Posted on 03/15/2008 10:17:55 AM PDT by big'ol_freeper
More than once during these talks I referred to Luther and what always occurred to me as his destructive influence. I pointed out that even in such an admirable book as Rohan Butler's “The Roots of National Socialism” the spiritual origins of Nazism and Luther's influence had not been given the necessary importance. Then I was asked if I would be prepared to elaborate to them—about a dozen of the very senior boys, that is—my own views on Luther and Lutheranism. I agreed—with the proviso that they would be my own views and nothing else. Admittedly, I had read more on Luther and about Luther than on most other subjects. But I wanted to make it quite clear that I would not speak to them with the voice of a great authority, but would merely give them my own interpretation. I told them, moreover, that I should try to prove how dangerous it is to accept legends; and that the picture I had of Luther and his influence was thoroughly contradictory of the customary Luther of the legend.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicapologetics.info ...
Even as one of the more strident Catholics, I want to emphasize that this is one of those dicey topics where there is some truth to charge, the association is unfair. So I’d say “have at it” for acadmic purposes, but expect some people who respond to this jsutified anger.
Ping!
So this means that former Popes, due to the prevalence of homosexual perversion throughout the Catholic church today, can be held responsible for the rapes of boys and girls of today?
Adolf Hitler was a Catholic. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_hitler.html
I agree with you, as I stated in my comment. But, the charge is no more outlandish than that made against Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church that is repeated quite frequently here on FR. I personally had not encountered this exegesis before and thought it would be an interesting discussion. I fully realize that some will react with violent flaming but that’s the price of posting a controversial subject.
Wow...I wish I could read as fast a you all have apparently been able to. That’s a lot to read in five minutes and then post your obviously well thought out and highly intellectual thoughts.
Adolf Hitler left the Catholic faith when he was a young man, and was, in fact, excommunicated twice.
Well, he just needs a prayer to help him out of Purgatory, and he’s still 100% Catholic, right?
What are you talking about?
You wrote:
“So this means that former Popes, due to the prevalence of homosexual perversion throughout the Catholic church today, can be held responsible for the rapes of boys and girls of today?”
How many popes ever said homosexual perversion was okay? Please list all who did so.
I think it is just too much to claim Luther led directly to Hitler, but they were both anti-semitic, nationalists, etc. The popes, on the other hand, never said homosexual perversion was okay.
Your analogy fails.
Try again.
This is sooooo STUPID!
What does it matter if Hitler was a CATHOLIC, a LUTHERAN, a JEW? It doesn’t matter at all - just as it doesn’t matter that Ted Bundy was a Republican.
What a waste of thread.
“While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.”
“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
Adolf Hitler
You wrote:
“Well, he just needs a prayer to help him out of Purgatory, and he’s still 100% Catholic, right?”
What makes you think he’s in purgatory? I think he is in a much more painful place. I guess you think he didn’t do much to deserve worse?
I can’t say that Popes haven’t condoned homosexuality. I know they’ve condoned murder, which led to creation of the Anglican church.
No, it’s Catholics who believe that you can be prayed out of Purgatory if you’ve ever accepted the Catholic church’s teachings.
This is great for him, as he apparently fully accepted those teachings twice. Surely that means each prayer to get him out of Purgatory counts double.
So you actually believe Hitler was Catholic because he said so even though he was murdering Catholic priests?
Hitler was NOT Catholic after his childhood. He simply manipulated people when he wanted to. And now, from the grave, he’s manipulated you too.
You wrote:
“I can’t say that Popes haven’t condoned homosexuality. I know they’ve condoned murder, which led to creation of the Anglican church.”
In other words, you have no evidence at all and your analogy therefore fails. Yeah, I know. We all know. And when condoning of murder are you talking about?
“No, it’s Catholics who believe that you can be prayed out of Purgatory if you’ve ever accepted the Catholic church’s teachings.”
It’s Holy Week leading up to Easter and I’m not going to get into an endless and futile debate regarding Catholicism vs. Protestantism, but please know that your above statement is patently incorrect. One can pray for people who have already died, for their very souls, but only God can judge and bring a person into heaven.
You wrote:
“No, it’s Catholics who believe that you can be prayed out of Purgatory if you’ve ever accepted the Catholic church’s teachings.”
Wrong. A one time acceptance of Catholic teaching in no way overrides the condition of your soul at the time of death. I know of no Catholic anywhere - certainly not one well catechized - who believes that a man’s actions and faith have nothing to do with his final destination. You are claiming that a mere intellectual acceptance of doctrine, once upon a time, ensures salvation. No one believes that, especially Catholics.
Try again.
“This is great for him, as he apparently fully accepted those teachings twice.”
There’s no evidence he ever accepted those teachings once let alone twice. 1) we have no evidence at all - NONE - about any particular strong devotion on his part when he was young and we know he renounced the faith when a young man. 2) He persecuted the faith and undermined it every chance he got.
