ST.Maximilian Kolbe, I am told, had done some kind of anti-Semitic writing before the war. He offered his life to save that of Jews.
There was organized Catholic resistance against the extermination of Jews in Italy and in Slovakia, so far as I know. In Slovakia, the fact that the head of the puppet government was a priest - Monsignor Tiso - may have made things easier for the Church; in Poland, the Church itself was targeted for extermination, and many priests and nuns and even Bishops were murdered.
Your considerations are all correct, but there is a simpler answer to all those who say that "the Church could have done more". The Church could have got even more Catholics murdered than effectively were murdered. Nazism already wanted the Church destroyed, and made no secret of the fact. Those who, long after the fact, make this sort of demand, are demanding heroism from others which they themselves never will run the risk of. There is a nice, sarcastic expression in Italian for these heroes on others' behalf: "armiamoci e partite" - let's all get ready to fight, then you can go to the Front.
Actually the person for whom St. Macimilian offered his life was a Pole; he died recently, living to ripe old age.
Yes, what you said was a conclusion of an artilcle I read recently. It's true that the world lackeg something like a "call to arms" - like papal letter stating that e.g. all Catholics should refuse serving Nazis, if not actively oppose them.
On the strictly moral grounds, such a advice should be given and such letter issued.
Unfortunately, there's no hope that al Catholics would really follow the advice. Yes, of course, if they did than the Reich would collapse. If all the Russians simultanously opposed Communists, Soviet nion would cease to exist. If all French were willing to fight, France would not sign an armistice. If...
Such a call, even if met with enthusiastic appeal would be rather inefficient, because the "opponents" would lack coordination, organization etc. The likely effect would be a "moral victory" - namely a massive slaughter and destruction of cultural treasures. And the end of Reich would be brought about by the same armies which did it anyway. In our history we had a tendency for such "moral victories", so I remain very cautious about them.
Such accusations of "silence" raise valid problems of moral integrity of the people involved. At the same time they show the problems of such ideas like anti-semitism.
I'm not saying that such thing doesn't exist - unfortunetely it does - but that it is quite bad analitic tool. Because it splits the people into black and white categories of pro- and anti-semites (the same problem remains, if any other nationality is substituted).
If one didn't actively help Jews during the war or didn't collaborate with Germans, fall into a "silent mmajority" category. Now, in strictly moral terms, if one didn't protest than agreed. One can't simply say "it's not my thing" - not mentioning, not protesting against other people's sins is a sin, too. So everybody who was just around, but didn't come to help, became a passive collaborator. Now it's only enough to drop the "passive" bit and voila! we're lined together with Nazi.
The world was a bit more complicated, as the world usually is. There were other people to help and protect (after all not only Jews were killed in this war, though hardly any other with such single-mindednss). People were afraid, people were protecting their loved ones (should one sacrifice his own child for the sake of an alien one? Is not maternal love worth praise?), people just lived...
On the whole I'm happy I do not live in times which make me do such extreme moral choices. I'm very unsure I'd made the right one.
There was organized Catholic resistance against the extermination of Jews in Italy and in Slovakia, so far as I know. In Slovakia, the fact that the head of the puppet government was a priest - Monsignor Tiso - may have made things easier for the Church; in Poland, the Church itself was targeted for extermination, and many priests and nuns and even Bishops were murdered.
Your considerations are all correct, but there is a simpler answer to all those who say that "the Church could have done more". The Church could have got even more Catholics murdered than effectively were murdered. Nazism already wanted the Church destroyed, and made no secret of the fact. Those who, long after the fact, make this sort of demand, are demanding heroism from others which they themselves never will run the risk of. There is a nice, sarcastic expression in Italian for these heroes on others' behalf: "armiamoci e partite" - let's all get ready to fight, then you can go to the Front.
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Yes, what you said was a conclusion of an artilcle I read recently. It's true that the world lackeg something like a "call to arms" - like papal letter stating that e.g. all Catholics should refuse serving Nazis, if not actively oppose them.
On the strictly moral grounds, such a advice should be given and such letter issued.
Unfortunately, there's no hope that al Catholics would really follow the advice. Yes, of course, if they did than the Reich would collapse. If all the Russians simultanously opposed Communists, Soviet nion would cease to exist. If all French were willing to fight, France would not sign an armistice. If...
Such a call, even if met with enthusiastic appeal would be rather inefficient, because the "opponents" would lack coordination, organization etc. The likely effect would be a "moral victory" - namely a massive slaughter and destruction of cultural treasures. And the end of Reich would be brought about by the same armies which did it anyway.
In our history we had a tendency for such "moral victories", so I remain very cautious about them.
Such accusations of "silence" raise valid problems of moral integrity of the people involved. At the same time they show the problems of such ideas like anti-semitism.
I'm not saying that such thing doesn't exist - unfortunetely it does - but that it is quite bad analitic tool. Because it splits the people into black and white categories of pro- and anti-semites (the same problem remains, if any other nationality is substituted).
If one didn't actively help Jews during the war or didn't collaborate with Germans, fall into a "silent mmajority" category. Now, in strictly moral terms, if one didn't protest than agreed. One can't simply say "it's not my thing" - not mentioning, not protesting against other people's sins is a sin, too. So everybody who was just around, but didn't come to help, became a passive collaborator. Now it's only enough to drop the "passive" bit and voila! we're lined together with Nazi.
The world was a bit more complicated, as the world usually is. There were other people to help and protect (after all not only Jews were killed in this war, though hardly any other with such single-mindednss). People were afraid, people were protecting their loved ones (should one sacrifice his own child for the sake of an alien one? Is not maternal love worth praise?), people just lived...
On the whole I'm happy I do not live in times which make me do such extreme moral choices. I'm very unsure I'd made the right one.
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