Catholic women to commit suicide. He has rejected them as potential priests. His anti-female program within the Catholic Church is probably inherited from his volunteering for Hitler Youth when he was a child.
We have enough problems with troubled children in these United States without the Catholic Church glorifying self-mutilation and suicide.
See also: Kateri Tekakwitha at Wikipedia
Pope Canonizes 7 Saints at New York Times
Top of the list, as far as Americans are concerned, is Kateri Tekakwitha, "Lily of the Mohawks." She is the new Patron Saint of Suicide, with a minor in self-flagellation. She is the first American Indian to become a saint (fact checkers: no Mexican or South American Indian saints? Or are we using American in the narrow, Indians almost whipped out by Anglos and French sense?)[Fact checker reply: you are right. 3 Mexican Indians were already saints.]
Benedict XVI said: "Saint Kateri, protectress of Canada and the first American Indian saint, we entrust you to the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America." That is a pretty heavy load to dump on a long-dead 24-year old suicidal virgin.
I would think the story of Kateri would repulse American Indians, or anyone else. Kateri Tekakwitha was born when the Mohawk nation was still substantial, in 1656. Her mother had been converted to Catholicism and then captured by a Mohawk chief. After a smallpox epidemic killed her parents and the French defeated the Dutch, Jesuit missionaries came recruiting. In 1675 Kateri began the conversion process and she was baptized the next year. Spurned by her unconverted village, she moved to Kahnawake, south of Montreal, under Jesuit supervision.
Along with other converted women Saint Kateri decided to practice "mortification of the flesh." She claimed Jesus as a husband. She inflicted so many wounds up herself that she died on April 17, 1680, on the Wednesday before Easter. Allegedly her skin turned white and her smallpox scars disappeared when she died, which was her first official miracle.
That sounds like suicide to me. Sounds like Child Protective Services should have rounded up Kateri and turned over the Jesuits to the police to be hanged.
Her miracles were that friends, shocked by her death, imagined she appeared to them and told them she was going to heaven, and later the usual people recovering from diseases (that people sometimes recover from) after praying to her. You can find better miracles in any psych ward.
Here is the miracle I am looking for: and end to this plague of crazy people. Crazy Catholics and Protestants, crazy Islamics and Buddhists and Jews and what-have-you.
It is not surprising that Pope Benedict XVI would encourage young Catholic women to commit suicide. He has rejected them as potential priests. His anti-female program within the Catholic Church is probably inherited from his volunteering for Hitler Youth when he was a child.
We have enough problems with troubled children in these United States without the Catholic Church glorifying self-mutilation and suicide.
See also: Kateri Tekakwitha at Wikipedia
Pope Canonizes 7 Saints at New York Times
Monday, June 28, 2010
Pius XII, Croatia, and the Eastern Orthodox Holocaust
The Roman Catholic Church has nominated Pius XII (born Eugenio Pacelli) for sainthood. There are a few flies in that sacred ointment.
Apologists for Pius XII (should you have to apologize for the behavior of a saint) portray him as a brave, good man who just happened to become Pope in Fascist Europe just before the outbreak of World War II. The Jewish Holocaust has been the center of controversy: did Pius do all he could to save the Jews from burning in Hitler's ovens?
Before forming a conclusion, you might want to consider how others fared, because the Holocaust was not just the work of Hitler, and Jews were not its only victims. There was the largest holocaust of all, the atheist holocaust, which Pius XII lobbied for, and which Catholics simply will not discuss. Perhaps crucial to the saint debate was the holocaust in Croatia.
Croatia has had an on-again, off-again history as a state. After World War I it was made part of the new superstate of Yugoslavia. During World War II it enjoyed a brief period (1941 to 1945) of independence, then was absorbed back into (newly socialist) Yugoslavia.
Without excusing bad human behavior, let's just admit that the Balkans is a rough neighborhood and has been since pre-Roman times. In particular, Orthodox Christian Serbs, Moslems, and Roman Catholic Croats had been living and fighting with each other long before Pius XII was born. It is possible the tragic mass murders in Croatia during World War II would have happened even if he did not encourage them. But he did encourage them.
