If you assumed that the Catholic church excommunicated former alter boy and genocidal mass murderer Adolf Hitler, you would be wrong. Hitler’s mother was a Roman Catholic and raised young Adolf to be one too. In 1941, Adolf Hitler told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, that “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
The Vatican recently excommunicated a doctor and the mother of a 9-year-old Brazilian girl that was raped by her step-father. The reason? Because the poor girl was pregnant (with twins) and received and abortion. The doctor performed the abortion, and was excommunicated because of it. The mother consented to the abortion, and was excommunicated because of it. The step-father that raped his 9-year-old step-daughter was not excommunicated.
Other national leaders have been excommunicated by the Catholic church. Napoleon Bonaparte was excommunicated by Pope Pius VII in 1809. Fidel Castro was excommunicated by Pope John XXIII in 1962 for simply being a communist.
If Communists can be excommunicated, why can’t Nazis?
racist church
The church isn’t racist just because the leadership in the 1940s made a mistake in not formally expelling a genocidal dictator from the community. It was completely stupid, but it wasn’t the first time the Catholic Church has made a mistake, and it won’t be the last. Moreover, a church is made up of the people in it, and I’m pretty sure the guys in charge in the 1940s are long dead. (I don’t like Benedict either, but please don’t bring up Hitler Youth. He joined the same year that not being a member became illegal.)
The Church can excommunicate Hitler now, yet they choose not to. Why is that? Is it because the current Pope used to serve Hitler? Seems to me that if they can excommunicate the mother of 9-year old rape victims, they can excommunicate Adolf Hitler.
What better way for the Pope to send a message that he is no long a Nazi than to excommunicate his former leader, the man that “forced” him to join the Hitler Youth?
Agreeing with Rick, emphatically. Excommunicating Hitler now would go a long way in cleansing both Germany as a nation and the Catholic church of past horrors to a certain degree, and provide a clean break between the Pope and the barbarian he served in his youth.
BTW- my grandfather was a an American soldier and POW in Nazi Germany- thankfully he survived, and was not Jewish.
I never saw Pope Pius XII as a heroic figure but a rather cowardly and self serving one and in my opinion was not interested in opposing Hitler for three reasons (1) basically he was afraid of Hitler (2) He wanted to preserve the Catholic Church with himself as head of it (3) He made private deals early on with Hitler after he was appointed Chancellor to keep his mouth shut and not oppose him in order to leave him head of the Church. His so called opposition to Communism had little to do with it but self preservation was his main motivation. Pious did very little to help Jews in any fashion before, during or after the war. Pope Pious never even publicly condemned Hitler or the Nazis for executing Catholic priests nor nuns. If that isn’t a coward I don’t know what is. As a religious leader he was cowardly and as a Christian he was PATHETIC. The Catholic Church would have been better served if he had taken exile in England and communicated by radio with the faithful and excommunicated Hitler by radio announcement but what he did in reality was no different than Marshal Petain in France..Pope Pious XII was simply a collaborator.
Now that I think of it. Excommunicating Hitler is not the main issue here. It would do more good if the Catholic Church excommunicated Pope Pious XII FOR NOT EXCOMMUNICATING HITLER THEN THAN EXCOMMUNICATING HITLER NOW.
Hitler was baptised, which makes him a catholic. And he often spoke about God and Providence. BTW, there is a body of thought, eg the long out of print book “I was hitler’s doctor ” is an example, where evidence suggests that hitler was the bastard son of a Jew.
What else in very catholic Austria could have been worse. So hitler hated himself for whom he “was”. And like most haters, he reflected out his self hatred on the Jews, in an attempt to get rid of his own guilt. Guilt from a church that preys on guilt to control minds. Guilt they drive through the confession ritual.
Why didn’t the church ever excommunicate him – because they were the institution that for over a thousand years propagated the hatred of the Jews, as Christ Killers, people who drank the blood of infants etc. And hitler was poisoned by this church growing up in very catholic Austria. Go read Mein Kampf if you have the guts.
