Vatican Says Opponents Of Nazis Are Victims Too (Or Something Like That)

First and foremost I adamantly believe in free speech and that we are each entitled to our own beliefs and opinions.  I also oppose violence and condemn those who would attack or harm someone who has believes which differ from their own.  And I strongly believe that debate amongst us is the best way to understand one another and either resolve differences or see beyond them and find common ground.

With that said I am deeply disturbed by the latest pronouncements by the Vatican's representative, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi.

According to the Vatican News:

"People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behavior between people of the same sex" (human rights and equality - word changes my own) Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, the Vatican's representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

According to Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, in his exact words:

"When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature, which may also be expressions of religious convictions, or state opinions about scientific claims, they are stigmatized, and worse -- they are vilified, and prosecuted," Tomasi said.

These statements from a Church, which seems daily to be rocked over and over by sex scandals by pedophilc priest praying (what an oxymoronic phrase here) on young children, I find repugnant.  The day that the Pope, the various Cardinals dressed in their robes and dresses and all of the other criminals part of the "Church" stand up and take action for true victims, then I will listen to them whine about the persecution of people who expose their non-sense. 

Where is their remorse for victims?  Where is their outcry for the disenfranchised?  Where is their call for equality and human rights for all?  Where do the say:

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?

I have yet to see these people Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi says need protection being strung up on fences beaten to death and left to die like Matthew Shepard (nor the thousands who are targeted each day simply for being gay or even being perceived as gay).


No, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi and the Church seem to care only about their message.  If you oppose the Church's message you are wrong - and "God forbid" you call out anyone who says bullshit to what they say.  Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi's message is clear - do not challenge the Church, even if you are molested by Priests or if you happen to be born gay. 

I mean being "gay" has to be wrong, right?  And, according to Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, it is wrong to challenge ANYONE who might expose a view based on "expressions of religious convictions, or state opinions about scientific claims."

Let's explore that "wisdom" of the mighty Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi speaking on behalf of the Church and the King Pope.
 
Nazism (Nationalsozialismus, National Socialism; alternatively spelled Naziism) was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany. It was a unique variety of fascism that involved biological racism and antisemitism. Nazism presented itself as politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from right- and left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics.

So I would assume that Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi is opposed to stigmatizing, vilifying and/or prosecuting Nazis and those proposing Nazisim.  After all, Nazis are just expressing their views on biological racism and political thoughts.  Certainly their thoughts on biological racism are expressions of "opinions about scientific claims."  And perhaps it was their moral belief (according to Bendersky, Joseph W. A history of Nazi Germany: 1919-1945. 2nd ed. Burnham Publishers, 2000) that:

"Jews were the greatest threat to the Aryan race and the German nation. They considered Jews a parasitic race that attached itself to various ideologies and movements to secure its self-preservation, such as: the Enlightenment, liberalism, democracy, parliamentary politics, capitalism, industrialisation, Marxism and trade unionism."

So they opposed liberalism, capitalism, industrialization and trade unionism.  Wait, was I speaking of Nazis or the Church?

So what were these "scientific claims" that Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi desires to so desperately preserve?  According to Wikipedia:

The Nazis believed in the supremacy of an Aryan master race and claimed that Germans represent the most pure Aryan nation. They argued that Germany's survival as a modern great nation required it to create a New Order — an empire in Europe that would give the German nation the necessary land mass, resources, and expansion of population needed to be able to economically and militarily compete with other powers.

Sounds like these Nazis are simply expressing "their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature" as suggested by Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi.  Why should anyone take issue with that?  Right?

Makes one wonder if Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi is a follower of Oswald Spengler.

