Serious Inquiries Only podcast – Did the Catholic Church Support Hitler?

Serious Inquiries Only podcast – Did the Catholic Church Support Hitler?

Thomas Smith was good enough to have me back on his “Serious Inquiries Only” podcast (formerly “Atheistically Speaking”), this time to tackle the question “Did the Catholic Church Support HItler?“.  Unfortunately we didn’t quite get time to go into the related question of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, but I did a further 30 minutes on that topic which Thomas will be making available to his patrons as bonus content.  Since the myth of “Hitler’s Pope” is common in New Atheist circles and favourite of several prominent NAs including Hitchens, both subjects will be covered in a future post here in my “Great  Myths” series.  In the meantime, enjoy my conversation with Thomas via the link above.

49 thoughts on “Serious Inquiries Only podcast – Did the Catholic Church Support Hitler?

  1. A most interesting podcast, Mr O'Neill, as ever – thank you. If I were to be very picky I would make three points:

    1) the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed by the Russian Premier – Molotov – not Stalin.

    2) Golda Meir was the fourth Prime Minster of Israel – David Ben-Guriom was the first.

    3) With regard to Hitler's religion the word I would have used is deist rather than theist. A theist, to my mind, is somebody who follows a religion. A deist, by contrast, believes in some form of higher being but does not subscribe to any particular sort of god (Thomas Jefferson, for example, or Anthony Flew). There are of course alternative views. Carrier – your friend and mine (!) actually tried to argue in a 2015 afterword to his article on the subject that the Goebbels quote referred exclusively to Catholicism (which is of course utter rubbish, but seems to have gone over well with his fellow historically illiterate amateur followers – he also repeated his patent lie that Irving had never denied the Holocaust). However Burleigh – who may be a Catholic but is also a reputable historian who actually speaks German – came down on the side of 'a form of deism' in his book Sacred Causes.

    However, I wonder if perhaps you went a bit far in saying Hitler only used his rhetoric on the subject as a campaigning tool. I'm not sure if you have ever read Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism. In it, Hastings argues for religiosity on a sort of affiliate Catholicism up to about 1924, with his time in prison changing that to a looser belief in Providence. That's a book on the subject I found worth reading if you can get a copy.

    Those minor (two frankly pedantic) points aside, I enjoyed it very much.

  2. "the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed by the Russian Premier – Molotov – not Stalin."

    This is pretty silly. Molotov was acting as Stalin's foreign minister. It's not like I was saying Stalin himself physically signed the treaty.

    " Golda Meir was the fourth Prime Minster of Israel – David Ben-Guriom was the first."

    True – my mistake.

    "With regard to Hitler's religion the word I would have used is deist rather than theist. A theist, to my mind, is somebody who follows a religion."

    No, a theist is anyone who believes in any kind of god. A Deist is a kind of theist.

    "I'm not sure if you have ever read Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism. In it, Hastings argues for religiosity on a sort of affiliate Catholicism up to about 1924, with his time in prison changing that to a looser belief in Providence. That's a book on the subject I found worth reading if you can get a copy."

    Thanks, I check it out. This doesn't substantially change what I said though, given that his campaign platitudes were all after 1924.

  3. Anti-Catholocism is pretty much the main theme in English language Atheist history writing.

    Which is mostly due to Atheists not questioning older Protestant sources. Neo-Paganism and 2nd Wave Feminism have all the same problems. Wars with France and Spain that stopped two centuries ago still define a lot of English language culture.

    The amount of Atheists who assume the Catholic Church are Young Earth Creationists is pretty shocking but a natural assumption if all you really know about the reformation is the idea that its the step on the glorious history of the progress of western civilisation right in between the renaissance and the Enlightenment. A lot of English speakers see modern Catholics the way medieval Christians saw Jews, as people trapped in an earlier stage of cultural/religious development who we keep around because there's still a chance they'll redeem themselves by catching up at some point.

    When you have a idea of history that conceives of Secularism as being the inheritance not of the reaction to the horror of the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War but as the inheritance of the Statute in Restraint of Appeals of all thing then you're able to twist pretty much anything.

