Disclaimer: Although this post will not be construed as PRO Catholic, it is not meant to be ANTI Catholic either. I have no quarrel with the
form of worship, the substance of teaching or the character of the vast majority of people who make up the Catholic Church. OTOH, when wrong is being
done, I feel no constraints to bringing it to the fore. DW
Here is an exert from an e-mail that arrived today, dutifully forwarded: “Please read the little cartoon carefully . . Then read the comments
at the end, and please - forward it! We cannot, we must not, ever forget what happened in Europe over 60 years ago, because it could happen again . .
Forewarned is forearmed, and I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message. I hope you'll do the same . . more than 60 years after the Second
World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million
Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests . . murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved . . ” in Nazi Germany. 1933-1945.
My Commentary.
Why did the author of this e-mail broadside think it necessary to include a fairly small number of Catholic priests in the enumeration of those who
Hitler had killed? Was this author “rewriting history” that is, revising history casting it in a more favorable light than the reality justified?
Would not those same priests already be included in the “10 million Christians?” See more commentary on that number below.
Q. How many rabbi’s do you think were murdered in the Holocaust? Or how many Protestant clergymen who were also murdered? Why did this author single
out an undocumented number of Catholic priests? Is it an effort to offset the fact of life that the current Pope Benedict XVI served in the war in
the German Wehrmacht manning an AA gun crew who might have shot down Allied planes? Or maybe aimed his guns at parachuting aircrew from downed planes?
A popular ‘game’ played by some ground crews.
Is it remorse for the 1,000 years of Catholic priests delivering homilies from the Church’s lecterns that the “Jews are Christ Killers?” Which
false and unjustified accusation so oft repeated may have made it possible for otherwise good Germans to do bad things and accept, tolerate and assist
in the Nazi genocide against the Jews? The Romans killed Jesus.
Was the author lamenting over the first official act of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain (1492) ordering that all Spanish Jews must wear an
identifying mark on their clothing, followed shortly thereafter by an order that all Jews must either 1) convert to Catholicism or 2) leave the
country or 3) be burned at the stake? And then, 2 generations latter, to question the authenticity of the earlier conversions and repeat the same
order to such Jews in Spain, which caused many to flee, and are now known as the Sephardic Jews.
Finally, notice wide variance in the orders of magnitude:
“This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the
six million Jews,
20 million Russians,
10 million Christians and
One thousand nine hundred Catholic priests
who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated.”
Q. How does 1,900 compare to 20,000,000? A. 0.0095%. Is the author of this e-mail suggesting 1,900 Catholic priests are equal to 20,000,000 Russians?
Or equal to 6,000,000 Jews?
And where did this number of “10,000,000 Christians” come from? This is the first time I have ever heard that.
What if I told you that 19,000 German Catholic priests survived the war? What if I told you that ZERO German Jewish rabbis survived the war? Would you
not be inclined to believe both statements?
More from the e-mail: “It has been said that those who refuse to study history are doomed to repeat it. In this case, those who are attempting to
rewrite history are probably planning to repeat it!" Gulp, is this meant to be taken as fair warning?
This is “Revisionist history” plain and simple, in my judgment. What’s yours?
[edit on 5/17/2007 by donwhite]
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it's also an unusual comparison. those 6 million jews that died were killed in a concentrated effort to exterminate all the jewish people on the
planet. difference between the 10 million christians and the 6 million jews is that almost all of those 6 million jews died in death camps, on their
way to death camps, or in the genocidal activities predating the death camps.
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posted by madnessinmysoul
It's also an unusual comparison. Those 6 million Jews that died were killed in a concentrated effort to exterminate all the Jewish people on the
planet. Difference between the 10 million Christians and the 6 million Jews is that almost all of those 6 million Jews died in death camps, on their
way to death camps, or in the genocidal activities pre-dating the death camps. [Edited by Don W]
Right Mr M/I/M/S, I just don’t know what the e-mail was referring to, when it included “10,000,000 Christians” in the same group as the 6
million Jews who were systematically killed by the Nazis. I can’t address the author of that broadside, but I want anyone who reads this to know
there is no evidence nor any past reporting to support that claim of “10 million Christians” killed by the Nazis. As FlyersFan and I have agreed,
Hitler was himself a Catholic
[edit on 5/17/2007 by donwhite]
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The email was from a Catholic group, and that obviously would be their main thrust. I don't think it was so much revisionist as it was the point of
interest. They weren't denying anything...they just had a main point of interest.
The exact numbers of those killed in the European genocide will almost certainly never be known. It was rather an odd comparison though, on that I
agree...but not to my mind revisionist of the sort that Holocaust Deniers are notorious for.
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