Ron's ignorance never stops him from defending his church was Re: (Ron) God & Absolute Monarchs
Helen Willis hhiwater@BRIGHT.NET
Thu, 01 Oct 1998 14:19:45 -0700 (00907294785, 3613F1F1.2801@bright.net)
bridean wrote:
>
> > > RON
> > > The Church does not normally condemn people. They may excommunicate
> > > someone, usually if they are a religious leader or someone who is likely
> > > to mislead the faithful. In Hitler's case the pope issued an encyclical
> > > letter (Mit Brendener Sorg if my spelling is correct. It's available on
> > > the internet) which condemned racism and the views of the Nazi party.
> > > Though Hitler and the Nazis were not specifically addressed it was
> > > obvious who it referred to as it was issued in German. The Catholic
> > > Church hid more Jews and helped more Jews to escape than any other
> > > organization. The Vatican and many monaseries, convents, etc were packed
> > > with refugees. At one point the Nazis had developed a plan to assasinate
> > > Pope Pius XII, though it was never pulled off. There was an article in
> > > Newsweek several months back which sought to set the record straight.
> > > The movie "Scarlet and Black" (?) starring Gregory Peck I beleive, is
> > > about the efforts to deceive the Nazis in Rome and the hiding of
> > > refugees in the Vatican. Critics are that much more hypocritical as the
> > > US and european nations refused to even admit there was a problem. The
> > > US would only categorize Jews as Russian, or Polish, or whatever their
> > > nationality, refusing to grant them refugee status. The Church was the
> > > only government that recognized the problem and, at great risk, helped
> > > these people to escape.
> >
> > HELEN:
> > You are not going to claim a better response from the church than from
> > Sweden and the great Danes are you?
> > Helen
> > hhiwater@bright.net
>
> BRIDEAN
> What about Sweden and the great Danes? I am somewhat ignorant of WW2 history.
HELEN:
I know this is off topic but the level of your ignorance is astounding and I
hope Till will forgive my posting this to the list. How could anyone
in 1998 not know of the Danish rescue of their Jews? Damn, Disney has
even done a movie on this. Clearly you made a claim for your church, that it
responded better than any other government and you didn't have the slightest
knowledge on the subject you wrote about. The Danes with the aid of their
government saved almost all of the Danish subjects that happened to be Jewish
by a series of actions that required great personal and collective courage.
Go find a book and read about it. It's one of the good stories of WWII.
And another from _The World Must Know_ by Michael Berenbaum, Ph.D. I've
edited this down quite a bit. pg 164-5
In January [1944], President Roosevelt had established the War Refugee
Board in response to the revelations that the United States government had
covered up its knowledge of the murder of Jews and actively prevented efforts
that might of rescued them. From its inception, the new board had sought
international help in an attempt to protect Hungarian Jews. Overtures were
made to neutral counties, the Vatican, and the International Red Cross. The
Vatican and the Swiss tried to be helpful. Sweden answered the call.
Raoul Wallenberg was chosen to lead the rescue operation. ............
Wallenberg was given a diplomatic passport, a large sum of money, and carte
blanche to use whatever methods he wished, however unorthodox, to rescue
Jews.
snip
Wallenberg arrived in Budapest and immediately began issuing Jews
impressive-looking bearing the Swedish seal. .......Other neutral missions
followed lead. Carl Lutz, an American-educated Swiss diplomat, lead the
effort for Switzerland. Wallenberg set up hospitals, nurseries, and soup
kitchens for the Jews of Budapest......
..................A large group of Jews were marched to the Austrian border
in the first of a series of death marches. Wallenberg reacted immediately. He
seemed to be everywhere. He issued thousands of Swedish safe passes, pursued
convoys carrying Jews, roaming through the city, badgering German and
Hungarian officers to release Jews in their custody.
snip
............Eichmann made threatening noises, saying, "Accidents do happen,
even to a neutral diplomat." Wallenberg's car was rammed.
snip
When the Soviet Army entered Budapest on January 16, 1945, 100,000 Jews were
still alive.
HELEN:
The Soviets arrested Wallenberg, sent him to prison, and in 1947 probably
killed him. According to the same book quoted above the government and people
of Italy and Bulgaria saved many of their Jews from the Germans. In Bulgaria,
ever time the Germans attempted to force the deportation of the Jews the
intellectuals protested and the government refused to cooperate. In Italy,
Mussolini is given much of the credit because as long as he was in power no
Jews were deported. The church is mentioned only twice in this section on
Italy, both events occur after Mussolini:
pg 167
.....the Italian government was unwilling to provoke the Roman Catholic
Church, who spoke on behalf of those converted. (The pope saw fit to protest
the racial laws only as they affected Jews who had converted to Catholicism.)
Still to forestall possible intervention of the papacy, offspring of mixed
marriages were given time to have themselves baptized in order to avoid being
defined as Jews.
and:
pg 168
The Vatican also had been informed of the planned deportations, but the
pope failed to issue private protests or public disapproval either before or
after the fact. The German ambassador to the Holy See commented to his
foreign ministry that the pope had not allowed himself to be drawn into any
demonstrative censure of the deportations. The pontiff appeared to be more
concerned with preserving his own institutions. Nevertheless, hundreds of
priests and nuns, bishops, and ordinary clerics did come to the aid of Jews.
Priests hid Jews in churches; monks and nuns open monasteries and convents to
them.
HELEN:
I don't think the Church's reaction was nearly as good as Denmark's, Sweden's
or even Mussolini's. I don't think you have the slightest idea of the truth
about much of what you write or believe.
Helen
hhiwater@bright.net