First as a child of Vatican lawyers, then as an up and coming lawyer, bureaucrat and diplomat for the Vatican, Eugenio Pacelli had always favored the ideas that the Pope should have absolute power within the Roman Catholic Church, and that all governments should acknowledge the Pope as a sort of global emperor and direct representative of God. Yes, he was crazy, but then he never got out much; he was feeding on the ever-present alternative reality kept up inside the Vatican.
Pius XII hated communism and atheism and even liberalism and democracy (until his side lost World War II, then he changed his tune a bit). He wanted all governments to be monarchies or dictatorships, run just as the Church was run, with absolute obedience and no room for deviation or individualism. He hated Jews (lots of evidence of that is available; ignore it at your soul's peril), thought Protestants should be forced back into his church, and believed atheists should be shot if they refused to convert. You would think he might go easy on Eastern Orthodox Christians, who are usually lumped in as being very close to the Roman Catholic Church. You would be wrong. They refused to accept the authority of the Pope, and several of their diocese had set up by Saint Paul himself.
In 1941, with the war going full tilt, people in Yugoslavia, as elsewhere, had some difficulty picking sides. The Croats (not all of them, of course ...) sided with the Fascists; there was a large, pre-existing fascist organization, the Ustashe. Like almost all the fascists [see Fascism], the Ustashe was mainly Catholic. Led by Franciscan priests, the Ustashe started slaughtering Eastern Orthodox church members, who were mainly ethnic Serbs. The Ustashe killed Jews too, but, strange to us, did not attack the substantial Moslem minority.
You can read some details in Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell (pages 248-267), including what is known about the extensive reports sent to Pius XII about the slaughters, and his encouragement of the Catholic leaders of fascist Croatia.
When you put it all in context, you begin to wonder what a Catholic saint is. I attended Catholic School in the U.S. (where I was taught to hate Jews, Protestants, and atheists), and I got a different view of the saints. They were either victims (martyrs) who gave up their lives to spread the glorious gospel of Jesus, or they very kindly people who helped others who were in need.
I am sure that Pius XII did some good things in his life. But look at his associates. He loved Petain and General Franco. He was in bed with Hitler: his struggles with him were over who would be top dog. He did not speak out clearly against the Nazi attacks on, well, anyone, not even German Catholics. He viciously attacked Catholics who did not agree with him, using his power as Pope to silence anyone who deviated from his insane approach to theology and Church governance.
If that makes the man a saint, I'm glad to be numbered with the sinners.
Apologists for Pius XII (should you have to apologize for the behavior of a saint) portray him as a brave, good man who just happened to become Pope in Fascist Europe just before the outbreak of World War II. The Jewish Holocaust has been the center of controversy: did Pius do all he could to save the Jews from burning in Hitler's ovens?
Before forming a conclusion, you might want to consider how others fared, because the Holocaust was not just the work of Hitler, and Jews were not its only victims. There was the largest holocaust of all, the atheist holocaust, which Pius XII lobbied for, and which Catholics simply will not discuss. Perhaps crucial to the saint debate was the holocaust in Croatia.
Croatia has had an on-again, off-again history as a state. After World War I it was made part of the new superstate of Yugoslavia. During World War II it enjoyed a brief period (1941 to 1945) of independence, then was absorbed back into (newly socialist) Yugoslavia.
Without excusing bad human behavior, let's just admit that the Balkans is a rough neighborhood and has been since pre-Roman times. In particular, Orthodox Christian Serbs, Moslems, and Roman Catholic Croats had been living and fighting with each other long before Pius XII was born. It is possible the tragic mass murders in Croatia during World War II would have happened even if he did not encourage them. But he did encourage them.
First as a child of Vatican lawyers, then as an up and coming lawyer, bureaucrat and diplomat for the Vatican, Eugenio Pacelli had always favored the ideas that the Pope should have absolute power within the Roman Catholic Church, and that all governments should acknowledge the Pope as a sort of global emperor and direct representative of God. Yes, he was crazy, but then he never got out much; he was feeding on the ever-present alternative reality kept up inside the Vatican.