But the real reason the church didn’t excommunicate hitler was that then they would have had to excommunicate the church. For it was the church that gave the world the hatred of the Jews. A hatred that Hitler leveraged into election as the leader of germany.
And 50 million died for the long term sin of the church re the Jews. Jesus own people.
It is that simple.
Estimates are that up to 15% of Catholics in the USA are lapsed, and have nothing to do with the church.
The number should be 80%, for the people who believe that Jesus, himself a Jew, loved all of God’s creation. We’ll allow that there are 20% of American Catholics so thoroughly mind controlled from an early age, that nothing can be done with them, except to ignore them and their church.
@Stanley James: Well said.
It’s called no one knew about the holocaust.
@Cody: Wtf does that mean?
The mother of the nine year old prolly doesn’t mean a lot to the Catholic church because she isn’t wealthy. Women also don’t mean a lot to that church. And……..there ARE still people in Europe who do not have a problem with Hitler. You really have to look at exactly who these people are, who identify with Hitler enough to keep him. There are people right here in this country(USA) who don’t have any problems with Hitler, and who tell me they are Christians. Kinda makes ya wonder. Not excommunincating someone who rapes a nine year old makes me wonder…….unless they think the mother should have killed him with her favorite kitchen knife, instead. Christianity seems to have a lot of conflicts between it’s dogma, it’s scriptures, and it’s actual day to day practices.
If u believe the popes r infallible, then u need to have yourself committed. Pius 12 never spoke publickly agaisnt the Nazis because he was afraid more jews would be gassed. HOw could it get any worse than 6 million jews. Believe me, what would Jesus have done? He would have spoken out on pubicly . Jesus always spoke out the truth regardless of the consequences. Piu 12 was a coward.
There’s a wonderful biography praising Pius XII and his battle of the wills with Hitler, as well as praise for saving more Jews than Oskar Schindler online. Where? At the Jewish Virtual Library. Check it out.
@Patrick John: Does it explain why Hitler still hasn’t been excommunicated? No?
@Patrick John: Does it mention anything about Catholics’ appetite for young men?
Simple..the church might probably hiding something..if we will look at it closely, adolf hitler killed over a million people but why is it not exposed mainly in public? why is that remarkable part of history was now just an oridnary topic? many people are saying that adolf hitler was not excommunicated? other say’s he was excommunicated. i have read an article regaurding this topic that the catholic church has something related for what happen to those people hitler killed.the Catholic church never excommunicated Adolf Hitler because Hitler was protecting the Catholic church from what they are doing.
The church was guilty of the hatred of the Jews for over a thousand years – because they wouldn’t convert to the “absolutist-truth” catholic church. So came the pogroms and no one knows how many Jews were murdered.
And hitler was born a catholic -baptised in in 1888 in very catholic austria, where he learned his hatred of the Jews, detailed in Mein Kampf
And hitler leveraged that hatred to get elected, the rest is history.
Now the church certainly seems to do what it wants to do, for good or for evil. they absolutely should have excommunicated him..
But given their own guilt in the Pograms and how hitler got elected based on hatred of Jews, the church would have had to excommunicate itself as well.
Thats why they haven’t excommed the worst murderer of all time, while they throw up their smokescreen of protecting life to hide their guilt.
And in 2009 the German born Pope UNexcommunicated a Bishop Williamson, who was a former Anglican bishop kicked out for his views. Which included his saying that there were no gas chambers in germany and that only 200000 died in the holocaust.
Of course Williamson had 600,000 mad followers – go follow the money.
And Benedicts attitude and ideas about gay people include his 2008 xmass message where he talked about ecology of the human body and gays, in effect calling gays dirt and filth, and he also said trans people would cause the end of the human race.
the similarities of the church to hitler are astounding. – absolute beliefs, hatred of minority groups, and using words to get other people to do their dirty deeds.
55 million died tks to hitler the catholic.
Millions of gay people suffer and 3000 gay kids commit suicide every year in the USA due to the (nazi like) demonization of them by the church and the poison it implants in society.
And the church didnt excomm a Bishop whose name I forget, who in the 1930s in the USA had a radio program that demonzied jews.