    The idea that fundamentalists are a modern thing is incompatible with the idea that modern = atheist. New Atheists are basically reliant on the Victorian-Edwardian cultural evolution model that justified the dominance of Anglo-Saxon Protestant civilisation as the natural development of human history, they just put atheist as a extra level above monotheist.

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  4. Great stuff Tim, holy hell, you talk fast & clear. Rattling off page numbers as well was a nice piece of bravura. I'd already read a bit about this on a Catholic site, but it's great to hear it from you, as you don't have a dog in the fight, so to speak. (Wink wink, the papal nuncio just told me your check's in the mail. Hail Hydra).

    BTW, this might be of interest, as this man seems to have fallen down the memory hole:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_O'Flaherty

  5. Today Church historians minimize all this. But, 1) The Church signed a treaty – the Lateran Treaty – with Mussolini in 1929. Thereafter, 2) Mussolini and the pope were headquartered comfortably the same town, Rome,for more than a decade.

    As the Nazis grew in power, there were occasional complaints from the pope. But no major rebellions.

    3) Hitler himself had been a Catholic alterboy. And 4) he likely learned much of his antisemitism from Catholic antisemitism; replacement theology. And the passion play narrative that "the Jews killed Jesus."

    More recently, 5) Bennedict XVI – a German – is acknowledged in his official biography, to have been a Nazi in his youth. And to have served in a German Luftwaffe unit.

    All this suggests that Pious was not properly diligent in sporadically opposing fascism, Nazism.

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  6. "Mussolini and the pope were headquartered comfortably the same town"

    "Comfortably"? Tell that to the Fascists. At one point, after the Nazis freed Mussolini, they marched in force on the Vatican and stood toe to toe with the Palatine Guard until the German Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, the ranking Axis commander in Rome, ordered the Fascists to stand down. Doesn't sound very "comfortable" to me.

    " But no major rebellions."

    Did you even bother to listen to the podcast, you moron?

    "he likely learned much of his antisemitism from Catholic antisemitism"

    You mean the Catholic Church that repeatedly reissued the Papal bull Sicut Judaeis condemning the persecution of Jews? Little Hitler should have paid closer attention when he was serving at the altar.

    "Bennedict XVI – a German – is acknowledged in his official biography, to have been a Nazi in his youth. And to have served in a German Luftwaffe unit."

    Ratzinger was from a known anti-Nazi family and refused to join the Hitler Youth until it was made compulsory and even then only did it to keep his father from being sent to a concentration camp if he continued to refuse, you fucking moron. And he was drafted into the Luftwaffe when that also became compulsory. And he deserted at the first opportunity. But let's not let facts get in the way of ranting nonsense.

    "All this suggests that Pious was not properly diligent in sporadically opposing fascism, Nazism.'

    All this proves that you're a clown whose idiotic biases are surpassed only by his total ignorance of history and his comical inability to spell (it's "Pius"and "Benedict", you idiot).

    Back in the "blocked" box for you. Goodbye.

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  7. Stark has never been high on my list of objective writers on these subjects. Since his conversion to Christianity he's become something of an apologist and while a lot of what he says is mainstream historical analysis, he gives it too much of an obvious apologetic spin for my liking.

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  8. Tim, I have a question: how principled was von Stauffenberg? Because I've heard before that he was quite happy about conquest of Poland. That he only decided to join conspiracy because Germany was losing the war?

    (also please write more stuff)

  9. Like most human beings, von Stauffenberg was not one dimensional. So while he disliked most aspects of the Nazi ideology and never joined the Party, like many Germans he was initially okay with what was seen as a return to order and with Germany "reclaiming" what traditionalists like von Stauffenberg saw as their "rightful" territory in Poland. Like most Germans of his day, he held views which we would regard as shockingly anti-Semitic, but he also regarded the Nazi policies against Jews to be immoral and he was appalled at the massacres of Jews in Poland and the East. It was this that really turned him against the Nazis and this was long before Germany began to lose the War.

    "(also please write more stuff)"

    I am. I hope to have a new "Great Myths" article up before the end of March.