Oswald Spengler, was a German cultural philosopher.  Spengler's book The Decline of the West (1918) written during the final months of World War I in which he addressed the claim of decadence of modern European civilization that he claimed was caused by atomizing and irreligious individualization and cosmopolitanism.  Spengler considered the Western world as having succumb to decadence of intellect, money, cosmopolitan urban life, irreligious life, atomized individualization, and the end of biological fertility as well as "spiritual" fertility. He believed that the "young" German nation as an imperial power would inherit the legacy of Ancient Rome and lead a restoration of value in "blood" and instinct, while the ideals of rationalism would be revealed as absurd.

Have to oppose irreligious individualization.  Sounds like a great theory of religious racial purity.

What makes matters worse is that the church and the Nazis had, according to many scholars, a far too symbiotic relationship.  And as to churches and religion, Hitler extended his rationalizations into a religious doctrine.   Martin Bormann, a prominent Nazi official, said:

"Priests will be paid by us and, as a result, they will preach what we want. If we find a priest acting otherwise, short work is to be made of him. The task of the priest consists in keeping the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted."

Has much if anything changed in these last 67 years?  Has the church now decided (or has it been its mission all along) to keep the masses "quiet, stupid, and dull-witted?"  (Ironic that the term "masses" has such an interesting plural meaning in this context!)

Not satisfied yet?  Several elements of Nazism were quasi-religious in nature according to many scholars. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, in his Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, said the cult around Hitler as the Führer, the "huge congregations, banners, sacred flames, processions, a style of popular and radical preachings, prayers-and-responses, memorials and funeral marches" mirrored that of most religious ceremonies.

You do have to love all the gold and robes and crowns (I mean head pieces) worn by the Pope and Priests.  They do look very resplendent.  I imagine if you are starving on the street, the site of the Pope in his silk and rubies and gold warms the cockles of the stomach, I mean heart.

But let's get back to the Church and the Nazi, shall we?  The Nazis often used the Church to justify their politics, by using Christian symbols as Reich symbols, and, in other cases, replacing Christian symbols with Reich symbols, Nazism thus conflated Church and State as an ultra-nationalist political entity — the Nazi Germany embodied in the motto Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (“One People, One Empire, One Leader”).  Ein Führer Pope Benedict XVI??

While the attitude of the Nazi party to the Catholic Church ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation (Laqueur, Walter Fascism: Past, Present, Future p.41 1996 Oxford University Press), the nature of the Nazi Party's relations with the Catholic Church was complicated to say the least. 

After Hitler took over and rose to power, party membership was not forbidden anymore and the Catholic Church actively looked for opportunities to work together with the Nazi government. At his trial Franz von Papen said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after Pope Pius XII ended Von Papen's appointment as Papal chamberlain and ambassador to the Holy See, but before his restoration under Pope John XXIII.)

Nice to know that the Church and the Nazi played so well together.  Makes a parent proud. 

The evolution of the Vatican's understanding has faced criticism of weakness, slowness, or even culpability.  Cardinal Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later to become Pope Pius XII) signed the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican at a formal ceremony in Rome on 20 July 1933. Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen sits at the left, Pacelli in the middle, and the Rudolf Buttmann sits at the right.  The Concordat effectively legitimized Hitler and the Nazi government to the eyes of Catholicism, Christianity, and the world.

On culpability this is perhaps clearest with regards to the German hierarchy as after the Concordat there was a radical reversal of the former episcopal condemnation of Nazism, according to Daniel Goldhagen and others.  But as they say, pictures say a thousand words.

On April 20, 1939, Archbishop Orsenigo celebrated Hitler's birthday. The celebrations, initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) became a tradition. Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" and added with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."

So yes Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi let us worry more about those who might object to your views.  Let's persecute those that do not follow the Church's ideology.  For after all, those people who do not follow your edicts simply can't understand the wisdom of the all mighty church. 
Are my words and comparisons too strong?  I say absolutely not.  Until the Church shows they care about victims and truly support equality and tolerance and love for all, I will be an outspoken critic.

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi you owe an apology to all members of the LGBT community and all of the rest of us who find your form of discrimination repugnant.