1. Comment #56394 by mummymonkey on July 15, 2007 at 3:21 pm

"Protestants were even more attracted to Nazism than Catholics"

A bold statement. I'd like to see evidence for that.

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2. Comment #56397 by tieInterceptor on July 15, 2007 at 3:25 pm

this looks like a useful article to check every time I need to rebuttal the tired old arguments of the theists on youtube...

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3. Comment #56400 by Geoff on July 15, 2007 at 3:42 pm

http://www.bedfordgaol.com/buckle.jpg

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4. Comment #56403 by krogercomplete on July 15, 2007 at 3:46 pm

anticipated response: "Hitler certainly was not a Christian because he betrayed the teachings of Christ; just look at all the bad stuff he did."

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5. Comment #56411 by The author on July 15, 2007 at 4:38 pm

This article is very one-sided. Hitler also said very often that he hated the Christians. I once had a discussion with a right-wing Catholic, quite an extreme one, and he even argued that Hitler was a Naturalist. Although I knew all the quotations by Hitler in which he refers positively to Christianity, I have to say, I nearly lost. It could be argued that Hitler had some kind of pantheistic religiosity, and when you look at the negative things he said about Christianity - not so different from atheist arguments in fact - then we have another picture.

In the end I would say that it really is very unclear what Hitler thought about Christianity. He even might, to a certain extent, had been a Naturalist (in the sense of not believing in the supernatural) - but one thing he was clearly not: A Humanist. In addition, he believed quite some unscientific stuff, his racial views for example. With that and with this Catholic's lunatic view that all Naturalists are secretly Nazis (kind of doesn't fit at all, just look at Einstein, a Naturalist and a jew), I won the discussion in the end.

What I mainly want to say is: We have to be careful, as some of those people are indeed intelligent and educated. For some weird reason they just believe stuff I can only call insane.

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6. Comment #56423 by GoatBoy36 on July 15, 2007 at 5:29 pm

I always think, when I hear Hitler being mentioned by Christians, that it poses more of a problem for them than it does for me. Because it brings up the problem of evil - big time!

Why on earth did their god not do something about Hitler? Perhaps they don't want to say that their god is an out and out killer (despite the OT) but God could have made Hitler mute. Imagine - no rallies, no speeches, none of that. Game over for old Adolf.

I watched a programme on Discovery not long ago, where they replicated the attempt to blow Hitler up. Apparently they only had one charge in the suitcase because a second one was faulty. When they tried it with two, it blew the dummy's legs off. Also, some gadgie moved the suitcase to the other side of the table leg, which was some kind of old oak, & tough as hell. If that boy hadn't done that, if for example the all powerful god the christians believe in made that boy want to take a pee at that specific moment, so that bomb laden suitcase was left where it had been placed ... bango, end of Hitler, it would have blown his pins clean off. Why didn't god do either of those things, and put an end to WWII?

I mean, sorting a faulty electrical circuit or making someone want to pee, that's within the power of the creator of the universe, surely?

The usual response you hear to the problem of evil is what Drange calls the unknown purpose defence - it's all part of God's unknown plan - If a Christian wants to mention Hitler it would be worth asking him or her what their response to the problem of evil is - if that's the only response they have, then they're going to be forced to admit that Hitler was doing God's will.

Like I said, it's more of a problem for the Christian than it is for me. Ho hum ..

gb.

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7. Comment #56426 by Rtambree on July 15, 2007 at 5:45 pm

6. Comment #56423 by GoatBoy36

>I always think, when I hear Hitler being mentioned by Christians, that it poses more of a problem for them than it does for me. Because it brings up the problem of evil - big time!

Yes, I've also found that raising "The Problem of Evil" is the most effective way to instill doubt in a religious person. They have a lot more problem with evil, than with evolution, cosmology, logic, comparative religion, pointing out inconsistencies in the Scriptures, etc.

Even better testers of faith than Hitler are natural disasters, because Hitler can be explained by 'free will' and the 'Fall of Adam' and possession by Satan, etc. But natural disasters like volcanoes and tsunamis killing or maiming innocent children and devout people.