Pius XII hated communism and atheism and even liberalism and democracy (until his side lost World War II, then he changed his tune a bit). He wanted all governments to be monarchies or dictatorships, run just as the Church was run, with absolute obedience and no room for deviation or individualism. He hated Jews (lots of evidence of that is available; ignore it at your soul's peril), thought Protestants should be forced back into his church, and believed atheists should be shot if they refused to convert. You would think he might go easy on Eastern Orthodox Christians, who are usually lumped in as being very close to the Roman Catholic Church. You would be wrong. They refused to accept the authority of the Pope, and several of their diocese had set up by Saint Paul himself.
In 1941, with the war going full tilt, people in Yugoslavia, as elsewhere, had some difficulty picking sides. The Croats (not all of them, of course ...) sided with the Fascists; there was a large, pre-existing fascist organization, the Ustashe. Like almost all the fascists [see Fascism], the Ustashe was mainly Catholic. Led by Franciscan priests, the Ustashe started slaughtering Eastern Orthodox church members, who were mainly ethnic Serbs. The Ustashe killed Jews too, but, strange to us, did not attack the substantial Moslem minority.
You can read some details in Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell (pages 248-267), including what is known about the extensive reports sent to Pius XII about the slaughters, and his encouragement of the Catholic leaders of fascist Croatia.
When you put it all in context, you begin to wonder what a Catholic saint is. I attended Catholic School in the U.S. (where I was taught to hate Jews, Protestants, and atheists), and I got a different view of the saints. They were either victims (martyrs) who gave up their lives to spread the glorious gospel of Jesus, or they very kindly people who helped others who were in need.
I am sure that Pius XII did some good things in his life. But look at his associates. He loved Petain and General Franco. He was in bed with Hitler: his struggles with him were over who would be top dog. He did not speak out clearly against the Nazi attacks on, well, anyone, not even German Catholics. He viciously attacked Catholics who did not agree with him, using his power as Pope to silence anyone who deviated from his insane approach to theology and Church governance.
If that makes the man a saint, I'm glad to be numbered with the sinners.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Israel, Pope Pius XII, and the Holocaust
There is currently a controversy, or renewal of a controversy, about the role of Pope Pius XII and the Jews in during World War II. It is usually posed by mainstream accounts as: did Pius XII do all he could to save the Jews from the Holocaust? Since the current Pope, Benedict XVI, was a member of the Nazi youth organization and is trying to get Pius XII qualified as a saint, now is a good time to get the facts about Pius XII.
"Politics makes strange bedfellows." Here I find myself siding with the State of Israel, whereas I am usually pro-Palestinian (the Palestinians have nothing to do with this particular controversy). Israel, and doubtless many Jewish organizations, don't want Pius XII canonized.
Pius XII, before he became Pope, was the Vatican Secretary of State. Born Eugenio Pacelli, as Cardinal Pacelli he was the right-hand man to Pius XI. To understand Pius XII you have to understand Pius XI, who chose to promote Pacelli to the second highest rank in the Roman Catholic Church.
I think it is fair to say that Pius XI, who became pope in 1922, was the architect of fascism. Of course this is a controversial hypothesis, and can be argued against on a number of fronts. Benito Mussolini would be the other candidate for the title. But it was Pius XI who made anti-Communism the first priority of the Catholic Church. Under the banner of Anti-Communism (and the Church was also openly against democratic forms of socialism, and even capitalist forms of democratic government), Pius helped first Mussolini, then other fascist leaders come to power. I know that is a shocking assertion to most people, but it is not difficult to paint that picture once the facts are at hand. First, however, I want to relate this to antisemitism and thus the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler is usually portrayed as the architect of the Holocaust. His own antisemitism, in the consensus histories, is attributed to anti-semitic cults that he encountered as a young man living in Vienna. However, this does not hold up under analysis.
Hitler was born a Catholic (See Hitler's Catholicism) and was raised as a Catholic in a Catholic state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Antisemitism in Austria was rooted in the Catholic Church. There was a close alliance between the Hapsburg emperors and the Church, which ran the education system under the tender mercies of the Jesuits. When modern ideas began to penetrate the empire in the 19th century and some representative government was allowed, an Austrian Catholic Party (Later the Christian Social Party) was formed, with the Church's blessing. Because the Church itself was be abandoned by so many citizens in the empire, the party's leader, Karl Lueger, hit upon antisemitism as the primary selling point.
