Translating Sullivan-speak
Andrew Sullivan:
Translation: “The Pope doesn’t approve of me engaging in homosexual behavior or support gay marriage, and I really hate him for that.”
May 30, 2006
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May 30th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Is this really an intellectual response or simply a chance to bash Andy? Clearly you do not respect him; however, do you really believe his substantive comments on this issue are without merit? I personally think the Pope did punt and basically acted in the “Corporate Catholic” manner and did “good business” rather than admitting possible failings.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:17 am
Polish Catholics were sent to Dachau and killed by the Nazis. This includes hundreds of priests. I wish the Vatican would bring those statistics to this onerous and evil Vatican culpability discussion.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:43 am
Rabbi David Dalin, a well-regarded historian, wrote a book defending Pius XII and refuring the revisionist claims of those who blame him and the Catholic Church for the Holocaust.
His conclusion is much the same as Feddie’s — He claims that the “progressive wing” in the Catholic Church is using papal-bashing over the Holocaust as a tool to win points for their preferred policies of today.
Rabbi Dalin claimed that he wrote his book (it came out 2 or 3 years ago, sorry I can’t remember the title), because he felt it was a sin the way liberal Catholics were perverting Jewish suffering and history and slandering Pius in order to win points in the intra-church “culture wars” over such things as sexual ethics.
I heard Rabbi Dalin speak quite movingly on this topic, and his command of the history was impressive.
Interesting also that when John Allen, reporter for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, read Benedict’s speech at Aushchwitz to a rabbi who teaches at a Jewish Center in Chicago, the rabbi reported that he was in tears listening to the words of our Pope. Not because he thought it a wasted opportunity, but because the remarks were so beautiful and so welcome.
You can find Allen’s coverage of the trip to Auschwitz (including the Rabbi’s comments) here: http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/
May 31st, 2006 at 8:30 am
I really wish the faux-Catholics like Sullivan would lay off about Catholic complicity in the Holocaust. I don’t think the Church did everything it could have, but that’s true of most everyone. It would be a lot more appropriate to direct some criticism at the Protestant churches, who were a *lot* more complicit, indeed enthusiastic, about support for German fascism.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:30 am
For me, the stronger point is not Catholic complicity, but the complicity of the German people, which was real and well documented. For the pope to claim that the German population was the subject of “abuse” by the Nazis, as if they had no idea (at least after a couple of years) what Hitler was about, seems pretty disreputable to me.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:35 am
The consequence of Sullivan’s personal bravery, his unremitting speaking of truth to power in our dark, repressive, fascistic age, is to occasionally be expected to field a nasty email, or a barbed comment from Jonah Goldberg. It’s very easy for those who’ve never heard a shot fired in anger, to lecture everybody else on how much braver they should have been in circumstances that were truly dark and dangerous. I’m a little slower to throw stones than Mr. Sullivan is, I’m afraid. In his book, I suppose it makes me a nazi-hugger.
That said, the Pope could have shed a bit more moral clarity on the issue - to talk about how as Catholics, if you go along to get along, you are morally complicit. Guess he blew that opportunity.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:39 am
It might help to recall that Benedict grew up under Hitler and that his father was opposed to him. He is well aware of those who supported him but also of the many who did not. It also seems to me quite likely that the average German in Germany did not know the extent of what the Nazis were doing to eliminate Jews in Poland. Another note, the Chief Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism after WWII and took the baptismal name Eugenio, the first name of Pope Pius XII in appreciation for all he had done for the Jews during the war. It doesn’t measure up with the accusations of papal silence and/or complicity.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:25 pm
QD,
Please provide some historical support for your claim that German Protestants were somehow more enthusiastic, complicit, and supportive of German Fascism than German Catholics.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Translating QD-speak:
“It would be a lot more appropriate to direct some criticism at the Protestant churches, who were a *lot* more complicit, indeed enthusiastic, about support for German fascism.”
Translation: It is awful that he would blame the RCC for participating in such an atrocious event- when it’s the damn Protestants fault!
