בס''ד
cjd, I almost always agree with what you write on this forum. But I cannot be silent when it comes to claims about the holocaust.
1. If the Pope had condemned the mass murder of Jews and other innocents, and had warned Catholics that they would face hellish punishment if they participated in this monstrous crime, the holocaust could have been prevented. Because the most brutal murderers of Jews in the holocaust were Catholics. Auschwitz and most of the other Nazi death camps were deliberately located in Catholic Poland because Hitler knew that the Jew-hating Poles would be happy to assist in the holocaust. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Nazi death camp guards were Catholics. Austria, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia and Slovakia are all Catholic nations - every one of these countries enthusiastically murdered their Jewish populations. The vast majority of the over 6 million Jews who were slaughtered were butchered by Catholics. Catholic Bishops in Germany and Austria blessed Hitler. Catholic priests were sent by the Church to the Nazi death camps to conduct church services for the Nazi death camp guards while tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children were being burned and gassed every day.
2. The Vatican was liberated by the Allies along with Italy in 1943. By that time, 2 million Jews had been murdered. So the other 4 million Jews who were later murdered from 1943 to 1945 could certainly have been saved. But even then, the Pope and the Vatican refused to condemn the mass murder of Jews. In fact, the Vatican maintained diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany until the last day of the war in May 1945. This is the same Vatican that refused to establish diplomatic relations with Israel from 1948 until 1993. In 1993, the Vatican finally agreed to establish relations with Israel in order to encourage the Oslo suicide process that had started that year. The Vatican stubbornly insisted upon maintaining diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany throughout the holocaust until the last day of the war. But the same Vatican stubbornly refused to diplomatically recognize Israel for 45 years.
3. The Vatican has excommunicated Catholics for going against Church teaching. But the Church has refused to excommunicate Hitler or a single Nazi war criminal. That means that Hitler and all of the many Catholic Nazi war criminals remain in the Church's baptismal records as Catholics in good standing.
4. When Jews were being murdered and sought refuge all over the world, if the Vatican had urged Catholic nations to accept Jewish refugees, millions could have been saved. But the Pope and the Church remained silent during the holocaust. The same Vatican suddenly finds its voice to constantly condemn tiny Israel for defending herself. The claim that the Vatican sought to save Jews during the holocaust is laughable - in the vast majority of cases, churches refused to offer refuge to Jews. In the few cases where refuge was offered, the Church usually had a pre-condition: Jews being rescued had to be baptized and become Catholics, otherwise they were sent away to be burned and gassed in the Nazi death camps.
5. The one group that the Church did try to rescue was the Nazi war criminals fleeing after the war. Thousands of Nazi war criminals escaped to Catholic countries in Latin America with the assistance of the Vatican.
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