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Printing Articles
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Catholic Exchange
Hitler and the Church
Dear Catholic Exchange:
Greetings from the City of David!
My name is Reuven Kossover and a couple of weeks ago my friend, Lawayn Trom forwarded me your article on Hitler and the Church [“Hitler and the Church“], asking for comments. Your article was indeed interesting, though of course anyone with a reasonably good understanding of history would know that the Catholic Church was never in cahoots with the Nazi movement.
You point out some of the motivations for the Catholic Church backing fascist regimes in Europe. No – I'm not at all surprised or bothered. I was only pointing out that the fact that the Catholic Church backed postwar fascist regimes only helped the socialists with their spurious claims.
But that's all water under the bridge. The socialists are turning out to be just as bad anti-Semites as were the fascists they so excoriated four or five decades ago, and for most, the postwar fascist regimes of Europe are just a bad memory. Today's FIFA scandals make much more interesting reading. Unless you're a Dutch Jew and everyone around you is yelling “kike” – or you're a French Jew who has been beaten up by a mob of Arab kids – or you are a Norwegian Jew reading of attempts to ban circumcision in Norway.
European anti-Semitism is alive and well – and it was nourished at the wellsprings of the Christian churches that predominate there. A friend of mine, a devout Christian, once took a course on the “holocaust.” He showed me the sheet he got from the professor the first week of class. It contained some 120 citations from the New Testament showing anti-Jewish bias. The professor pointed out that this was what was taught in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. My friend was somewhat disturbed by having his own Book thrown at him this way – another student commented that he was going to drop the course if all the professor had to do was to slam Christianity. The point of the citations was not that the Catholic Church was a handmaiden of the fascists, but rather that the anti-Jewish citations as they were taught to children and adults in churches all across the continent, created in Europe the fertile soil for anti-Semitism to flourish.
There is more. A rabbi in Slovakia was pleading for the life of Jews who had been condemned by Nazis who were sick of being bribed by this rabbi. He told the Slovakian prelate he went to for help that he was trying to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. The Slovakian prelate replied that “there is no innocent Jewish blood.” To say that the prelate did not represent the best side of Christianity does not change the sentiments that the prelate and all those beneath him taught their parishioners weekly. In the eyes of
most European Christians in the 1940's there was no innocent Jewish blood. Those brave few who helped us did so out of disgust with the barbaric regime they saw around them and because they had a better understanding of what their Teacher was getting at than the prelates and bishops around them – not
to mention a hell of a lot of courage.
For fifty years or so, we Jews were spared the virulent anti-Semitism so commonplace in Europe before World War Two. The stink of six million dead Jews, not to mention five million others, kept conscience alive in Europe. But conscience, unfortunately is much like a cat – it sleeps 80% of the time. The conscience awakened briefly after World War Two has again drifted off to sleep. Fortunately, we Jews now have a country of our own and with the help of G-d, Jews in Europe will have the sense to leave once and for all the graveyard of their grandfathers and finally to come home where other Jews like me will welcome them with open arms. We will see.
In the meantime, I wish you all the best and a good week, and may more people take seriously what you write.
B'vracha (with blessings)
Reuven Kossover
Dear Mr. Kossover:
I am pleased by the time and attention you have paid to my column.
But — as you would guess — I have a few points of disagreement. You state that “anyone with a reasonably good understanding of history would know that the Catholic Church was never in cahoots with the Nazi movement.” Would that it were so. My article was aimed precisely at the barrage of recent books and articles that seek to make precisely that connection.
Also, while it may be true that Catholic backing of the Fascists “helped the socialists with their spurious claims,” I think it was reasonable and understandable for Catholics, especially in Spain, to conclude that they had no choice but to back men like Franco in order to hold off what, at the time, seemed to them the imminent threat of a Marxist takeover. I recommend Jose Maria Gironella's books on Spain during those years to get a feel for what was going on in their minds.
And for those “anti-Semitic” references in the New Testament…well I am not sure of each of the 120 your friend found, but I would bet they were simply the references to those who rejected Christ and persecuted his followers after his death. There were condemnations of those individuals, but I don't think the language was any more intemperate than that which an orthodox Jew would use to describe the blasphemy of believing that the man Jesus was God. Such firm religious belief should not be blamed for the gas chambers. I can't prove it, of course, but I think it a cheap shot to say that in “the eyes of most European Christians in the 1940s's there was no innocent blood.”
But I don't think your response to my article was a cheap shot. It was fair-minded and temperate. Thanks.
Sincerely,
James Fitzpatrick
Catholic Exchange
Hollywood
Dear Catholic Exchange:
I just read the article/interview “Christians in Hollywood“. I enjoyed reading Mr. Johnson's comments.
As a Christian who is an actor in L.A., I can identify with what Mr. Johnson is talking about. I worked on a pilot called “The Cylinder” which was produced by Cornerstone Studios (a Christian film company). Each day before we started shooting, we had prayer time. The work is always so much more gratifying when it's preceeded by worshipping the Lord. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that this is my mission field as well, and it seems that whenvever I try to take control, things don't usually work out. As long as I leave it in the God's hands, the opposite is true.
In Christ,
Scott Wright