I could go on – the inquisition of torture and murder for those who opposed the church.
Perhaps a million women burned at the stake as witches – a competing religiion that also clashed with the absolute male dominance in the church hierarchy.
The 40 million estimated Muslims in North africa murdered during the ‘christian crusades” from 900 to 1500. Societies have long memories, no wonder those people have their own haters.
The list goes on and on. if there was a god, the vatican would long ago have been swallowed up into a lake of fire – a vesuvius II
All good catholics should leave this monstrosity. You may well be judged by the company you keep and the churches you support.
“loved all of God’s creation” in general, he did not love everyone, hardly, if he did he would not have condemned the pharisees (most of them) or most of the world to Hell. Also please specify when you are talking about the catholic church instead of simply saying “the church” without even using a capital C, or are you stereotyping all Christians as being evil followers of Christ? Also interesting you mention Jesus was a JEW and don’ mention race, WHICH MATTERS, since people keep mixing up Jew with Judaism, and didn’t mention that his disciples or the apostles were jews, and that many other disciples and followers were jews.
“The number should be 80%, for the people who believe that Jesus, himself a Jew, loved all of God’s creation.” What does that vague sentence even mean? It’s nonsensical.
Well said? What’s this grammatically wrong sentence mean then flatterer?: “The number should be 80%, for the people who believe that Jesus, himself a Jew, loved all of God’s creation.”
Thanks for the input, DAN.
The Catholic church is responsible for more misery than any other institution on the planet. Not only do the priests take their pleasure with the alter boys, but the nuns spent years abusing the students. Anyone who gives a penny to this institution is supporting child abuse and pedophilia, shame on you.
Wow. You posted this almost two years ago, and you are still getting comments. Ya know, I have no idea what the guidelines are for excommunication from the Catholic church, and I’ll bet quite a few other folks don’t, either. In fact, I have no idea what it takes for Jesus, himself, to decide he doesn’t like you anymore. I’ve been told by some good Christians local to your area in Maryland that I have somehow met that criteria, but I still have not seen a checklist of traits or guidelines……..so why does anyone care if Hitler is still a Catholic, wherever he is, or not? Do they think his association, or lack thereof, with a certain bunch of Christians can cancel out his bad karma?
TO LILAH: DON’T EVEN TALK ABOUT POPE BENEDICT AND HIS BEING A HITLER YOUTH!!! JUST BECAUSE IT BECAME ILLEGAL TO NOT JOIN, WHY DIDN’T THE FAMILY LEAVE GERMANY?? THERE WAS A CATHOLIC FAMILY WATCHING ALL THOSE POOR JEWISH PEOPLE BEING SHOVED INTO CATTLE CARS AND ALL OF THEIR BELONGINGS BEING LEFT BEHIND. WHAT THE HELL DID THE GERMAN PEOPLE THINK THAT HITLER WAS DOING??? THEY SHOULD HAVE LEFT. THE POPE DIDN’T THINK AT ABOUT THAT AGE THAT HE WANTED TO BE A PRIEST??? BULL!!! NO ONE WOULD HAVE STOPPED HIS PARENTS FROM LEAVING GERMANY AND MAKING SURE THAT THEIR SON WAS NOT PART OF THAT HORRIBLE CRIME. AND GERMAN PARENTS WERE QUOTED SAYING THAT THEIR SONS TURNED NASTY AND DISRESPECTFUL TO THEM AFTER THEY WERE IN FOR AWHILE. THEY CAME BACK AT THEIR PARENTS WITH THINGS LIKE “I DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER TO YOU–THE FUHRER IS MY MASTER!!!” THERE’S NO REASON THAT A POPE SHOULD HAVE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT!!! AND AFTERWARD, CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN SOUTH AMERICA PROVIDED SAFE TRAVEL, HOMES, HIDING PLACES JUST TO HELP GET THE NAZI HIGHER UPS DOWN TO THEIR COUNTRIES. ALL THE RUMORS OF NAZI’S BEING IN BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA ARE NOT RUMORS—THEY WERE THERE!!! WATCH THE HISTORY CHANNEL AND OPEN YOUR EYES. OH, YES–I AM A RAISED CATHOLIC AND IRISH, SO I AM NOT A JEW RAGGING ON THE CHURCH. I AM AN EMBARRASSED EX-CATHOLIC.