  10. Several points — Catholics can have been anti-Semitic in the past without being as anti-Semitic as Nazis. In the 19th century, the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara certainly argues for that.

    And, whether or not Pius "supported Hitler," he didn't oppose him to the degree that he was deathly opposed to Communism.

    As far as the key issue — the Jews of Europe, then more narrowly, the Jews of Italy? Pius XII could have spoken out multiple times, and chose not to. Whether what the Church did in the background offsets Pius' public silences — both as a moral issue and as whether a public statement would have saved Jews — is a tough issue. But, I'll say that it's not as cleancut as I think Tim is making it out to be. Per his comment about Stauffenberg, it's certainly not one-dimensional.

    And, let's also not forget that official underground Catholic aid to Jews often had "hints" or "suggestions" of conversion attached to it. Indeed, Wiki has a pretty long entry devoted to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Jews_to_Catholicism_during_the_Holocaust

    To others: Rodney Stark is full of shit. Tim is way too polite. It's not really Christianity per se that's the problem; it's more than he's a "Christianist" in the likes of Huntington et al, and this was the case long before his conversion to Christian belief.

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  11. "Catholics can have been anti-Semitic in the past without being as anti-Semitic as Nazis"

    I don't think I denied that Catholics have been anti-Semitic. The fact remains that the Papacy has repeatedly condemned the persecution of Jews throughout its history.

    "And, whether or not Pius "supported Hitler," he didn't oppose him to the degree that he was deathly opposed to Communism.
    "

    Really? And there's some objective calculus by which these relative "degrees" can be measured and compared?

    "As far as the key issue — the Jews of Europe, then more narrowly, the Jews of Italy? "

    For obvious reasons the Pope had far more room for the kind of local, on the ground action in Italy than elsewhere in occupied Europe. And it was that level of action that was seen as the most effective way to make a material difference.

    "Pius XII could have spoken out multiple times, and chose not to."

    Yes, and I went over why in some detail in the podcast.

    "But, I'll say that it's not as cleancut as I think Tim is making it out to be. Per his comment about Stauffenberg, it's certainly not one-dimensional."

    Did you actually listen to what I said? I said exactly that it is not "clean cut". So what the hell are you talking about?

    "And, let's also not forget that official underground Catholic aid to Jews often had "hints" or "suggestions" of conversion attached to it. "

    Let's not forget that supposed "conversions" was a major way that the Church could get Jews out of harm's way. There is ample evidence that this was a ruse and that Wiki page is riddled with biased claims and unsourced assertions.

    "Rodney Stark is full of shit. Tim is way too polite. "

    Tim is being as fair as possible. Stark is sometimes "full of shit", and you'll find I'm far from "polite" in, for example, my scathing review of his God's Battalions. And he has a clear bias, as I note, which is why I don't trust much of what he says. But this doesn't mean he gets everything wrong.

    1. Hi Tim. The atheist Michael A. Sherlock claims*, “Hitler was a Christian. This undeniable fact couldn’t be made any clearer than by his own confessions. . . . Presented in the illuminating light of its proper historical context, one can see that the rotten fruit of Nazi anti-Semitism was born from Hitler’s conviction in his Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, and the poisonous tree of the Christian religion.”

      He marshals an array of quotations where Hitler seemingly expresses his Christian beliefs. However, it appears Sherlock cherry-picked evidence in support, while purposefully ignoring Hitler’s anti-Christian statements. Furthermore, according to Richard Weikart, “Hitler purposely lied about his religious convictions . . . for political advantage.” Overall, I concur with Allan Bullock’s verdict: “In Hitler’s eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.” Unfortunately, the grand tower of wisdom and knowledge—the esteemed Richard Carrier, that is—also follows this polemical idea.

      However, I wonder whether Sherlock is correct on the following claims:

      “Prior to Constantine’s legitimization of the Christian religion in the fourth century, Christian anti-Semitism was confined to the canonical and non-canonical works of Christian authors and Church fathers. From the fifth century onward, the fantasies of the ante-Nicene fathers began to manifest into brutal violence.”