Clearly he was not Catholic.
“Surely that means each prayer to get him out of Purgatory counts double.”
Surely your post is proof of not only ignorance but bitterness and bigotry as well.
When, and by what action, do you think these excommunications occurred?
During the Nazi regime, the Protestant Church in general supported Hitler. The Protestant clergymen who wound up as inmates at Dachau were those who were anti-Nazi, such as the Reverend Martin Niemöeller, one of the founders of the Confessional Church. Other Protestant ministers who were incarcerated in the Dachau concentration camp were Ernst Wilm and Kurt Scharf. Although there were far fewer Protestants who were persecuted by the Nazis than there were Catholics and Jews, Germany's Protestant Church has admitted using slave labour during World War II, and has pledged to pay compensation to Nazi victims. The admission came after revelations that Berlin church parishes set up a forced labour camp during the war, and used workers from mainly central and eastern Europe for tasks such as grave-digging. "This was complicity in a regime based on force and removed from the rule of law. We accept this guilt," said church council president Manfred Kock.
and
Let me conclude by quoting for the last time Mr. Peter F. Wiener "Throughout the Last war (WWI) and throughout the present one (WWII), the Germans have committed atrocities which are impossible to imagine by those who have merely read or heard about them. This is teaching hatred, but an undeniable though most unplasant fact. Not once in either war has any section of the Lutheran clergy protested -- such as have the churches of Norway and other occpied counties where the Gestapo is at least as strong as inside Germany. With the exception of a few refugee pastors in Britain, I do not know of any section of the German Protestant Confessional Church whose pastors have refused to preach, to serve, to ordain and bless the atrocities and horrors committed by the German armies and their leaders. These facts are unpleasant and horrible. I maintain that we can understand them and explain them only if we look at the dark figure from whom the German Lutheran clergy has for four centuries taken their orders: Martin Luther"
People should read directly what Luther had to say about Jews. It’s shocking.
You may justly criticize Luther for a lot of things, but it is true the church had come way off its center and mission by Luther's time and was in need of a huge correction.
Without Luther, the protestant reformation doesn't take place, nor would the Catholic church have reformed to the point that it would recognizable as Christ's Church once again.
My 2 cents.
Not at all and many protestants would diasgree with you. Read "Mein Kampf" and "Hitler's Table Talk" and Luther's "On the Jews and their Lies" and then try and assert that the association is unfair with a straight face.
“I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing.”
ADOLF HITLER
“Hitler's Speeches”, edited by Professor N. H. Baynes (Oxford, 1942), page 369.
“There is very little to be said for this coarse and foul-mouthed leader of a revolution. It is a real misfortune for humanity that he appeared just at the crisis in the Christian world. Even our burly Defender of the Faith was not a worse man, and did far less mischief. We must hope that the next swing of the pendulum will put an end to Luther's influence in Germany.”
Very Rev. W. R. Inge,(in the Church of England Newspaper”, August 4, 1944).
“It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler.”
The late DR. WILLIAM TEMPLE Archbishop of Canterbury (“The Archbishop's Conference, Malvern, London, 1941, page 13).
I would drop this garbage. There's enough guilt to go around.
If you contrast Protestant North Germany and Catholic Bavaria and Austria, you'll find opposition and support for Hitler and the Nazis at various times and among various people. You can't draw a clear line between bad Protestants and good Catholics (or good Protestants and bad Catholics).
Rather, the line is between an era that was very receptive to statist or totalitarian ideologies, and our own, more libertarian epoch. After Hitler and Stalin, it doesn't take much virtue or intelligence to be anti-totalitarian, but if all of us had been alive and active seventy years ago, some of us would certainly have favored the dictators of the day.
Twice???
Did the first one not take?
All he needed in the bunker was a priest, a wafer, some wine, and say a couple of Hail Mary’s and he went right to Heaven. (Isn’t that what Rome teaches?)
I’m not Catholic, but know enough to say you sound pretty silly and what you said is simply false.
I’m actually not sure, but I don’t believe the Henry VIII or Cromwell preached hatred of Jews the way Martin Luther did. The Nazis were able to sell totalitarianism by blaming the Jews for every evil and Germany was willing to accept that in part because of the religiously based hatred of Jews.
“Queen Elizabeth I and the Popes of Rome
In 1570 Pope Pius V (1566-1572) issued a bull excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I for her actions in separating the English Church from the Roman Church and her persecution of Roman Catholics in Britain. In 1580 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585) conspired to have Queen Elizabeth I assassinated after his initial failure to get Emperor King Philip II of Spain to attack Ireland, the Netherlands and then England.”
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/queen-elizabeth-i-jews-catholics.htm
That’s right, Luther was present at the Inquisition and tortured Jews.
Have you ever though that perhaps Luther’s Catholic roots were showing on this one?
Will the same courtesy be extended to us, here?