Atheists of course have nothing to explain: shit happens. Naturally, the faith-heads can always squirm out of it, even natural disasters, e.g. God is testing our faith, all will be compensated in heaven, it's punishment for sin, etc, but nevertheless the problem of terrible things befalling innocent people gives them pause.

One could employ another similar approach - that hundreds of evil people have lived long prosperous happy fun-filled lives. This should also violate theists' internal sense of justice.

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8. Comment #56430 by Fouad Boussetta on July 15, 2007 at 5:56 pm

I subscribe to atheism.about.com, and get a newsletter twice a week (for free).
If you didn't subscribe yet, you should. It's excellent; this Austin Cline guy really does his job.

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9. Comment #56442 by NJS on July 15, 2007 at 7:08 pm

I think its fair enough to use these points in response to Theists but at the same time the cynic in me recognises a man who would easily have pandered to christians in his writings and speeches if he knew thats what they wanted to hear. I see parallels with US politicians (on this pandering point - I'm not calling them nazis).

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10. Comment #56445 by geckoman on July 15, 2007 at 8:07 pm

NJS

You are correct.

Hitler was above all a political expedient, light years ahead of his time. He made pacts with enemies, only to break them when it suited. In his era, this was not the done thing; politicians were gentlemen of honour. When he did do it, his opponents were invariably caught out. This largely explains his military succeses early in the war, until people finally cottoned on.

It is therefore entirely consistent that he said to the Christians what he presumed they would want to hear. As long as it suited his purposes he said anything to anyone. And he needed the Chritain majority onside.

Hitler was clearly not a practising Christian, though he came from a Christian background. But crucially I think, this does not make him an atheist. More accurately he was a power hungry, pragmatic, ultra nationalist sociopath for whom the existence of Gods or not were of little importance measured against his dreams of world domination and a Thousand Year Reich.

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11. Comment #56448 by MrEmpirical on July 15, 2007 at 8:18 pm

This article misses the point.

The question is: Does atheism itself cause people to be less ethical?

Even if Hitler had been a complete atheist, and even if he was supported only by other atheists, that wouldn't prove that he and his supporters were motivated by atheism.

As Sam Harris recently said, the misdeeds of religionists are not always a direct result of their religious beliefs. Harris criticises religious beliefs as harmful only to the extent that these beliefs motivate or lead to harmful actions. Furthermore, Harris has repeatedly asked to be given a single example of a society that has suffered from being too reasonable, too rational, and too willing to rely upon evidence. So far, no such example has been provided. This argument is all that is needed to dismiss those who refer to the misdeeds committed by atheists.

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12. Comment #56449 by ferfuracious on July 15, 2007 at 8:28 pm

~Even better testers of faith than Hitler are natural disasters, because Hitler can be explained by 'free will' and the 'Fall of Adam' and possession by Satan, etc. But natural disasters like volcanoes and tsunamis killing or maiming innocent children and devout people.~

Hitler is still good, probably better if they bring up free will. Then you get to both point out that free will doesn't explain natural disasters, and call them out on free will. For starters, is there free will in heaven? If not, that kind of sucks doesn't it? Surely if it was so critical to give humans free will on earth it would be just as important that they have free will in heaven?

And if there is free will in heaven, then what's to stop someone from being evil and messing everything up? If the theist has an ad hoc explanation for this, ie "people just don't behave immorally in heaven, they have God's supreme love", point out that if this is possible in heaven, surely it would be possible on earth too.

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13. Comment #56451 by DarwinsPitbull on July 15, 2007 at 8:36 pm

I think this just shows how religious people will believe anything, if you tell them your doing gods work. It doesn't really matter to much what he was, I think it matters more who the people who supported him and liked his vision were.
They can argue all they want that Hitler was an atheist, but it was because of the religious that he got power. Even if he didn't believe any of the shit he said about god , he knew it would work on them.

How many atheists would vote for me, if I was running for president and promised you an atheistic society but we had to kill all the jews and christians first? I like to think none would.

