Hitler and the Church

The glut of invectives that have been hurled at the Catholic Church in recent weeks has been the main topic at two Catholic websites I visit regularly: Le Salon Beige and Yves Daoudal. While this is not a topic I had any intention of getting involved in, since it is not directly related to what I want to do, it has been impossible to ignore the fact that an unusually widespread and relentless fury is pursuing the Church with fierce resolution. The intent may be to stir up hatred or criticism of the Church, but this would be nothing new. For the French Catholics that I read, this goes beyond that - it is nothing less than a frenzied attempt to finish off the French Church once and for all, and to stigmatize the Pope himself. Popes, I should say, since John-Paul II is also targeted. For French Catholics, it is the French Revolution reenergized to complete its task.

No one denies that guilty parties should be punished. But so many of these charges come to light so many years after the presumed crime, it is impossible to know with certainty which accusations are founded and which are pure fantasy or maliciousness or desire for easy money won in the courtroom.

This situation is similar to the wave of accusations brought against men by their female colleagues that filled our front pages for so many years after the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. Every day we heard of major corporations paying out millions to women who claimed to have been "harassed". Many of the accusations were false, but it was sometimes easier to just pay the women off than to fight them. Since that time the standing of white men in our society has not ceased to diminish in favor of females who are ambitious at best, and feather-brained dolts with no sense of right and wrong, at worst, seeking positions of skill and power for which they are not and will never be qualified.

I was interested in this post from Le Salon Beige because it shows that Adolph Hitler went after the Church with the same deliberateness that he pursued the Jews. For the Nazis, for most pagans, Judaism and Christianity must both perish. The former engendered the latter, and while the Jews were perceived by Hitler as subhuman, the Catholics were perceived as weak, soft, and lacking the violent proclivities he admired in Islam. He perceived Catholic clergy as sexual perverts. Hitler, it would appear, also admired the French Revolution for its violent anti-clericalism.

The article is based on Goebbels' diary, and some of you may be familiar with it. While the diary has been translated into English, I am doing my own rough translation here, from the French version:

May 29, 1936 - Departure for Kiel with the Führer. Major morality trials against Catholic priests. The Führer believes it is a characteristic of the Catholic Church.

October 11, 1936 Koblenz - The atmosphere is good, but social misery is great, especially among wine-growers. The influence of the Church is diminished, especially because of the trial of the Franciscans. I am learning horrible details about this. A pig sty, as it is said in the Book. There you have the Catholic Church - a gang of pederasts!

April 2, 1937 - Phone call from the Führer: he wants to start hostilities against the Vatican. The trials in Koblenz are commencing. As an opener, a horrible sexual crime committed against a young boy in a Belgian convent. I am sending a special envoy from Berlin to Brussels to conduct his inquiry there. The priests do not understand our patience and our mercy? They will learn about our rigor, our hardness and our implacability.

April 30, 1937 - The press is now violently going after the perversity in the Churches. They are using hard-hitting arguments difficult to refute. It is going badly for the priests. The trials themselves unveil the most atrocious ignominious acts. The pillory!

May 12, 1937 - The trial against the priests is becoming more and more nonsensical. Now it is the vicars general and the bishops who are implicated, directly or indirectly. Bishop Preysing made a declaration from the pulpit against our criticisms that have appeared in the press. I'm taking care of this now and I am going to give him a thrashing that will stun him.

In the diary entries Hitler comes across as a reformer of morals.

Some responses from LSB readers:

- Satan is unleashed this year of the priesthood (June 2009-2010). Could it be his swan song?

- To (your) question about Satan's swan song, frankly and without hesitation, I would answer yes. We are not far from the edge of the precipice. The fury against Benedict XVI appears more and more like a resounding media failure. It is comforting to see the diversity of the signatures on the Appeal for the Truth. We can hope.

Note: Whatever Catholics may think, we can be certain that this is not Satan's swan song.

