<<<Thanks for your thoughtful insights. I do not believe Hitler was, as you say a good Catholic or even considered himself one...>>>
I accept your point that Hitler wasn't really a good (ie believing and devout) Christian. He was, however, baptized and raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools and churches in Austria; he told his army adjutant General Gerhard Engel in 1941 "I shall remain a Catholic forever"; the original code name for his last WWII offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, was was Christrose; the Nazi party ideology was termed "positive Christianity," and here is a quote from Hitler's first radio address after becoming chancellor. Speaking on February 1, 1933, he declared that the members of the new government "would preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life."
I know, though, that, as you say, people can affiliate with any institution for tactical reasons.
It's also true, though, that the Catholic Church hasn't excommunicated Hitler. And yet the Bishop Of Lincoln Nebraska has recently issued to his flock a warning of excommunication for membership in Planned Parenthood.
And I assume the Pope himself was genuinely and sincerely Catholic-- but in the Concordat of 1933, a document signed by the Pope and Hitler, the Catholic Church agreed not to interfere with the (Nazi) state as long as the state collected a religious tax from all church members.
After conquering the low countries and France, Hitler returned to Berlin in the summer of 1940. All the church bells in Germany rang for one hour. This was more than two years after Kristallnacht ("the night of broken glass.") I assume the church leaders who planned that honorific gesture were sincere Christians.
My point is not that Christians are bad, Greg. Just that I see no evidence whatever that morals or behavior based on theistic beliefs have shown themselves to be superior to those based on the evolved capacity of human beings to develop conscience simply because they are based on one set or another of external "commandments" of debatable origin.
BTW, I didn't know all this stuff myself, needless to say. There happen to be many books in my house on the history of Christianity and Judaism, a subject in which my hubby has an interest. |