Personally, I think God led to Hitler, because God made good things and Hitler perverted them horribly, and if God hadn't made good things, there'd be nothing for Hitler to pervert.
I think I Augustine lead to Hitler because Luther was an Augustinian canon.
I think Bush led to Hitler because everything is Dubya's fault.
According to the boss-lady, I led to Hitler because the whole point of getting married is to have someone to blame stuff on.
According to Freud, my mother led to Hitler.
Okay? Are we done here?
However, if you do believe it's up to God, but still based upon, in part, prayers of the living on behalf of those who are dead, then the prayers of Catholics should indeed be able to help persuade God to let Hitler into Heaven, even if he dies in apostasy. This is something Protestants do not believe.
:-)
LOL! Perfect. Sums up this idiotic article very nicely.
Or a supposed change of heart and some formulaic recitation of such to be re-born in Christ.
I've never heard of such a thing.
Have you ever though that perhaps Luther’s Catholic roots were showing on this one?
From what I've read, Luther's hatred of Jews developed after he failed to convert them.
So whenever either of you post the when's and where's of Hitler's excommunication (presumably before his death) - please ping me.
A rarely-used component of Irving's Law has been invoked. The entire thread is forfeit.
Interesting. I never saw that invoked on the “Hitler’s Pope” threads and/or posts. I guess it must only be selectively applied.
Yes, the northern states did vote for Hitler, and the southern states voted for the Catholic party (or they were excommunicated for voting for Hitler).
But there were a lot of Lutheran pastors who died fighting against the Nazi's. My personal hero Bonhoeffer for example. There were also a lot of Catholics who liked Hitler, and many who worked with him. Some of our Orthodox friends here will attest to that. Heck, even Himmler was a daily mass Catholic until he decided that the Aryan race religion was more appealing. (See “Order of the Death's Head”, a good book on the history and formation of the SS.). The sad thing was that many Germans, Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, even a few Jews (at first anyway) really like Hitler and worked with him. Many didn't see, or didn't want to see, what was going on.
Another fact is that by the time the Nazi's consolidated their rule, the state was putting a lot of pressure on all the Christian churches to go along, or else. The Catholics didn't fair that well either, and many of the priests and pastors went along to get along. If you read the records of the time, the State Church had basically stopped being Christian and became a semi pagan blood religion.
I am not sure why you are doing this. It seems that FR has become once again a place where confessional caucuses accuse each other of being the devil. If I wanted, I could find far worse statements of Catholic clergy about the Jews than what Luther wrote. But as it is Holy week, I will let this slide. For now.
And congratulations. Once, a few years ago, I had hoped that some sort of reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and some Lutheran Synods could be worked out. Now, to be honest, I don't think it will ever be. People here have convinced me of that. We have stopped looking at each other over rifle sights, but it seems that the more devout members would love to do that again.
I am not sure why you are doing this right now. It would be impolite to speculate.
1) "A MORAL RECKONING: THE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS UNFULFILLED DUTY OF REPAIR" by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (Knopf)
2) "THE POPES AGAINST THE JEWS: THE VATICAN'S ROLE IN THE RISE OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM by David I. Kertzer (Knopf)
Try again.
You can't know a man's position with God the moment he died. As a result, prayers are considered helpful to get a person out of the state of “purgatory” and this is why Catholics do this.
If you really cared about God and Hitler, you'd be praying for him. Which “saint” is it that would most help Hitler? Be a good Catholic and get started.
Try again.
According to Vladimir998 (I thought that was you—do tell us if it's not or you've entered another person's body):
Adolf Hitler left the Catholic faith when he was a young man, and was, in fact, excommunicated twice.
9 posted on 03/15/2008 12:44:18 PM CDT by vladimir998 (Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome)
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1986216/posts?page=9#9
And a few minutes later you are stating:
“There’s no evidence he ever accepted those teachings once let alone twice. 1) we have no evidence at all - NONE - about any particular strong devotion on his part when he was young and we know he renounced the faith when a young man. 2) He persecuted the faith and undermined it every chance he got.
Clearly he was not Catholic.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1986216/posts?page=21#21
So, are we to understand that:
A) Hitler actually was a Catholic—twice, and was excommunicated twice
B) Hitler was only a Catholic once, excommunicated, and then re-excommunicated because the Pope didn't think the first one stuck with God
C) You have multiple personalities and can't keep your words straight
Which one is correct?
Try again.
Hitler was excommunicated ipso facto. An example today is someone who procures or participates in an abortion falls in that category. The Church rarely formally excommunicates as excommunication is a rehabilitation tool. I am fairly confident the Church did not look up Hitler as someone who could be rehabilitated...(puts him in the same category as Nancy Pelosi actually).
Other than being baptized in the Catholic Church, he never progressed through any other sacraments (first communion, confirmation etc.) as his family never attended Mass before or after the baptism. Technically he was baptized Catholic but was he Catholic...not so much.
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