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14. Comment #56456 by german-atheist on July 15, 2007 at 9:14 pm

everytime i read your comments about the hitler,stalin,mao argument i get the impression that brits and americans collect their knowledge about nazis,wwII and hitler from watching monty python parodies-hitchens being no exception in his interview in "the atlantic".
neither the german people nor any nazi organisation whorshipped any non-christian god
(jews the biblical god) in significant numbers.some members of the party and the ss thought it would be an advantage for their career to leave the church and when they had to fill in papers or documents they wrote: believer in god (gottgläubig).germany did not have more members of obscure cults than any other christian country.
until they find eva hitler`s (born:braun) diary telling us that adolf got angry when blondie`s
loud barking interupted his evening prayer kneeling in front of his bed in the führerbunker
nobody knows for sure what religios conviction he had.
what he wrote or said in public does not count,since he was a politician.in many speaches before the war and even shortly after the germans had overrun poland he called himself peaceloving !!
i actually never got the hitler,mao,stalin stuff from german theists and when i think about it never from s.o. who comes from a country that had been invaded by germany.maybe their grandparents saw german soldiers attending sunday mass and celebrating x-mas.
so our counter argument should be:nobody knows what hitler believed but almost all germans
were christians which did not protect them from that dangerous virus that stiffens the right arm.

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15. Comment #56465 by troyreynolds86 on July 15, 2007 at 11:21 pm

What seems to be overlooked as we argue, amongst ourselves and with members of that other party, did Hitler use the religion of the people to commit the murders of the Holocaust? Hitler's personal beliefs aside, as they bear little significance to his followers but greatly to his motives, these were the actions of a psychopath, a condition equally dangerous in the hands of an Atheist, Christian or Celtic Pagan, I think we would be careless in linking orders to actions as though it was Hitler's own hand that preform the atrocities. Whether Hitler was an Atheist, a Christian or some strange hybrid of everything in between if he was able to manipulate the religious specifically because of their religion then that serves as an indictment of religion. Perhaps it wasn't "orthodox" Christian beliefs that Hitler used upon the people of Germany but instead a twisted message it would still be called religion even if we don't recognize it as being part of an established religion. This should demonstrate how religion as a blind faith and the faithful's absolute adherence to that faith are always a demonstrated force of cruelty when overseen by the wrong hands and why we should, as a species, move away from something that can be so destructive. I personally do not care if Hitler was a Christian, I care how he could get young men, who otherwise would have been perfectly well adjusted and good human beings, to drop gas canisters into showers. If he did by using their religion his own views mean absolutely nothing.

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16. Comment #56466 by Bonzai on July 15, 2007 at 11:35 pm

Even better testers of faith than Hitler are natural disasters, because Hitler can be explained by 'free will' and the 'Fall of Adam' and possession by Satan, etc. But natural disasters like volcanoes and tsunamis killing or maiming innocent children and devout people.

Well what is a tsunami comparing to THE flood? The God of the bible is a mass murderer, I tell ya.

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17. Comment #56482 by CJ22 on July 16, 2007 at 2:14 am

"Hitler can be explained by 'free will' "

The other problem with free will is "whose free will?" While it may have been an act of free will for Hitler to do what he did, and an act of free will for the Nazis to support him, where was the free will of his victims? The exterminated Jews were not granted free will to act - in fact, the more free will Hitler got, the less the Jews had. Since there were more Jews than Hitlers, doesn't that add up to LESS free will? That's a slightly sophistic point, I know.

Free will was also brought up with regard to the Virginia shootings. It sickened me. Those poor kids weren't offered the free choice of whether to get shot or not. If God granted the shooter the choice of whether to murder or not, he took all the choices away from the victims.

The 'free will' option as an answer to the problem of evil is distastefully immoral, and typical of Christian double-think.

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18. Comment #56483 by Rtambree on July 16, 2007 at 2:23 am

I'm just reading a book on the Enlightenment, and the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 that killed tens of thousands caused a lot of reflection among theists. Many intellectuals were turned from theists into deists, and some deists became agnostics and the first true atheists appeared about that time e.g. d'Holbach.

I wonder if the 2004 tsunami or Hurricane Katrina caused a similar spike in irreligiosity among the general population.

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19. Comment #56484 by stephenray on July 16, 2007 at 2:31 am

It doesn't matter precisely what Hitler believed. What is important are two things: 1) he never claimed to be an atheist, and 2) the Nazi programme was never predicated on atheist principles or considerations.

Therefore, Hitler and Nazism cannot be used to argue that 'terrible things have been done in the name of atheism', which is all that is important.

