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Let me post this before the buck-toothed bubbas come in and claim otherwise...

Pope Pius XII secretly rescued many Jews from the Nazis, while safeguarding the lives of many Catholics and other Christians at the same time by not being "in Hitler's face". The Vatican was in a tight spot, especially after the Germans invaded fascist Italy, and since Rome was occupied by the Axis powers. Any open dissent would have led to the swift persecution of Catholics (already going on to a lesser degree) and the possible looting and destruction of the Vatican itself.

Since the Church has no standing army, it did what it could for the Jews, when it could, and to think otherwise is simply wrong. A Jewish Rabbi recently debunked a lot of the fallacious myths about the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII during WWII in his book.

It's footnoted.

This is a quote from the article:

Lapide did blame the Church for not eradicating anti-Semitism before the Holocaust. But he concludes that the precipitating element was not Christianity, but rather the weakening of Christian belief and practice.

As of 1999, the Church also blames itself for exascerbating anti-Semitism, which was my point, and the reason I showed you those pictures of how biblical rhetoric was employed in anti-jewish nazi propaganda. Lapide understates the case, as do many of the churches' apologists; the Church's essential gaping sin in all this, is not adequately characterized as "not eradicating anti-semitism". The church invented and nurtured anti-semitism, which was why it was such a rich source for nazi propaganda.

Hitler, he says, knew that the Church was his enemy. He used the epithet, "Christ killers," to arouse hatred against the Jews, "but he ultimately killed them to rid the world of Christ and the 'Christ- givers

By census, before and after WWII, Germany was overwhelmingly christian. While it is certainly true that many catholics helped 860,000 jews to escape the Holocaust, it's also true that that the 6,000,000 jews put to death, were put to death largely by christians.

As for the general contention that the church could not have done anything more, rescued jewish testimony to the contrary notwithstanding, it clearly could have. Some obvious examples?: It refused to turn over its records to the nazi jew-hunters, when the records were relevant to jews who had converted, but not if they were mere jews; the church could have ex-communicated the Slovokian church officials who were personally shoving jews into boxcars; the church could have spoken up for the jews in the same manner that it spoke up for, and halted the obliteration of, old, crippled and weak aryan christians.

Pointing out that many christians recognized their inherent brotherhood with their jewish neighbors, should not allow us to forget that the church bears a major share of the responsibility for creating the wedge between christians and jews with 1400 years of denigrating rhetoric, laws, and calls to crusade. There is an obvious connection, in the expression of philosophical contempt for jews, between the Auschwitz Gate and the building on the Vatican grounds dedicated to kidnapping jewish children to be brought up Catholic.

Cheerleading, even well footnoted cheerleading, for the christians who chose to rise above the anti-jewish church rhetoric to which they had been exposed, does not really address the question of where that 1400 year old christ-killer rhetoric came from.

Roman Catholic Church was under duress in almost all of Nazi occupied Europe and did what she could to preserve the Church and the flock because Hitler had a plan to abolish RC Church in his "1000 year reich".

However, there was a part of Europe where RC church was not under duress of Nazi regime. It was Independent State of Croatia, Hitler's ally.

The role of RC Church and Pius XII in WWII events can be seen best from this angle because the actions there were of free will.

The striking differences between RC in Croatia and the rest of Europe:

In Europe, RC clergy was incarcerated in concentration camps.

In Croatia, RC clergy and nuns have run extermination camps and murdered inmates.

According to the The Canon of RC Church, clergy is not allowed to work for other employer without tacit approval of their superior. That means that RC nuns could not run extermination camp for children without tacit approval of the RC Church. In one such camp, Jastrebarsko, thousands of children were starved to death.

In Europe, many of RC clergy opposed Hitler and assisted underground resistance.

In Croatia, all of RC clergy supported Nazi regime and took an active role of supporting Nazi war effort. Many with weapons in their hand, murdering inmates in concentration camps.

More than half a milion Serbs (one million according to Croatian bragging to Germans during the war) and 60,000 Jews were murdered in Nazi Croatia.

60,000 Jewish victims of Holocaust in Croatia are forgoten today because of the political interest. 6 million can be be forgotten tomorrow for the same reason.

When the war was over and Hitler dead, Vatican activelly helped Croatian war criminals by:

-organizing Ratlines to spirit war criminals to South America
-Vatican bank helped Croatian Nazis to hide the loot taken from the genocide victims.
-Croatian fuehrer Pavelic was spirited to South America under guise of RC priest.

Last but not least, Pius XII elevated head of church in Croatia ArchBishop Stepinac to the level of Cardinal. Again, this was done out of free will, there was no Hiter around to appease.

Jonh Paul II beatified Stepinac. Stepinac will probably become The Patron Saint of genocidal murderers.

Today, Vatican is silent about the role of RC Church in the Holocaust in Croatia.

This article is good example of this. Glossing over as if it never happened will not erase the traces of moral responsibility.

It is not news when Pope Benedict XVI visit Auschwitz because RC Church has nothing with Nazi crimes commited there. It will be news when Pope Benedict XVI visits Jasenovac where hundreds of thousands were murdered in the most bestial way in the name of RC faith.