      “From all of the evidence available in the volumes of historical works, both Christian and non-Christian, it is clear that there is an unbroken chain of hatred, intolerance, and racism toward the Jews, which began with ‘John’s’ Gospel (see also the Synoptic gospels) and continued all the way down into the twentieth century, ending with Hitler’s bloody campaign against the Church’s most despised enemies.”

      “Notwithstanding his honesty, the good Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral was too short-sighted to see, lest admit, that the roots of violent anti-Semitism didn’t begin with Martin Luther, but in the very building blocks of his beloved religion. Was he ignorant of the vile and racist words of Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom and the majority of bigoted Christian fathers, who all railed against the Jews with the ferocious fervour of Hitler himself? Did he not read of the atrocities committed by St. Cyril of Alexandria in the fifth century that saw Jewish families put to the sword? Surely he had read of the Crusaders’ barbarism toward the Jews along the road to their bloodthirsty war with the equally bloodthirsty Muslims of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and all of the countless anti-Semitic edicts enunciated by Church councils throughout the centuries, edicts all based upon the very foundations of a rotten and racist religion.”

      “The Spanish Inquisition was directly caused and inspired by the very foundations of the Christian religion, i.e., the Bible and Church doctrines and traditions.”

      *https://michaelsherlockauthor.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/the-atheist-atrocities-fallacy-hitler-stalin-pol-pot-in-memory-of-christopher-hitchens/

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      1. Hitler, as a totalitarian, would be intolerant of any center of power or loyalty that he could not control, this includes Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular. Perhaps among a man of so many lies it would be difficult to tell when he is giving an honest opinion, but the more sensible case (if we take his statements alone) would be that his hostility towards Christianity is vastly more likely.
        From the other side, however, the Catholic Church as an institution certainly considered him an enemy. Pope Pius XI smuggled into Germany, right under the Nazis’ noses, an encyclical Mit Brenennder Sorge (“With deep anxiety”) which was read from every Catholic pulpit on Palm Sunday 1937. Hitler was furious and Catholic churches saw widespread raids the next day. More locally, the cardinal bishop of Munster, spoke constantly and forcefully against Nazi atrocities and racism, and only escaped death because he was so politically and socially well connected.
        I would see the claim that Hitler was some kind of authentic Christian as a bigoted attempt to smear Christianity with that monster’s blood; even cursory scholarship would not seem to bear out that claim.

        1. “Perhaps among a man of so many lies …..”
          Still in a way Hitler was one of the most honest politicians ever. He laid down his program in Mein Kampf and practiced almost everything he preached. So why his references to christianity in the same book should be an exception (in chapter 11 you can even find two direct creationist quotes) is not clear to me. Also “whenever Hitler talked about Jesus and God he was lying for political reasons” is an unfalsifiable statement (also if you add “from 1924 on”) and hence is worthless for a historical analysis. You can apply this trick on every single christian in history and conclude that there never have been christians.
          Now before someone refers to ToN’s podcast: I’m not a native English speaker and a bad listener even in my native language. So I’ll wait until he has written a blogpost and then read his analysis.

          “his hostility towards Christianity”
          This a variation on the well known “Hitler persecuted christians hence was not a christian” argument. It fails for exactly the same reason.
          For instance during the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Century the RCC was hostile towards non-catholic christianity. According to the hostility argument the RCC was not christian either. Christians have been hostile to each other since Emperor Constantine declared it the state religion.
          The big problem of course – and I haven’t seen ToN address it on this site; another reason to await a blogpost – is that it’s impossible to properly define “a christian”. And without such a definition it’s impossible to argue whether Hitler was a christian or not.
          Finally the entire discussion is rather silly. Even if Hitler were a christian, so what? There is a long list of highly admirable christians. I myself like Saint Franciscus very much for instance. It’s utterly stupid to hold him or any other christians, especially the pacifist ones, responsible for Hitler’s (if you prefer, add eventual) christian beliefs. It’s exactly as stupid as holding atheists like responsible for the Killing Fields just because Pol Pot and his gang were atheists too.
          From “Hitler was a christian” the only reasonable conclusion to be derived is “humans are capable of perverting everything and anything”. That’s highly unsurprising – as unsurprising as seeing Movement Atheism being high-jacked by alt-right ….. (fill in your favourite negative description).
          But hey, I’m just a mean guy. I enjoy christians being upset by “Hitler was a christian” as much as seeing New Atheists being disappointed by the rabid right views of the former Four Horsemen and I pet myself on the shoulder of never having thought much of them even when they were popular. As a famous comic said: it’s nice to feel superior to all of them (and yes, for those who think I’m more stupid than I actually am, this is self-depreciation).

