No words as Pope Francis visits Auschwitz death camp in silence

[Warren Stupidity]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/29/no-words-as-pope-francis-visits-auschwitz-death-camp-in-silence

Pope Pius XII also had no word while the Auschwitz death camp was operational.

[Chasstev365]

1. It's worse than that.

The Vatican help many ex-Nazi escape to South America aftet the war with fake passports, including the chief architect of the Holocaust Adolf Eichmann.

This is one of the reasons I left the church; the other being priests abusing children

I do admire Pope Francis though.

[trotsky]

2. Hard to say something without acknowledging his church's role in supporting the Nazis. n/t

[Brettongarcia]

3. The Church in Germany, based itself on the...

Antisemitism, of say the Oberamagau Passion Play. Which pictured Jews as evil persons who kill Jesus.

Part of "replacement theology". And the parts of John, etc., that attacked "the Jews."

Hitler was a good Catholic alterboy, literally. Who was just following his faith.

Later, pope Joe Ratzinger, was literally in Hitler's Nazi Party. As noted in the bio by his brother. There are photos of him in uniform, and standing next to to antiaircraft gun he loaded.

[rug]

4. Clearly, saying nothing was a better remembrance than using the Holocaust as an talking point.

Francis had said he wanted his visit – the third by a pope – to be conducted in silence. “I would like to go to that place of horror without speeches, without crowds – only the few people necessary. Alone, enter, pray. And may the Lord give me the grace to cry.”

His only public words were written in the Auschwitz guest book: “Lord, have pity on your people. Lord, forgive so much cruelty.”

As to Pius XII, you'll find his words in the 1943 encyclical, Mystici Corporis Christi. I won't hold my breath that you'll actually read it because it contradicts you.

[Brettongarcia]

7. The pope was not "Hitler's Pope"; he was Mussolini's

The Vatican signed a transgression pact with Mussolini in 1929. The Lateran Treaty. This made possible the success of Mussolini, Hitler's chief ally, and fellow fascist.

The pope and Mussolini lived in the same city, Rome, for more than a decade.

[rug]

8. "The pope and Mussolini lived in the same city, Rome, for more than a decade."

OMG! It's all clear now!

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Clearly somebody will show up to splain the massively dubious relationship

between the Catholic Church and the fascist regimes of Europe.

[rug]

6. Are you phobic about making a direct response?

Is this something you've picked up at JPR?

[Lordquinton]

9. It's a talking point

Like every other example of terrible behavior by the church "oh, not that old thing again. Still on about that?"

To some it seems, abused children are nothing to be concerned about, like Bishop Pell, for example.

[trotsky]

11. Let's not bicker and argue about who raped who.

[Lordquinton]

12. Omg!

[struggle4progress]

10. He's been dead a decade now, but I once knew a man who fled Nazi Germany

at age fifteen

He was a thoroughly principled communist from a young age; he had been distributing their literature clandestinely -- until his very sweet idiotic conventional mother found the newspapers hidden in his sock-and-underwear drawer and told him she would have to turn him in to the authorities so they could straighten him out

He thought she meant well but was just absolutely clueless about what the outcome of THAT would have been

So he left immediately and didn't look back

When I heard this story, I expressed some scorn for the failure of more Germans to speak out at the time

He exploded at me: You have no idea what it was like!

That was true, too: I had no idea then

But he went through it for me, ever the educator, even when angry

I've made some effort to study it since then: people beaten to death for refusing to give the Heil! salute, say. Or Sophie Scholl, guillotined 22 February 1943 for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets four days earlier