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20. Comment #56492 by hungarianelephant on July 16, 2007 at 3:03 am

Hitler was a vegetarian. Hitler did terrible things. Therefore all vegetarians may do terrible things.

This sort of argument, if made by a 9 year old, would be laughed out of class. Yet if you substitute the word "atheist" for "vegetarian", it is regarded as a profound argument demanding an urgent response from the godless hordes.

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21. Comment #56505 by HunterZolomon on July 16, 2007 at 4:46 am

I can't help but smile whenever I see Hitler invoked in the debate. Seems a lot of people really want to see Adolf on the opposing team. "We're still fighting the nazis!" justifies almost any belief doesn't it? :)

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22. Comment #56522 by konquererz on July 16, 2007 at 5:36 am

Hitler was a bad man. Perhaps he was a Christian, perhaps it was merely a political piece of crap, but does that really matter? All that lends itself to is that Hitler did what any other politician does even today, use what ever is popular to gain supporters.

It really doesn't matter if he was an atheist or a Christian. But once we are getting down to it, the very evidence that he had to kill Jews shows that he believed that they were an evil people. Jews have been the target of Christians for nearly 2,000 years because they are "Christ killers". Its hard to imagine any other reason that they would particularly be singled out as the bad ones making society bad.

However, he didn't just kill Jews, and he didn't kill people just for their religion, and he didn't kill people because they believe or aren't secular enough. He killed people in the name of a master race, which ultimately has nothing to do with Atheistic "principles" at all. Power and control are its own motivation.

Ultimately, even those evil men that sparked evil in the name of religion got seduced by the same thing as Lenin, Hitler, and Mao. Power. Power and control are their own rewards and the ends to any mean if you want it enough. Thus, even if Hitler was a Christian, it is not likely that he killed only based on religion. Religion merely makes thinks worse.

Religion has become mostly a vehicle to channel that power lust through, a vehicle by which you can control people. If you don't have religion, you have to use something else, something else that can spark as much fear as religion can. That is usually death, such as killing jews, or killing the people, secret police and the like. One way or another, its about power, and gaining control through fear.

Hitler was no different, and had religion not existed, some other form would have been used. However, if you take religion out of the equation, then everyone knows how to react to it. Everyone knows they are being oppressed and beaten down. If you factor in religion, then people start thinking that the oppression and fear being imposed are actually good for them or Gods will. Thats what makes religion so dangerous, it gives people the false premise that its okay and a justification for whats been done.

Everyone knew what Hitler did was wrong (except the catholic church). Everyone knew that Lenin and Stalin were oppressive dictators. Everyone knew that Mao's atrocities were horrid. But what stopped people from being outraged during the Crusades, or the Inquisition? In the name of god has a powerful ring to it that allows the people to back what atrocities are being done. If you take out religion, then there would have been a rebellion over the inquisition. The very fact that its in the name of religion makes it justifiable.

So you see, whether or not Hitler was a Christian or not doesn't really matter. It was the same motivator, without the singular justification of religion to back up his actions. Had Lenin, Mao, and Hitler did what they did in the name of religion or god with some form of justification, then there wouldn't have been the mass surge in the world against them. Religion clouds the boundaries of good and evil, and makes people question whether something is right or ordained.

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23. Comment #56534 by geckoman on July 16, 2007 at 7:19 am

german-atheist

You say "neither the german people nor any nazi organisation whorshipped any non-christian god"

One could make a strong case that the German people and the nazis actually worshipped Hitler in a god-like manner. Hitler and the nazis were quick to seize on the potential of worship, obedience and blind faith, and to skew it in their favour. Look at the crowd scenes during nazism, the iconography and the faith that Hitler was the saviour of Germany and you can see how much they borrowed from religion.

For many, Hitler was approximate to a living God. Although the nazis stopped short of expressly representing him as a living God, implicitly they succeeded in achieving an impression of this stature through projecting his personal infallibility, great wisdom, pure motivations and in turn demanding utter obedience and faith in his actions.