The antisemitism of the Holocaust grew out of the antisemitism promoted by the Catholic Church throughout its history. It became enshrined as a principle of fascist government because the Church wanted its prejudices to be backed by the power of the state.
To consider the idea that Pius XI was the architect of modern fascism, see the following essays (they are in linear order):
Pius XI and the Rise of Benito Mussolini
Pius XI and the Rise of Adolph Hitler
Pius XI and the Rise of General Franco
Pius XI, the Rise of Petain, and Fascist Vichy France
Pius XI and his Secretary of State were deeply involved in promoting fascism in other nations, notably Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria as well.
So when Cardinal Pacelli became Pope on March 2, 1939, he had been part of setting up a series of fascist regimes in Europe. Fascist movements, mostly but not exclusively Catholic, existed in many more nations of the world, including in the United States. He was a gung-ho anti-communist who believed that fascist dictators were the best bulwark against atheist communism, and against all rival creeds. Better still, except for Hitler, who had a large Protestant Christian population to deal with, all the dictators made the Catholic Church their exclusive religious partner. Cardinal Pacelli had never spoken out against anti-Semitism. He did not even speak out against mass-murder of non-Catholics, which had just been carried out by the Spanish fascists under General Francisco Franco. Here's what he said:
"With great joy we address you, dearest sons of Catholic Spain, to express our paternal congratulations for the gift of peace and victory, with which God has chosen to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity ... As a pledge of the bountiful grace which you will receive from the Immaculate Virgin and the Apostle James, patrons of Spain ... we give to you, our dear sons of Catholic Spain, to the Head of State and his illustrious Government, to the zealous Episcopate and its self-denying clergy, to the heroic combatants and to all the faithful, our apostolic benediction."
That said, I don't think that Pius XII agreed with the technical details of Hitler's extermination of the Jews. Hitler saw the Jews as not just a religion, but as a race of people. Pius XII and the Catholic Church had a long history of giving Jews (and other non-Catholics) the choice of conversion or death. I believe that if Pius XII had run Hitler's concentration camps for Jews he would have gone to great lengths to convert them to Catholicism. Hitler did not give the Jews that opportunity.
You might say that Pius XII does not sound like much of a saint, but you are using your own definition of a Saint, not that of the Roman Catholic Church. There are many Saints who were mass murderers. As long as they killed non-Catholics, with the idea in mind of converting the survivors to Catholicism, they are considered to be heroes of the church.
"Politics makes strange bedfellows." Here I find myself siding with the State of Israel, whereas I am usually pro-Palestinian (the Palestinians have nothing to do with this particular controversy). Israel, and doubtless many Jewish organizations, don't want Pius XII canonized.
Pius XII, before he became Pope, was the Vatican Secretary of State. Born Eugenio Pacelli, as Cardinal Pacelli he was the right-hand man to Pius XI. To understand Pius XII you have to understand Pius XI, who chose to promote Pacelli to the second highest rank in the Roman Catholic Church.
I think it is fair to say that Pius XI, who became pope in 1922, was the architect of fascism. Of course this is a controversial hypothesis, and can be argued against on a number of fronts. Benito Mussolini would be the other candidate for the title. But it was Pius XI who made anti-Communism the first priority of the Catholic Church. Under the banner of Anti-Communism (and the Church was also openly against democratic forms of socialism, and even capitalist forms of democratic government), Pius helped first Mussolini, then other fascist leaders come to power. I know that is a shocking assertion to most people, but it is not difficult to paint that picture once the facts are at hand. First, however, I want to relate this to antisemitism and thus the Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler is usually portrayed as the architect of the Holocaust. His own antisemitism, in the consensus histories, is attributed to anti-semitic cults that he encountered as a young man living in Vienna. However, this does not hold up under analysis.