- The Nazis were revolutionaries inspired by the anti-Christian doctrines and hostile to all that the sacred nature of the Church represented. Don't forget that Hitler greatly admired the "sans-culottes" of 1793 and that for him the persecution of Catholics was primordial in Germany from 1933 to 1945, as were Judaism and certain Protestant churches.

Hitler hated the Christian religion. I can tell you that he opened up camps to exterminate Christians, Jews and Protestants hostile to his policies. (...)

The Arcona, a ship that had formerly made connections between Germany and the Nordic countries, sent to the bottom of the sea thousands of innocent Catholics, Jews, Soviets, Poles, etc... All because Hitler admired Robespierre and his clique of madmen who exterminated the people of Vendée.

For the Nazis, Catholics were "brigands" comparable to those in Vendée...

Revolutionaries and Nazis = same combat!

Note: I believe he must be alluding to the Cap Arcona horror, when, in 1945, British planes dropped bombs on ships filled with thousands of holocaust survivors of various ethnic origins. Those killed were originally "scheduled" for extermination by the Nazis, but they had been released and were on board the ships. The British bombing is considered to be one of the worst cases of "friendly fire" deaths ever recorded.

Finally one reader sends this additional item from the Goebbels diary:

May 12, 1937 - (...) We must try to make the Churches bend and make them servants of our cause. Celibacy must also disappear. The goods of the Church will be seized; no man should study theology before the age of 24. We will thus deprive them of their best recruits. We must dissolve the religious orders and remove from the Churches their authorization to teach. And so in a few decades we will reduce them. Then, they will come eating out of our hands (...)

The photo below is one of many fascinating photos you will find here. It shows Catholic bishops making the Nazi salute. Goebbels is on far right.

The accompanying texts to the photos seem to bely what Goebbels said, namely that Hitler had only contempt for the Church. However, the truth may be that Hitler accepted the Church so long as it pledged fealty to him. Insofar as the Church or the priests rebelled, he would have them silenced or killed.

It is very disturbing to see so many French bishops today on the side of Islam. Like déjà vu all over again.


I cannot argue about this topic. Readers may know much more than I or have more fixed opinions. It is certainly a topic to research, but if you have a reasonable comment to make, please do. Topics such as this one often arouse intense feelings.

Before ending this post, I would like to mention this article that has received widespread coverage on the Internet. Former mayor of New York Ed Koch, a Jew and a homosexual, has written an important commentary defending the Pope in the current outbreak of rage against the Catholic Church. Here is an excerpt:

The primary explanation for the abuse that happened - not to excuse the retention of priests in positions that enabled them to continue to harm children - was the belief that the priests could be cured by psychotherapy, a theory now long discarded by the medical profession. Regrettably, it is also likely that years ago the abuse of children was not taken as seriously as today. Thank God we've progressed on that issue.

Many of those in the media who are pounding on the Church and the pope today clearly do it with delight, and some with malice. The reason, I believe, for the constant assaults is that there are many in the media, and some Catholics as well as many in the public, who object to and are incensed by positions the Church holds, including opposition to all abortions, opposition to gay sex and same-sex marriage, retention of celibacy rules for priests, exclusion of women from the clergy, opposition to birth control measures involving condoms and prescription drugs and opposition to civil divorce. My good friend, John Cardinal O'Connor, once said, "The Church is not a salad bar, from which to pick and choose what pleases you." The Church has the right to demand fulfillment of all of its religious obligations by its parishioners, and indeed a right to espouse its beliefs generally.

I disagree with the Church on all of these positions. Nevertheless, it has a right to hold these views in accordance with its religious beliefs. I disagree with many tenets of Orthodox Judaism - the religion of my birth - and have chosen to follow the tenets of Conservative Judaism, while I attend an Orthodox synagogue. Orthodox Jews, like the Roman Catholic Church, can demand absolute obedience to religious rules. Those declining to adhere are free to leave.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church is a force for good in the world, not evil. Moreover, the existence of one billion, 130 million Catholics worldwide is important to the peace and prosperity of the planet.