This is a message from the Good Is Good thread that is off topic there, an answer to JAR's Message 422:
jar writes:
Adolph Hitler thought it was his Christian Duty to kill the Jews.
Although I did just post on how Hitler made use of Darwin in his persecution of the Jews, agreeing with jaywill that he considered that a duty of sorts, I also agree that he thought he was doing his "Christian" duty as a Catholic who was strongly supported by the Pope.
He was Catholic, and so were Mussolini, Franco and the Croatian murderer of the Serbs, all part of that same period of attempt to reestablish the Holy Roman Reich.
Franco's press wrote on May 3 1945, the day Hitler died,
Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, died while defending Christianity. It is therefore understandable that words cannot be found to lamen t over his death, when so many were found to exalt his life. Over his mortal remains stands his victorious moral figure. With the palm of the martyr, God gives Hitler the laurels of victory. [Reforme, 21st July 1945]
Edmond Paris, the author of the book, Secret History of the Jesuits, in which I found this quote, goes on to say: "This funeral oration of the Nazi chief, a challenge to the victorious allies, is voiced by the Holy See itself, under the cover of Franco's press. It is a communique of the Vatican given via Madrid."
It's also interesting that Hitler did make use of Catholic examples in his organization. From the same book:
[A] highly placed hitlerian, Walter Schellenberg, former chief of the German counter-espionagE...[said] after the war: "The SS organization had been constituted by Himmler, according to the principle of the Jesuits' Order. Their regulations and the PSiritual Exercises prescribed by Ignatius of Loyola were the model Himmler tried to copy exactly ...The "Reichfuhrer SS" -- Himmlers's title as supreme chief of the SS -- was to be the equivalent of the Jesuits' "General" and the whole structure of the direction was a close imitation of the Catholic Church's hierarchical order. A mediaeval castle, near Paderborn in Westphalis, and called "Webelsbourg" was restored: It became what could be called a SS monastery.
A book written about the Nazi regime is described this way by someone who didn't know how right he was according to Paris: "This anthology which brings together texts from the main Catholic theorists of Germany, from Gores to Vogelsang, makes us believe that natiojnal socialism was born out of Catholic idea."
Paris goes on: "Another well informed person, the mainspring of the pact between the Holy See and Bderlihne and the pope's secret chamberlain, Franz von Papen, was even more explicit: "The Third Reich is the first world power which not only acknowledges but also puts into practice the high principles of the papacy."
Then he gives some recent official Catholic doctrine to show that the mentality of the Inquisition is still alive and well and thriving in Hitler's time:
Let us, for example, open the "Great Apologetics" by the Abbe Jean Vieujan...[which] is dated "1937." ...
To accept the principle of the Inquisition, one only needs a Chrisdtian metnality, and this is what many Christians lack...the Church has no such timidity.
Here's another 20th century statement with a similar message, from 1910, by a R.P. Janvier:
By virtue of her indirect power over temporal matters, should not the Church have the right to expect Catholic States to oppress heretics even to the point of death, so as to suppress them?
Here is my answer: 'I do advocate this, even to the point of death!.... Leaning first of all on the practice, then on the teaching of the Church itself; and I am convinced that no Catholic would say the opposite without erring gravely."
He also quotes Jesuit general Franz Wernz (1906-1915)
"The Church can condemn heretics to death, for any rights they have are only through our tolerance, and these rights are apparent not real
Also a Cardinal Lepicier
If someone professes publicly to be an heretic or tried to pervert others, by his speech or example, he can not only be excommunicated, but also justly killed...
"
Please note the above, Tempe, since you tried to convince me that excommunication was all a heretic had to worry about.
\And how about Pope Leo XIII, called here a "Jesuit Pope"
Anathema on the one who says: The Holy Spirit does not want us to kill the heretic.
The spirit of the Inquisition certainly appears to be alive and well at least up to Hitler's time. But I do like this quote from earlier in the same book by a Jesuit Father of the 16th Century:
We will not be judged if we demand the killing of Protestants, any more than we would be asking for the death penalty on theives, murderers, counterfeiters and revolutionaries.
I suspect some here may feel the same way.
Good night for now.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
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