May 31st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Well, I think this stems from some sophistry about what “Protestant” means. If you take it (as QD is) to mean simply not Catholic, then I guess you can say those who went along with the Nazi version of “Christianity” were Protestant, and thus more complicit. I’m not sure this is true for those in the established Protestant denominations, though.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Here a brief summary of what I’ve read about it. Feel free to disagree:
Enthusiastic? Yes, there were some–Bishop Mueller and those who participated in the German Christian movement. But for the larger Protestant field, my understanding is that the problem stemmed from lack of unity that would have enabled any effective resistance from developing. Niemoeller’s Confessing Church did attempt to resist the Nazi perversion of Protestantism but didn’t challenge the regime’s racial or social policies in any significant way. Bonhoeffer and a handful of others were probably the only genuinely outspoken critics–and of course paid for this with their lives.
The average German Protestant? Well since two-thirds of the population was Protestant and Hitler certainly didn’t lack support for his policies and warmongering, we have to assume there was a fair degree of complicity. I’m afraid it would be too charitable to say that the German populace as a whole was “held hostage” by Hitler. But this is a complex issue and the subject of numerous books and studies.
One could certainly present a strong argument that, at the very least, the German Protestant Church failed to come to grips with, or effectively challenge, Hitler and the Holocaust. My impression is that even viewed in the best light, it’s not a happy moment in Protestant history. Of course, that could be said for any number of people, politicians and organizations who failed to halt the Nazi juggernaut.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Yes, there were grievous moral lapses in much of the German Christian community however some of the most prominent Protestant theologians spoke publicly against the Nazis at great risk to themselves. Deitrich Bonhoffer, Martin Niemoller (at one time a Nazi insider but sentenced to Dachu after speaking out against Nazi religious persecution) and Karl Barth, for example, formed the Pastors’ Emergency League to publicly oppose Nazi religious policy. They were, perhaps, the three most prominent German Protestant theologians of their time. Yes, many, many Catholics, bravely spoke out against the Nazis and/or quietly provided vital support to the resistance but, as far as I know, the Catholic leadership (outside of Holland) did not speak out against the Nazis in a similar fashion.
(What any of this has to do with Sullivan’s views on gay marriage is beyond me.)
May 31st, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Sullivan mentions “Bavarian Pope..” This is code-speak. Bavaria is heavily Catholic, and Munich played a key role in the rise of National Socialism. Hitler’s favorite town. By extension, the RCC must be complicit, in Andrew’s world.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Unfortunately, this conversation got off course because QD decided to handle Sullivan’s specious attack against the Pope by making an equally specious and unsupportable attack against Protestants. The simple fact is that there is more than enough blame to spread among the Christian communities of Germany during the 30s and 40s, Protestant AND Catholic. None of the aforementioned denominations cornered the market on virtue or vice in Germany during that period. QD simply decided to demonstrate that he is no better than Sullivan when it comes to making unsupportable attacks against a denomination he does not agree with.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:19 pm
“The simple fact is that there is more than enough blame to spread among the Christian communities of Germany during the 30s and 40s, Protestant AND Catholic. None of the aforementioned denominations cornered the market on virtue or vice in Germany during that period.”
I concur.
Oh, and fwiw, it’s my understanding that QD is NOT Catholic. Indeed, I believe he is protestant (although I certainly could be wrong), so I don’t think this a case where a Catholic is picking a fight with a protestant. I am assuming, of course, that we are all discussing the QD who blogs here at SA.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:25 pm
It’s so hard to tell all you guys apart.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:00 am
I Wednesday’s audience Benedict says:
“In the face of the horror of Auschwitz there is no other answer than the cross of Christ: Love that descends to the abyss of evil to save man in his innermost being, where his freedom can rebel against God. May today’s humanity not forget Auschwitz and the other “death factories” in which the Nazi regime tried to eliminate God to take his place! May people again know that God is Father of all and that he calls us all in Christ to build together a world of justice, truth and peace!”
I think he is focused more on the Holocaust as an example of the effects of sin in the world, affecting all humanity, and not concerned so much with politically correct apologies, whether on the behalf of the German people or on behalf of the Catholic Church. At issue is not who are we to blame and point fingers at, but how are we responding today, in our own hearts, to the presence of evil and the demands of the day?
June 4th, 2006 at 12:40 am
Yes, Jim, of course, but the impenetrable heart must not consider the presence of evil in the world around him, or his complicity in it. Ideology, sexuality, shopping; these all make marvelous distractors for ignoring the pain within and around us, and if you block out the pain, you’ll never ask “why?”.
If you never as “why” you’ll never suffer.