          1. “He laid down his program in Mein Kampf and practiced almost everything he preached. So why his references to christianity in the same book should be an exception …. is not clear to me.”

            It’s perfectly clear in context. The rambling nonsense that is Mein Kampf was an encapsulation of Hitler’s ideas and preoccupations while in prison in 1924. So it certainly does include a lot of things that he later put into practice when he came to power nine years later. But it also includes ideas that he wanted expressed at that time, but which were abandoned later and so were clearly not part of his actual core vision. It contains a lot of language about “revolution” and other elements that aped the socialist rhetoric and ideals of the time, but when he got out of prison the remaining “socialist” elements in the NSDAP were increasingly marginalised and eventually the remnants of them were violently purged in the 1934 political housecleaning that swept away Ernst Röhm and the old guard SA. Hitler was saying what he needed to say in 1924. Of course much of it was stuff he genuinely meant. But some of it – including his carefully constructed platitudes about Christianity – had one eye on the electorate that he had decided he needed to woo. Once he came to power, that rhetoric was jettisoned while the stuff he really meant was maintained and acted on.

            “Also ‘whenever Hitler talked about Jesus and God he was lying for political reasons’ is an unfalsifiable statement “

            No it isn’t. If that pre-1933 stuff about Christianity continued in the same vein and with the same tone, frequency and intensity after 1933, you could falsify what I’m saying. It doesn’t.

            “The big problem of course – and I haven’t seen ToN address it on this site; another reason to await a blogpost – is that it’s impossible to properly define “a christian”. And without such a definition it’s impossible to argue whether Hitler was a christian or not.”

            How would you define “a Christian”? Let’s start from there.

      2. It would take me several long and detailed articles to unpick all the problems and errors of fact and interpretation in those statements by Sherlock. I address and counter some of them in the podcast you’re commenting on. Others I will address in future posts.

  12. Of course, you can't measure such things in degrees, Tim, and you know it. That's a red herring, and I gladly call it that.

    The papacy, yes, did condemn the pogroms of the First Crusade and other things. That still doesn't make it as pure as the driven snow on anti-semitism. That's specifically why I mentioned the Mortara kidnapping, since he was held *inside the Papal States* afterward and the Pope himself was directly involved.

    I didn't listen to the podcast; in general, reading is faster. If you want to summarize your take on Pius XII's silence, I'm all eyeballs.

    I'll disagree with your take on the Wiki page. I assume that I'm in disagreement with your take on Pius XII. That's fine; in both cases, I'm far from alone, and much of my companionship is NOT Gnu Atheist.

    And, I haven't even mentioned the involvement of priests in the post-war "ratline."

    ++

    And, I'll disagree on the other side on Stark. The one, and only, thing of possible value I have ever found in his writings is his estimate on early Christian growth rates. That's it.

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  13. "That's a red herring, and I gladly call it that."

    So your claim about the "degree" by which he opposed Nazism vs Communism has no solid basis. He opposed both. And he was on the record as saying he believed Nazism to be worse than Communism.

    "That still doesn't make it as pure as the driven snow on anti-semitism."

    And I didn't say they were. But I mentioned Sicut Judaeis in response to a particularly stupid statement as a way of indicating that things weren't black and white.

    "I didn't listen to the podcast;"

    That's clear. Go do so. I'm too busy to spoon-feed someone who is too lazy to even bother to listen to something but pompous enough to critique it anyway. Most of the rest of your tired tropes are dealt with in it as well. Don't comment here again unless you've done the required homework.

  14. I hadn't visited here for some time, to see what Tim would say. Based on all his incorrect comments in his last post, rather than listen to a podcast, I'll tidy up my blogroll.

