Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: ultima ratio
The Vatican was very early in condemning Nazism. Your comment is proof of the claim made by Gibson in the New Yorker that there is a concerted effort to link the Holocaust to the Catholic Church.

Did Pius XII washed his hands also?

Honestly, Gibson made his money by portraying a violent police officer, or a warrior of some sort. He teaches kids that violence is good to respond to violence. When did he attempted to turn the other chick. How thin is the line separating fantasy from reality. Do you know what his true artistic intentions are? Do you really know?

The Church spoke out early and clearly about the Nazis and Vatican archives reveal that Pius XII considered Hitler evil from the very start of his rise to power and stated this in his letters.

The archives were partially revealed about 50 years after the war. Lots of time to rewrite history, don't you think? You are wrong when you say Hitler was evil, his followers were far more evil than him! Unfortunately, shades of Hitler followers are still around doing their little EVIL THINGS.

19 posted on 09/10/2003 2:52:04 PM PDT by Right to be Wrong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies ]


To: Right to be Wrong
Zot
20 posted on 09/10/2003 3:55:41 PM PDT by big'ol_freeper ("When do I get to lift my leg on the liberal?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies ]

To: Right to be Wrong
Be educated or go away:

--Before he became Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Pacelli drafted the papal encyclical, MIT BRENNEDNDER SORGE, in which Pius XI denounced Nazi paganism and racism; the document was smuggled into Germany in March, 1937 and read from all Catholic pulpits, which infuriated the Nazis;


--It is well documented by Jewish scholars like Joseph Lichten of B'nai B"rith that Pius used the assets of the Vatican to ransom Jews from the Nazis and that the Vatican under Pius ran an extensive network of hide-outs. Even the Pope's summer residence, Castel Gondolfo, was used to hide fugitive Jews. The Pope, moreover, took personal repsonsibility for the children of deported Jews;


--Largely as a result of the Church's efforts, the Jews in Italy had a far higher survival rate under Nazi occupation than was the case in other countries; estimates of the number of Jews saved by the Vatican's efforts range up to several hundred thousand; this was one reason why the chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism at the end of the war;


--In appreciation of what Pius did for the Jews, the World Jewish Congress made a large cash gift to the Vatican in 1945; in the same year, Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem sent a "special blessing" to the Pope "for his lifesaving efforts on behalf of the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy"; and when Pius died in 1958, Israel's Foreign Minister Golda Meir gave a him moving eulogy at the United Nations for the same reason;


--What was to be gained by Pius's getting up on a soap box and lashing out at the Nazis? Both the International Red Cross and the World Council of Churches came to the same conclusion as the Vatican: relief efforts for the Jews would be more effective if the agencies remained relatively quiet; yet, you never hear anybody attacking the Red Cross for its "silence" about the Holocaust;


--In 1942, the Catholic hierarchy of Amsterdam spoke out vigorously against the Nazi treatment of the Jews; the Nazi response was a redoubling of round-ups and deportations; by the end of the war, 90 percent of the Jews in Amsterdam were liquidated. Jewish relief officials were in complete agreement that a public attack by the Vatican against the Nazis would a) not have the slightest effect on Hitler and b) would seriously jeopardize the lives of Jews who were being hidden in convents, monasteries, etc.;


--Nevertheless, Pius's Christmas message in 1942 decried the fact that hundreds of thousands were being persecuted "solely because of their race or ancestory." The German ambassador to the Vatican complained that Pius was "clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews." A NEW YORK TIMES editorial on Christmas day, 1942 praised Pius as "a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent";

25 posted on 09/10/2003 10:58:57 PM PDT by Deathmonger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson