Maurice:
You have always been quite the rascal-provacateur over the years, stating the most outrageous things as if they were acknowledged fact. I only wish I had seen your hopes for the conversion of Globalstar management in that light!
Yep, the US was late to the party, no question. Some see the evil right away and respond, as Churchill and your father did. Remember, though, that to most of the world at the time Hitler's evil wasn't so obvious so early on, and the Western democracies seemed to be tottering on the edge of the abyss. Many admired fascists, seeing them as a Godsend compared to Stalin. Many in the United Kingdom hoped to sign an accord with Hitler to jointly rule Europe, but to their credit Chamberlain and the Kingdom honored their agreement with Poland. Even then, there were talks of peace negotiations until May 1940 when Churchill, the key man of the century, became Prime Minister. Our history was of avoiding entangling alliances, and this we did, and were not drawn into a war over an invasion of Poland. It took something more, such as our obliging Japanese freinds, to give us a wake-up kick in the pants. I do resent your sneering at lend-lease as profiteering, since that was the best FDR could have done to support the war effort, given the political climate in the US. Recall, please, that I am no fan of FDR. How would you propose he have sold the US people at the time? Your father, at least, was fighting for his King, but to most Americans it was the old empire [UK] vs. the new kid [Hitler], and most simply did not want to get involved. Hell, even you Brits and Kiwis did damned little other than declare war until Hitler kicked your limey butts into the channel at Dunkirk [remember the Phoney War?]. Sitting on one's ass is far easier than taking a hard choice, especially for an entire nation. Just as you father went to war, please do recall that Americans enlisted in the RAF for the same reason, but to mobilize an entire nation for an idea is very difficult in a democracy; I still don't understand how Lincoln did it in our Civil War.
As for religion being primarily evil, I've heard you say it before. You are simply wrong. In fact, the worst men of the twentieth century have been thoroughly secular folk such as yourself, namely Hitler,Stalin, and Mao, who answer to no higher authority than their own ambitions, just as you do. I assure you I'm a helluvalot more scared of your kind than you ought to be of God-fearing folks, even though the latter might not be perfect. Your folks, Adolf, Joe, and the Chairman have certainly slaughtered orders of magnitudes more folks than the Church's amateurs during the Crusades, Inquisition, witch burnings, etc..., all of which are in the fairly remote past, not the past one hundred years. It ought to be obvious even to you who's more dangerous.
As I recall, the apology you mention was about a tendency to foment antisemitism in the church's past, and the fact that perhaps more could have been done during the war years by the Church. More can ALWAYS be done, but it's hard to know how far one can push as not wreck everything, as I've written before. I don't believe any of the apology dealt with Pius, his actions or inactions.
The truth is, there is just not much about Pius to apologize for. Albert Einstein, Golda Meier, and many Jewish scholars acknowledged his efforts during and after WWII, and upon his death. The Jewish journalist Pinhas Lapide, who had access to the Israeli archives at Yad Vashem, wrote of Pius' efforts in The Last Three Popes and the Jews. He estimated that 860,000 lives were saved through the efforts of Pius, and asserted that the Pope saved more lives than all government or international agencies put together. I think that may even beat your dad's accomplishments.
C'mon now, say Uncle. Secular people kill, believers save. The next step is to join the Church. I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, and it was one of the best things I did. It may be too late to save Globalstar, but not to late for you. You have only to say the word.
BlaineK |