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  15. "Wrong. I already refuted them"

    No, you didn't – I responded to each of your attempts at "refutation" above. What you said was wrong, was irrelevant to anything I said or misunderstood what I was saying. And you didn't even bother to listen to the podcast, and simply decided to dismiss years of research into the issues based on your misunderstanding of the comments above. And you have the gall to call ME "stubborn"!

    So goodbye – you won't be missed.

    1. I’ve read it. I refer to it repeatedly in the podcast you’re commenting on. Maybe you should actually listen to the podcast and hear what I have to say.

  16. Mien Kampf reveals the beliefs of Hitler. Anything else is speculation. Read this book and if you still think Hitler was a Deist youre just being dishonest.

    1. Mein Kampf (note the spelling) certainly reveals many of the thoughts of Hitler. It also reveals the strategy of a cunning politician who, in 1922 having just failed to seize government through violence, realised he needed to package those ideas to win over a majority at the ballot box. So he pretended to be closer to holding Christian beliefs than was actually the case because he knew the very parts of the population he needed to win over were Christian. He even paid lip service to his Catholic background (without actually saying he was a practising and believing Catholic) because he knew opposition to him was strongest in the Catholic regions of the south and west of Germany.

      All this went out the window once he won power in 1933. After that all pretence at being even sympathetic to Christianity was dropped. In private, Hilter always made his contempt for Christianity clear and Gobbels, Bormann and Speer all separately and privately recorded that Hitler hated Christianity and talked about “settling his score” with the churches after the War. If you don’t realise all this you are either ignorant, naive or stupid.

      1. Christianity in general or organized christianity? Your ““settling his score” with the churches” suggests the latter. There have been quite a few christian authorities who hated rivaling christian organizations. Hitler had lots of room for hate – he hated everything that could threaten his power. Quite like several (other) christians in powerful positions in history. So that’s a nice example of the same difference.
        Before you tell you to go listen to your podcast I refer you to my other comment. It tells you why Í won’t. It also tells you don’t have to spell it out for me – I’ll quitly await your blogpost(s).

        1. “Christianity in general or organized christianity? “

          Organised Christianity. Given that “Christianity in general” is, in the real world, just an abstraction, you’re trying to make a distinction without difference. Hitler babbled about “Christianity in general” and so acted against “organised Christianity”.

  17. Hey Tim, will you be crafting a detailed take down of this Hitler’s Pope thesis for this blog? CNN has a new “Pope” series going on, and it seems like the next episode might parrot some uncharitable and hoary “facts” about Pius XII. Might it be timely to write something correcting it?

    1. Yes, that topic will be the subject of at least one if not two future articles on my Great Myths series.

  18. Tim why did you stop responding to Kyle in the ‘Serious Inquiries Only’ comment section?

    Also, in a debate with his brother Peter, Christopher Hitchens said that the Vatican ordered that Hitler’s birthday be celebrated from the Pulpit.

    1. I responded to that Kyle guy for as long as he was making comments about history. His final comment was just him getting snooty about the fact I had countered all his arguments, so not worth further comment.

      And yes, that was one of Hitchens’ talking points on this topic and one of the few he didn’t totally bungle. Pius XII maintained a policy of outward neutrality while he pursued an anti-Nazi agenda behind the scenes. As a former diplomat he saw things like telling the German bishops to acknowledge the new Fuhrer’s birthday as the kind of tokenism that made it look like things were normal. But it was soon clear to both sides what was really going on. The Nazis violated the Concordat so many times that in the end the Vatican stopped even bothering to complain. And the Gestapo soon became aware that the Vatican was working with the German resistance. But Hitchens didn’t bother to educate himself on any of that because he was interested in rhetorical point-scoring, not understanding history.

        1. The Hitler’s birthday thing? I would have to check the details, as it’s something that I see repeated but I find all too often that these things often turn out to be nonsense. Hitchens also used to bang on about the Concordat being “the first pact anyone ever signed with Hitler”, which was completely wrong. In 1937 the Papal Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo was invited to a reception for Hitler’s birthday in Berlin and asked the Vatican if he should attend. The reply he received was “The Holy Father thinks not. Also because of the position of this Embassy, the Holy Father believes it is preferable in the present situation if your Excellency abstains from taking part in manifestations of homage toward the Lord Chancellor.” That doesn’t sound much like enthusiastic Papal support for Hitler’s birthday parties to me.

