Germans Want Pope Who Favors Fascists (2/17/39)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 2/17/39 | Camille M. Cianfarra

[Homer_J_Simpson]

If you would like to be added to or deleted from the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list, send me a freepmail. You can also search for these articles by the keyword realtime, going back to the first one on January 27, 2008.

[Just mythoughts]

Hmmmm wonder what they think of Nancy Pelosi? The leader of our Peoples House.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

The Holy Spirit duly notes your request, Dr. von Bergen, but don’t hold your breath.

[cmj328]

ping

[agere_contra]

From FRee Republic Real Time +/- 70 years, in the year 2079:

"Nancy Pelosi gave her list of totalitarian demands to the Pope. Benedict XVI promptly began to beat on her with a holy-water sprinkler. He then picked her up and dangled her bodily from the balcony of St Peters, exhorting her to recant her evil life"

Ah well, I can dream.

[kitkat]

All the liberal socialists have to do is update the language of the 1930’s in order to write Obama’s speeches. They forget, however, that the ‘30’s led to the ‘40’s and WWII.

Pray.

[BroJoeK]

"The Holy Spirit duly notes your request, Dr. von Bergen, but don’t hold your breath."

I think there was a certain Cardinal Pacelli, who had negotiated an important Concordat with the Nazis in 1933, thus removing the Church from German anti-Nazi politics, and who the Nazis had since then no particular reason to reject, and may even have found him, shall we say, somewhat acceptable?

I wonder how that Cardinal Pacelli will do when the time comes to elect a new pope?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I think there was a certain Cardinal Pacelli, who had negotiated an important Concordat with the Nazis in 1933, thus removing the Church from German anti-Nazi politics, and who the Nazis had since then no particular reason to reject, and may even have found him, shall we say, somewhat acceptable?

According to an account to be published soon after this one relations between Cardinal Pacelli and the Nazis soured within two years of the Concordat.

"By March, 1935, many a bitter complaint had been voiced by German ecclesiasts against the growth of neo-paganism in Germany.

On March 24, 1935, Cardinal Pacelli took notice of this situation. He sent a message of congratulation to Cardinal Schulte, Archbishop of Cologne, on the latter's twenty-fifth anniversary as a Bishop. In it were phrases that the Nazis interpreted as a virtual command to all Catholic Bishops in Germany to challenge the validity of neo-pagan ideas.

Within a week there were retaliations. These chiefly took the form of wholesale arrests of nuns and monks on charges of violating German currency laws.

Once again, in June, 1935, Cardinal Pacelli replied to the Nazis. Speaking to more than 250,000 pilgrims at the closing of the Holy Year of Redemption in the Sanctuary of Lourdes, where he represented Pope Pius XI, he warned that the Roman Catholic Church would never make peace with those "enemies possessed by superstition of race or blood." The Vatican never denied the interpretation that these words were directed at Germany."

The account goes on in this vein for a while longer and ends as follows:

"Cardinal Pacelli led a list of twenty-one Cardinals who would not be acceptable to Germany. Der Angriff freely said his election would lead to a crusade against the totalitarian States."

It doesn't sound to me like the Nazis would consider Cardinal Pacelli "somewhat acceptable."

[BroJoeK]

quoting NYT:"Cardinal Pacelli led a list of twenty-one Cardinals who would not be acceptable to Germany. Der Angriff freely said his election would lead to a crusade against the totalitarian States."

Homer:"It doesn't sound to me like the Nazis would consider Cardinal Pacelli "somewhat acceptable." "

Good point, well made. But I can't tell whose list of 21 that was, or who Der Angriff represents, if anyone, and what sort of "crusade" they fantasized.

The real standard for Church opposition to an abominable government is it's total rejection of Stalin's Communism. By that standard, what Cardinal Pacelli delivered to the Nazis was a mere rap on a schoolboy's knuckles. ;-)