Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Excomming Nazis

Don't tell Wills, Foxman, or Cornwell, but it actually happened:


An interreligious group trying to discover the facts regarding Pope Pius XII and his efforts to help Jews during World War II has announced the discovery of documents showing how the Church excommunicated Catholics who joined the Nazis.

The New-York based Pave the Way Foundation said that its representative Michael Hesemann found a large series of documents from 1930 to 1933.

The documents indicate that any Catholic who joined the Nazi party, wore the uniform or flew the swastika flag would no longer be able to receive the sacraments.

This policy set three years before Hitler was elected chancellor made clear that the teachings of the Church were incompatible with Nazi ideology.

How about that? I've been wondering if future generations will look back on all the attempts to link Pope Benedict to the abuse scandal in the same growing light that is shattering the Hitler's Pope myths.

“The documents clearly show an ideological war between the Catholic Church and National Socialism already in the pre-war decade," Hesemann explained. "The German bishops and the Roman Curia considered the Nazi doctrine not only as incompatible with the Christian faith, but also as hostile to the Church and dangerous to human morals, even more than Communism."

Among the documents is a handwritten letter from a leading member of the Nazis, Hermann Goering, requesting a meeting with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII), which was flatly refused.

There are also documents asking for a removal of the excommunication, which was also denied
.

On my repeated ponderings about the likelihood of an apology from Venerable Pius XII's slanderers, it takes me back to the Media Magisterium. Isn't it weird how they demand apologies from the Church for just about every evil that has occurred in the history of the world, yet for their own part, they remain silent when proven so emphatically wrong about such a critical historic detail?

2 comments:

haskovec said...

It was always my understanding that the Nazi's were anti-catholic as well. I thought I heard that there were some number persecuted as well under them.

Throwback said...

Ask St. Maximillian Kolbe about what the Nazis thought of Catholics.

A great book is Priestblock 25487. It's about the wing of Dachau where they kept all the priests.