      1. “he was interested in ….”
        And still failed to do so, except in the eyes of his uncritical admirers. See, for every catholic (whether the pope or not) collaborating with the nazis (Jozef Tiso and several Croats for instance – one Franciscan (!) monk was even involved with the worst concentration camp of the entire period, Janosevac) you can find yourself a catholic who died in a concentration camp. The equally famous Cardinal von Galen is far from the best example. Being a chauvinist sometimes I nominate the Dutch priest Titus Brandsma.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Brandsma

        The question “did the RCC support Hitler” is a meaningless one. “Did the pope support Hitler” is not, but given the circumstances he was incapable of controlling his flock, something that’s still assumed anyway. A rational person should avoid it like the plague or cease calling him/herself rational.

        1. “And still failed to do so, except in the eyes of his uncritical admirers.”

          My comment about what “he was interested in” referred to Hitchens. So I have no idea what your points in response even mean. Who are you talking about, Hitchens or Hitler?

          “for every catholic (whether the pope or not) collaborating with the nazis you can find yourself a catholic who died in a concentration camp”

          Sorry, but the collaborators with the Nazis were the exception, not the rule.

          1. Tim, since I’m not a subscriber to the
            “serious inquiries only” podcast I can’t really access the bonus episode about the holocast, so could you briefly summarise what you guys discussed and concluded?

          2. IN summary, historians agree that Pius XII could have spoken out more strongly against the persecution of the Jews, but the claim he was “silent” is nonsense. As is the claim he did not act to help the victims of the Nazis when he could.

  19. Tim, excluding nazism, would you say it’s accurate to state that “the catholic chutch was a bulkwark to fascism” as the rationalwiki article on the RCC puts it?

    1. RationalWiki says “Spain, Italy, and Latin America were all areas where the Church was a bulwark to fascism and militarism”. That is generally correct, largely because fascist and militarist regimes tended to be the political forces opposing socialist and Communist alternatives that were actively anti-Church and the Church tended to align itself with the hard right as a result. But it’s important to remember that Catholicism, like anything that encompasses millions of people, is not monolithic. Bishop Oscar Romero, for example, was hardly a “a bulkwark to fascism”.

      1. Did the papacy have anything to say on these regimes(such as Francos spain and Salazars portugal) after ww2 had ended, or did they pretend they did not exist and ignored their violent abuse of power?

        1. Sorry, Spanish history is not my area at all and I have only looked at Papal diplomacy in the war years. Overall, both Pius XI and Pacelli (later Pius XII) were more inclined toward Franco than the Republicans in the Civil War, due to the violent anti-clerical policies of the latter. But this was tempered by Franco’s support for Hitler. I know that the Vatican signed a Concordat with Franco’s government which established very favourable relations between the two, so it seems that once the Nazis were out of the picture relations became much closer, but that is not something I’ve studied.

  20. What would you say that the vaticans relation to democracy in general was after ww2. Did they prefer authoritian strongmans like Franco over democracy, or were they fine with democracy in post-war catholic countries like France, Italy or Austria as long as communists did not get elected?

    1. Generalising again, once the Nazis were defeated it was the Soviets who the Vatican saw as the real enemy. This meant they tended to back pro-democracy movements in Eastern Europe (e.g. Solidarity in Poland), though it also saw some tolerance of repressive regimes like Franco’s and some in Central and South America.

  21. I really have a time with anyone arguing that Hitler was really a devout Catholic when:
    a) he did not to church or Mass on Sundays routinely, a go-to-hell if you do not church rule of the time
    b) shacked up with girlfriend for an extended period
    c) finally married her in a secular ceremony
    d) committed and abetted suicide
    e) did not summon a priest for counsel or last rites
    f) did not recite the Act of Contrition in absence of a priest
    g) had no iconography around or Viaticum in his private domains
    One alone of the above is odd for a devout person of the day who had the means to see the proper way done

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