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24. Comment #56535 by Fedler on July 16, 2007 at 7:30 am

Irregardless of his personal beliefs, it's fairly safe to say Hitler USED religion as a motivator of emotions and to get support for his "cause", although this motivation was one factor of many. The fact that personal records can be found of him railing against religions just proves how smart he was. Even though he may have hated religion, he used it as a tool - a means to an end, which makes the whole "Was he religious?" debate rather convoluted.

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25. Comment #56537 by Benjamin Michael on July 16, 2007 at 7:51 am

"Irregardless" ??

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26. Comment #56541 by ranjani on July 16, 2007 at 8:04 am

hungarianelephant:

Just a small point. Hitler was a vegetarian; seems to be a myth like many others.

http://www.vegsource.com/berry/hitler.html

In the above article, he has quoted sections from Robert Payne, one of Hitler's biographers, debunking this myth.

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27. Comment #56543 by Fedler on July 16, 2007 at 8:24 am

"Irregardless" ??

Sorry, I thought that was a word. Perhaps just 'Regardless' would have been a better choice :).

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28. Comment #56553 by bluebird on July 16, 2007 at 11:35 am

Irregardless is a word.

My husband has read quite a bit about Hitler and WWII (NOT from Monty Python); he'll enjoy looking at these interesting posts.

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29. Comment #56559 by ghostbuster on July 16, 2007 at 12:14 pm

Hitler had a fascination with the occult, including gaining possession of the spear that pierced Christ. Lots of Christians and non-Christians dabble in the occult but I think the Nazis needed a framework against which to perpetuate their beliefs---occultism, religion, alternative medicine, the usual anti-science, anti-intellectualism stuff which works surprisingly well now as it did then. We must not forget that atheists can fall into dogma just about as well as anyone else, particularly politcal dogma and it is always a good habit to self-evaluate not only what we believe, but WHY we believe it. The latter is often more important than the former.
It may not have mattered what Hitler believed but it certainly did matter how his beliefs influenced his rule and how they were presented to the populace that put him in the position to rule in the first place. It is akin to saying it didn't matter what those who believed in slavery believed about who were enslaved. Yes, it does. Especially to the millions of dead and tortured slaves.
Yes, Hitler used religion to manipulate. Gee, who didn't? Priests have whispered in the ears of Kings for centuries; the Chief and the Shaman have been figures of power for centuries. It was the Catholic Church that formed the so-called "rat lines" that got high-ranking Nazis out of harms way to be fully integrated into Canadian and American society, often at taxpayers' expense. The very men who initiated the deaths of millions, including our soldiers,were brought over to live freely among us--men of God have shaken the hand of the Devil too many times for me to really decide who is who. The faces of the elite look strangly the same.

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30. Comment #56656 by tgbarton on July 16, 2007 at 7:13 pm

The article wasn't about Hitler; it was about the Nazi party not being atheists. Hitler didn't kill millions of people on his own. Even if their leader was an atheist, the vast majority of Nazis were Christians who thought they were doing the will of God.

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31. Comment #56658 by Goldy on July 16, 2007 at 7:42 pm

"He was a connoisseur of sweets, crystallized fruit and cream cakes, which he consumed in astonishing quantities"
Aha, so he wasn't a veggie - it was the sugar that did it!
Thanks for that wee link, Ranjani. Mind you, it is a vegetarian link - be a bit like believing an evolution article in a religious site...

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32. Comment #56661 by german-atheist on July 16, 2007 at 9:10 pm

@ geckoman

i don`t think one could make a strong case that the germans whorshiped hitler in a god-like manner,although i can imagin many of them included him,along with ma and pa in their prayers.one of the reasons why i think this is an important point is that what you say makes it easy for christians to say something like: you see-they left the "real god",they lost christian morality and that made them do all those evil deeds bla,bla...

@mrempirical

i don`t think the articel misses the point in that it does not represent an opinion but rather tries to give a summary of historical facts. it is labeled:hitler was an atheist...but here the name hitler is also synonym for nazism and the articel is intended to give atheists facts at hand in the boring hitler,mao,stalin discussion.

of course i`m all with you that the question should be:does atheism cause people to be less ethical.


---------
i just read comment #56656 by tgbarton

seems like tgbarton and me agree on the articel

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33. Comment #56665 by ranjani on July 16, 2007 at 9:49 pm

Goldy:

Confirmation bias notwithstanding, one could easily verify or disprove it by flicking through Payne's or Speer's biography of Hitler if one is really all that interested. The actual quote from Payne's biography is very likely to be faithful to the original text, just because anyone could easily prove him wrong if he made that up. Presumably Payne or Speer had no agenda one way or the other.

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34. Comment #56695 by hungarianelephant on July 17, 2007 at 1:18 am

Ranjani - thanks for the link. I learned something new today. Still, I don't think vegetarians need to defend themselves against having Hitler included in their number, other than for the purpose of historical accuracy, any more than atheists do. The argument is just plain silly.

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35. Comment #58104 by drbreakfast on July 23, 2007 at 1:38 pm

17. Comment #56482 by CJ22 on July 16, 2007 at 2:14 am
avatar"Hitler can be explained by 'free will' "

The other problem with free will is "whose free will?" While it may have been an act of free will for Hitler to do what he did, and an act of free will for the Nazis to support him, where was the free will of his victims? The exterminated Jews were not granted free will to act - in fact, the more free will Hitler got, the less the Jews had. Since there were more Jews than Hitlers, doesn't that add up to LESS free will? That's a slightly sophistic point, I know.

Free will was also brought up with regard to the Virginia shootings. It sickened me. Those poor kids weren't offered the free choice of whether to get shot or not. If God granted the shooter the choice of whether to murder or not, he took all the choices away from the victims.

The 'free will' option as an answer to the problem of evil is distastefully immoral, and typical of Christian double-think.

-------------------------------------------------------

I have always been greatly troubled by the "free will" defense because it is so idiotic, even by theist standards. I'm uncertain, but I believe the whole premise of "free will" being a "gift from God" was advanced by St. Thomas Aquinas. In any event, putting aside the strong argument that "God" still allows suffering by way of natural disasters, is not the "free will" concept a mere illusion by Christian standards simply because "God" knows the future anyway? And are not our "choices" rendered moot because "God" already decided how we're going to exercise our "free will" in the first place?

If "free will" is meaningless to "God," and only has relevance to humans, why is "free will" such a wonderful thing? The notion that we are merely following "God's" (to be generous, puzzling) script in a mindless way seems to take "meaning" out of our lives, denying us the illusion of full humanity. But why did "God" make us so? After all, he could have made us to be perfect robots happily following every command, so what's the point? And if "God" already knows and in fact dictated our choices in advance, "free will" is merely a delusion.

Of course, "free will" is all just theist nonsense. Held up to the light of reason, its soundness as a legitimate explanation for evil quickly evaporates.

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36. Comment #75695 by Bunc on October 3, 2007 at 10:59 am

The issue of whether Hitler and the Germans were essentially Christian or not is in some ways beside the point.

Hitler created a cult of Nazism with a body of beliefs, a holy book ( mein kampf ) and all the other trappings of religion with Hitler as the Divine inspired authority. Belief in Nazism was essentially a faith based belief akin to religious belief and it offered its own version of "salvation" - well for the German people anyway.

Atheists generally abhor such doctrine based belief systems and in no sense can Hitler or the Nazis or the German people who followed them be said to have been following an Atheist program. It was essentially a religious phenomena - it just so happened that this time the "prophet" was Hitler.
http://ayrshireblog.blogspot.com

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37. Comment #105302 by FXR on December 31, 2007 at 8:02 am

Zip History: The Catholic Church and Hitler's Final Solution

The Roman Empire 3rd Century:
The Edict of Caracalla in the year 212 CE grants the Jews full citizenship. The Jews had overcome initial hostility to become full members of society.

A century later Constantine becomes a Christian (a hotch potch of previous Pagan/Jewish myths with some new dogmatic embellishments) and persecution of the Jews begins.
They are excluded from all civil and military posts, forbidden to employ Christians, or to give to them or receive from them medical aid. Jewish/Christian intermarriage is deemed adultery and a capital offence. In a lawsuit between Christians and Jews, only Christian witnesses are acceptable. Ambrose in the West and Chrysostom in the East justify all this by giving it a theological basis.

Based on the absurd idea that one set of living people should be blamed for a supposed crime allegedly committed by some distant ancestors the Jews suffer centuries of discrimination at the hands of the Catholic Church.

On 17 July 1555 Pope Paul IV publishes the Bull Cum nimis absurdum which is to prove a landmark in anti-Semitism. The Bull stresses that by nature the Jews are slaves and should be treated as such. For the first time they are to be confined to an area know as a 'ghetto'. Each 'ghetto' has only one entrance. Jews were obliged to sell all their property at knock down prices to Christians. They are restricted in commerce to rag trading. 95% of the Synagogues in Rome are destroyed. They are already without books since Paul IV had burned them all, including the Talmud, when he was a Cardinal. They are obliged to wear a yellow hat in public. These and countless other oppressive restrictions are imposed on Jews for a mythical crime they could not have been responsible for.

These oppressive measures are to be a blueprint for those adopted by another Christian army led by baptised Catholic Adolf Hitler in the twentieth century.

In 1581 Gregory XIII states that the guilt of the Jews in rejecting and crucifying the 'christ' character only grows deeper with successive generations entailing perpetual slavery.

A succession of Popes (anti-humans) reinforce these ancient prejudices against Jews. Pius VII followed by Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX – all good pupils of Paul IV.

Leo XII (1823-9) decided Christians were getting lax. He again locks Jews inside ghettos. He also forbade them vaccination against smallpox during an epidemic because it was 'against the natural law'.

Pius IX (1846-78) imprisons a Jew of good standing for employing an elderly Christian lady to take care of his linen.

1858 the case of Edgardo Mortara takes place. The child snatched from his Jewish parents on the basis that their illiterate Catholic babysitter had secretly baptised him.

In September 1870 Italian troops take Rome amid scenes of jubilation. Eleven days later on 2nd of October 1870 the Jews, by royal decree are granted the freedom which the Catholic Church has denied them for fifteen hundred years. The last ghetto in Europe is dismantled. The Jews rejoiced, little did they know their darkest hour was yet to come.


The Catholic Church tried to eliminate the Jews by forced conversion Hitler will try by forced extermination.

On July 20, 1933 the Reichskonkordat was signed by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli and Franz von Papen on behalf of Pope Pius XI and President Paul von Hindenburg, respectively. In the Concordat, the German government, with the cooperation of Rome, achieved a complete proscription of all clerical interference in the political field (articles 16 and 32). It also ensured the bishops' loyalty to the state by an oath and required all priests to be Germans and subject to German superiors. Restrictions were also placed on all Catholic organisations. Hitler and the Pope had stifled all possible opposition by Catholics within Germany. (It is still valid today in Germany)

September 15 1935
The Nazis passed the Nuremberg Law: the similarities to the decrees of Innocent III and Paul VI are beyond dispute.
When the Nazis named Jewish areas of confinement 'ghettos' they were aiming expressly to give their policies continuity with those of the Popes and a species of respectability.

Paul XI who died in 1939 wrote an anti-fascist encyclical which went unpublished at his death. His successor, Eugenico Pacelli, Pius XII, was more cautious. He feared communism because of it's antipathy to organised religionism more than he did fascism with which the Church has found an accommodation in countries across the globe.

The Second World War began and a renewed persecution of the Jews leading to
Die Endlösung: the Final Solution.

Rome's reaction in the years that followed became know as The Great Silence. The Catholic Church, a veritable hyper machine for the manufacture of decrees and dictates on everything from where you go when you die to which way you can have sex never spoke out about the extermination of the Jews. Over 23 million Germans, twenty five percent of the SS and in total one third of the Nazi army were Catholics. None of them including Hitler were ever excommunicated save one: Joseph Goebbels for the crime of marrying a protestant.
Despite international condemnation the one man Hitler feared most, the Pope, never spoke a word. Winston Churchill called it 'probably the greatest and most horrible single crime ever committed in the whole history of the world.


The concentration camps were reached and the world learned the horror of genocide, the Catholic Church still did not.

Paul VI in a sermon preached on Passion Sunday 1965 still would not clear the Jews of killing the Christ character. In his sermonising he said "Jews were predestined to receive the Messiah and had been waiting for him for thousands of years. When Christ comes, the Jewish people not only do they not recognise him they oppose him, slander him and finally kill him".

ref: Vicars of Christ by Peter De Rosa

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