Hi Lorelei,
I find it ironic that you discredit me, a mere layman of the Bible who never professes infallibility with one simple statement.
Yes, one simple statement which is a
gross misrepresentation and which bears
false witness. We call this
libel as an offense against the positive and moral law.
As for my statement, I will do some research and try to find where I read that Hitler was Catholic until his death.
While you're at it, check the sources. Make sure it wasn't at
Anti-Catholic-And-I-Don't-Care-What-The-History-Books-Say.com I can create a webpage or a tract right now that says Hitler was a Catholic until his death, but that wouldn't change the verifiable, reliable evidence that is strewn throughout the sources.
If your pope made a sincere statement that spoke to the vile crimes of the holocaust, you might want to share that with the Jewish nation, they are still disappointed that no pope ever has spoken out against it.
*grin* You're kidding with me, right? No pope ever spoke out against the Holocaust? Are you saying all of this in
good faith? I hope so, for the sake of your soul, which otherwise is falling deeper and deeper into the sin of
false witness.
As a matter of fact, your pope ... admits that the church was silent about it and did absolutely nothing.
Okay, Lorelei, you just said
that Pope John Paul II admits that the Catholic Church was silent about the Holocaust and did absolutely nothing.
You made the accusation, now prove it.
Show us where Pope John Paul II said this. Show us where Pope John Paul II has admitted that the Church was silent about the Holocaust and did absolutely nothing about it.
I publicly challenge and rebuke you for making up such a
lie, and I'm calling it what it is, and I'm calling you out for the act of lying that you have just committed.
Now, to address the accusation that the Catholic Church
did absolutely nothing (apart from your lie that Pope John Paul II ever admitted such a thing).
Did you read my last post? Or am I posting to an empty void, which neither listens nor cares about the evidence?
I
just gave you evidence that you disregard by closing one eye. You may have to close another eye at what I'm about to show you in order to perpetuate your prejudiced, uninformed opinion:
In 1967, Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide estimated that Pope Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." (1) In other words, no institution, outside of the Allied armies, did more during WWII to save Jewish lives from the Holocaust than the pope and the Catholic Church. To put those numbers in even clearler perspective, consider that the Nazis had within their grasp 8,300,000 Jews. Six million of these were killed, leaving only 2,300,000 survivors. (2) If we take Lapide's lowest estimate of the Jewish lives that Pope Pius XII was "instrumental" in saving - 700,000 - it amounts to 30% of the Jews who survived Hitler's holocaust.
(1) Quoted in "Pius XII and the Jews," by Rabbi David G. Dalin, in
the Weekly Standard, 26 February 2001, p. 31.
(2) These figures are taken from Robert Leckie's on-volume history of WWII,
Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War II (Perennial Library, 1987), p. 914.
The pope - who was surrounded by Fascist Italy, which, by 1940 was the ally of Nazi Germany - intended to bring as many Jews as he could to freedom. Thousands of Jews were housed, literally, in Church buildings in Rome - even after the Nazis occupied the city in 1943. Go to Rome. Take tours of the churches.
I have. You'll learn of false ceilings in some of the largest churches in Rome that hid hundreds of Jews in hidden rooms from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Of the forty-four public speeches that Nuncio Pacelli made on German soil between 1917 and 1929, at least forty contained attacks on National Socialism or Hitler's doctrines. (3) As pope, he took the name of Pius XII (1939-1958). Cardinal Pacelli, under Pius XI's leadership, called on Catholic archbishops to lobby their government to accept Jeiwsh immigrants from Nazi tyranny. (4) The Nazis understood that the new pope was their enemy; shortly after Pacelli's election in 1939, a secret Nazi security report noted, "Pacelli has already made himself prominent by his attacks on National Socialism during his tenure as Cardinal Secretary of State ... In adopting his name [Pius], will he not also resume the work of that man whose collaborator as Secretary of State he has been in recent years?" (5).
(3) Rychlak, Ronald J.,
Hitler, the War, and the Pope, p. 18.
(4) Ibid, p. 105.
(5) Ibid, p. 110.
When Pius XII was questioned as to why he would not protest against the extermination of the Jews
In 1943, Hitler (in the year the Nazis occupied Rome) planned to seize the Vatican and kidnap Pius XII. Another plan was developed by SS cavalry units in 1944 to "massacre Pius XII with the entire Vatican," because of "the papal protest in favor of the Jews." (6) These plans didn't come through, but if the Nazis decided that they couldn't risk kidnapping or killing the pope, they did send Cathoilc priests to the death camps for "treason" against the Nazis. Moreover, they punished Jews even more severely whenever the Church condemned Jewish deportations. The Church delivered such condemnations repeatedly in 1942, with regard to Dutch Jews and Jews being deported from Vichy France - to no positive effect. In sheer fact, the Church - and this shouldn't be surprising - was most effective as a silent rescuer by
doing rather than merely talking. Our own age tends to prefer the latter, because it offers painless self-affirmation. But in World War II, public condemnations were no more than a lit candle in a window - a symbolic gesture - and, unfortunately, an incitement to those who would kill.
(6) Rabbi David G. Dalin, "Pius XII and the Jews," p. 36-37.
If, as you suggest, the Pope was so greatly opposed to Hitler's Germany, was it because of their extermination of the Jews? If so, why is the rest of the world not aware of the fact that he was?
The rest of the world is. It's those who have been fed false propaganda and who haven't read the sources and listened to the scholars (like
you, for instance) who perpetuate these myths.
the pope and the church have never openely admitted that they believe that the Holocaust was wrong.
WOW!!! Are my ears deceiving me, or did you just say that "
the pope and the church have never openly admitted that they believe the Holocaust was wrong"???? This is getting worse by the moment. Or rather, your witness is getting worse.
I refer you to these articles:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/links/search.cgi?query=holocaust&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
"
[T]he best historical evidence now confirms both that Pius XII was not silent and that almost no one at the time thought him so ... Any fair and thorough reading of the evidence demonstrates that Pius XII was a persistent critic of Nazism. Consider just a few highlights of his opposition before the war"
All of the above public denunciations of the Holocaust can be found in the same article from which the above quotation was taken here:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/links/jump.cgi?ID=2902
Have you ever heard of
Rabbi Zolli, Lorelei? I'm going to guess that you haven't considering your vast ignorance concerning World War II, Pius II, and the Third Reich, an ignorance, which you are responsible for mending as you make these ludicrous and bigotted statements.
On February 17, 1945, Israel Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and his wife, were baptized in the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels, by Msgr. Luigi Tralia. With no secular reason for doing so, Zolli converted to Catholicism and took Pius XII's Christian name, Eugenio. This is a very
unexplicable move if the Catholic Church was as you say it was with regard to the Holocaust.
Read all about it:
http://www.petersnet.net/browse/4533.htm
No, really, read all about it:
http://www.petersnet.net/browse/4533.htm
I've had about enough of this trash. I don't have the time to spoon feed you what you can easily read for yourself. I've given you the sources. Have a good day, Lorelei, and, for your own soul's sake, educate yourself on what you speak about before you go off bearing terrible, cruel
false witness against your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Again,
to make it simple and easy for you, here are two of the online articles referenced above (click on them), both of which were written by a Jewish rabbi:
"Pius XII and the Jews" by Rabbi David G. Dalin
"A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews" by Rabbi David G. Dalin
[ June 17, 2003, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]