Hitler was born a Catholic (See Hitler's Catholicism) and was raised as a Catholic in a Catholic state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Antisemitism in Austria was rooted in the Catholic Church. There was a close alliance between the Hapsburg emperors and the Church, which ran the education system under the tender mercies of the Jesuits. When modern ideas began to penetrate the empire in the 19th century and some representative government was allowed, an Austrian Catholic Party (Later the Christian Social Party) was formed, with the Church's blessing. Because the Church itself was be abandoned by so many citizens in the empire, the party's leader, Karl Lueger, hit upon antisemitism as the primary selling point.
The antisemitism of the Holocaust grew out of the antisemitism promoted by the Catholic Church throughout its history. It became enshrined as a principle of fascist government because the Church wanted its prejudices to be backed by the power of the state.
To consider the idea that Pius XI was the architect of modern fascism, see the following essays (they are in linear order):
Pius XI and the Rise of Benito Mussolini
Pius XI and the Rise of Adolph Hitler
Pius XI and the Rise of General Franco
Pius XI, the Rise of Petain, and Fascist Vichy France
Pius XI and his Secretary of State were deeply involved in promoting fascism in other nations, notably Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria as well.
So when Cardinal Pacelli became Pope on March 2, 1939, he had been part of setting up a series of fascist regimes in Europe. Fascist movements, mostly but not exclusively Catholic, existed in many more nations of the world, including in the United States. He was a gung-ho anti-communist who believed that fascist dictators were the best bulwark against atheist communism, and against all rival creeds. Better still, except for Hitler, who had a large Protestant Christian population to deal with, all the dictators made the Catholic Church their exclusive religious partner. Cardinal Pacelli had never spoken out against anti-Semitism. He did not even speak out against mass-murder of non-Catholics, which had just been carried out by the Spanish fascists under General Francisco Franco. Here's what he said:
"With great joy we address you, dearest sons of Catholic Spain, to express our paternal congratulations for the gift of peace and victory, with which God has chosen to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity ... As a pledge of the bountiful grace which you will receive from the Immaculate Virgin and the Apostle James, patrons of Spain ... we give to you, our dear sons of Catholic Spain, to the Head of State and his illustrious Government, to the zealous Episcopate and its self-denying clergy, to the heroic combatants and to all the faithful, our apostolic benediction."
That said, I don't think that Pius XII agreed with the technical details of Hitler's extermination of the Jews. Hitler saw the Jews as not just a religion, but as a race of people. Pius XII and the Catholic Church had a long history of giving Jews (and other non-Catholics) the choice of conversion or death. I believe that if Pius XII had run Hitler's concentration camps for Jews he would have gone to great lengths to convert them to Catholicism. Hitler did not give the Jews that opportunity.
You might say that Pius XII does not sound like much of a saint, but you are using your own definition of a Saint, not that of the Roman Catholic Church. There are many Saints who were mass murderers. As long as they killed non-Catholics, with the idea in mind of converting the survivors to Catholicism, they are considered to be heroes of the church.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Spanish Beatified Priests, Nuns, and the Luftwaffe
At my Vatican Rag web page I recently posted a commentary, Vatican Names Fascist Saints. In short the Catholic Church has beatified almost 500 clerics who it claims were killed by the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's.
Coincidentally further light was shed on the situation because last weekend I went to the local Pay and Take, a fundraiser for seniors, in Gualala to check out the used books for sale. I bought four, spending $3.00 of my hard-earned dough. One book was The Rise of the Luftwaffe
- Forging the Secret German Air Weapon 1918 - 1940 by Herbert Moloy Mason, Jr. Like most curious people and particularly political scientists, I have spent some time studying the Nazi (German National Socialist Party) rise to power. I figured at worst I would be treated to stories of air battles and design changes in early aircraft.
The book added some fascinating insights to the Nazi story. One of the most powerful, and bizarre, Nazis was Hermann Goering, a World War I ace fighter pilot. After the Nazis came to power (they were elected on a program virtually identical to that of the U.S. Democratic Party of the same era) Goering was put in charge of the German air force, or Luftwaffe. The first combat the Luftwaffe saw was in the Spanish Civil War. The Luftwaffe provided an air lift to General Franco's troops, from Morocco into Spain. Then the Luftwaffe bombed the Spanish Navy, which had mostly stayed on the side of the Republic (the sailors mostly had to kill their officers to achieve that end). Then the Luftwaffe took on the Republican air force, since most of the pilots had sided with the Republic.
At that point the Luftwaffe began the first major aerial bombing campaign in human history. They attacked the Basques, who had sided with the Republic. Which brings us back to the Catholic martyred saints story. I quote from page 231 of The Rise of the Luftwaffe, about Operation Magic Fire:
"The raid caught Durango at the time of early mass, and the town's three large churches were filled. One bomb plummeted through the roof of the Church of the Jesuit Fathers, killing everyone inside except the vicar. Another ripped into the roof of the Santa Susana chapel, killing fourteen nuns. Santa Maria was hit just as Father Don Carlos Morilla was elevating the Host; he was crushed under tons of rubble. The bombs poured through the rest of the town, and when the Ju.52s had emptied themselves, the He.51s swooped down ... the next day ... The fighters added new touches to their technique by machine-gunning the streets after scattering their fragmentation bombs, and two Sisters of Charity were thus killed while running for safety."
A few days later the more-celebrated carpet bombing of Guernica took place.
But the Nationalists fought for religious intolerance of a Catholic sort, Adolf Hitler himself was a Catholic, and by then Pope had already made a pact of collaboration with Benito Mussolini (who also aided General Franco).
Maybe if an outcry is raised, some day the priests and nuns killed by the Fascists will be beatified. That would surprise me, but they say with God anything is possible. More likely the Catholic Church will make Francisco Franco a saint first. After all, he is the Constantine the Great of the 20th century.
Coincidentally further light was shed on the situation because last weekend I went to the local Pay and Take, a fundraiser for seniors, in Gualala to check out the used books for sale. I bought four, spending $3.00 of my hard-earned dough. One book was The Rise of the Luftwaffe
- Forging the Secret German Air Weapon 1918 - 1940 by Herbert Moloy Mason, Jr. Like most curious people and particularly political scientists, I have spent some time studying the Nazi (German National Socialist Party) rise to power. I figured at worst I would be treated to stories of air battles and design changes in early aircraft.The book added some fascinating insights to the Nazi story. One of the most powerful, and bizarre, Nazis was Hermann Goering, a World War I ace fighter pilot. After the Nazis came to power (they were elected on a program virtually identical to that of the U.S. Democratic Party of the same era) Goering was put in charge of the German air force, or Luftwaffe. The first combat the Luftwaffe saw was in the Spanish Civil War. The Luftwaffe provided an air lift to General Franco's troops, from Morocco into Spain. Then the Luftwaffe bombed the Spanish Navy, which had mostly stayed on the side of the Republic (the sailors mostly had to kill their officers to achieve that end). Then the Luftwaffe took on the Republican air force, since most of the pilots had sided with the Republic.
At that point the Luftwaffe began the first major aerial bombing campaign in human history. They attacked the Basques, who had sided with the Republic. Which brings us back to the Catholic martyred saints story. I quote from page 231 of The Rise of the Luftwaffe, about Operation Magic Fire:
"The raid caught Durango at the time of early mass, and the town's three large churches were filled. One bomb plummeted through the roof of the Church of the Jesuit Fathers, killing everyone inside except the vicar. Another ripped into the roof of the Santa Susana chapel, killing fourteen nuns. Santa Maria was hit just as Father Don Carlos Morilla was elevating the Host; he was crushed under tons of rubble. The bombs poured through the rest of the town, and when the Ju.52s had emptied themselves, the He.51s swooped down ... the next day ... The fighters added new touches to their technique by machine-gunning the streets after scattering their fragmentation bombs, and two Sisters of Charity were thus killed while running for safety."
A few days later the more-celebrated carpet bombing of Guernica took place.
But the Nationalists fought for religious intolerance of a Catholic sort, Adolf Hitler himself was a Catholic, and by then Pope had already made a pact of collaboration with Benito Mussolini (who also aided General Franco).
Maybe if an outcry is raised, some day the priests and nuns killed by the Fascists will be beatified. That would surprise me, but they say with God anything is possible. More likely the Catholic Church will make Francisco Franco a saint first. After all, he is the Constantine the Great of the 20th century.
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