• barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    The Catholic Church has never lived down its association with the last Nazis that rose to power, they aren’t making that mistake again.

    “Fuck those guys.” - current Pope.

    • lost_screwdriver@thelemmy.club
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      9 hours ago

      The catholic church strongly opposed the Nazis. A lot of christians were killed by the Nazis because of this. The pope is more like: like: “Fuck, not those guys again”

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I was gonna say, IIRC the Nazis kept trying to hide in ancient cathedrals, because they thought the allies wouldn’t bomb them. The Pope at the time told the allies to burn and bomb the Nazis out.

      • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        The catholic church strongly opposed the Nazis

        🤣 What??? Holy shit, lack of historical knowledge batman!

        • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.tech
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          7 hours ago

          Would you like to refute the statement instead of just saying they don’t know what they’re talking about?

          I’ll start - Catholics were amongst (there were many) the first groups that the Nazis started targeting. It’s not a coincidence that the intellectuals, the Jews, the Catholics, etc. were also the ones that had some reaallly nice silverware that would look great in the Fuhrer’s country home. If nothing else, Catholics would be acting in their self-interest to oppose the Nazis.

          • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            It’s less black and white than either of you guys are implying. You’re taking about Pope Pius XII, who was Pope from 1939 to 1958. He’s credited with saving hundreds of thousands of Jews through various means, including support to the resistance, but also by showing some had been converted/baptized, which in itself was controversial. But he also feared the Nazis were going to win the war and that the church would have to exist in a Nazi world. He never clearly spoke out against the holocaust, and though a lot of the things he said, including his sermons, can be taken as condemnation of Jewish persecution, the language was pretty subtle. Also, Hitler had an envoy secretly meeting with Pius from pretty early on, which many say was bad in itself. Still, he also helped the allies with intelligence, to the point where Hitler accused him of espionage and had plans to kidnap him.

            • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.funami.tech
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              4 hours ago

              That’s really interesting, thanks! I have no problem with being told I’m wrong, I do have a problem with someone just saying “lol you’re wrong” with no evidence.

              • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Oh, for sure. It’s not an area that I’m an expert in, but your conversation got me curious because I had heard both things, so I read a few articles. One of the interesting things is that the bit about Hitler’s envoy wasn’t broadly known until 2020 when the Vatican released a whole mess of documents that had been kept hidden previously. So there’s maybe more reason for some people to have one impression based on what they grew up hearing, and others to have a different one based on more recent info, but even with the new info it seems nuanced.

                It’s easy to fault anyone who didn’t take a clear stand against Hitler from this vantage point, but it must have been hard to be a world leader facing the possibility that Hitler would be successful and you’d have to deal with his empire. Pius XII supported the allies and it’s obvious he was against Hitler, but he was reluctant to be overtly vocal about it, and he even entertained the envoy, which maybe he saw as hedging his bets (we can’t know exactly what he was thinking). It’s for sure stained his legacy.