I think Hitler did a pretty good job of excommunicating himself.
Hitler is dead and once dead you cannot be excommunicated.
Pius XII saved many Jews during the Nazi regime. You can read about how he saved hundreds of thousands of Jews from Rabbi David Dalin’s essay: http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/dalinframe.htm.
Popes are only infallible when they speak on issues of faith and morals ex cathedra. No one believes that everything they do or say is infallible.
Yes, some priests have abused teenagers and some even smaller children. A small number of bishops have tried to cover this up. Many school children are abused by teachers and their indiscretion are covered up by school administrations (I know of this from personal experience). Should we shut down public schools on this basis or accept that in any large organisation there will be nasty horrible people. Remember: the Church does not claim the clergy are perfect. In fact it teaches that everyone is a sinner including the Pope who regularly goes to confession.
Of course, we should expect reform when major issues are uncovered. It should, therefore, please everyone to hear that the Church’s reforms have led to a large decrease in credible abuse cases in recent years.
The current pope worked to cover up the problem before he was promoted to pope, so I’d say it’s not just some little issue. PLUS, Catholic leaders have been raping kids for at least the past several decades. Catholicism was invented by man and now it’s time for it to be put to rest by man.
Why not? If you can excommunicate the mother of a 9-year old rape victim, you can excommunicate one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century. You guys can do whatever you want. You make up the rules as you go along.
Considering that Hitler was a Catholic and your pope served in his army, you’d think you would want to excommunicate him for no other reason than for public relations.
Pope Pius XII: http://one-evil.org/people/people_20c_Pius_XII.htm
On the Holocaust:
http://one-evil.org/acts_holocaust/acts_vatican_holocaust.htm
Abraham Lincoln speaking to Charles Chiniquy:
I am so glad to meet you again. . . . You see that your friends, the Jesuits, have not yet killed me. But they would have surely done it when I passed through their most devoted city, Baltimore, had I not passed by incognito a few hours before they expected me. We have proof that the company which had been selected and organized to murder me was led by a rabid Roman Catholic called Byrne; it was almost entirely composed of Roman Catholics; more than that, there were two disguised priests among them, to lead and encourage them…. I saw Mr. Morse, the learned inventor of electric telegraphy: he told me that when he was in Rome, not long ago, he found out the proofs of the most formidable conspiracy against this country and all its institutions. It is evident that it is to the intrigues and emissaries of the pope that we owe in great part the horrible civil war, which is threatening to cover the country with blood and ruins
If you knew even the slightest bit of Catholic Canon Law, you’d know that the Church cannot posthumously excommunicate a person.
Furthermore, you might want to study a bit of WW2 history; specifically the odd bind the Vatican found itself surrounded by Italy (an ally of Germany), the nation with which the Church was very recently at war over the disputed Papal States.
Italy was an ally of Germany? Who knew?
Hitler was not excommunicated by the Pope because by doing so, the Pope would be considered to be an enemy of the Nazi Regime.
If Hitler considered the Pope to be an enemy, then this would place all the Jews hidden in the Vatican in danger
Also, the Catholic church doesn’t always openly excommunicate people by sending them a letter of excommunication. A person who commits an act that he would be excommunicated for then he is automatically excommunicated
No Catholicism was the work of Christ.
Have faith in God and not in man
What? Our Pope did not serve in his army.
Where do you get this shit?
Yes he did. Your pope served in the German Army from 1943 to 1945. He even spent time in an American POW camp!
Interesting……I had never heard that. He certainly does not bark up about it. There goes any credibility the christian church may have had with me.
The church wishes no one to go to hell and is very cautious with casting people outside of salvtion. Hitler was dead before there was ever a chance to do so. This is seventy years after hitler and the Vatican then people should knoe things were different then
The Italians under Mussolini were a Fascist State, therefore an ally of Germany. The American forces liberated the Italian resistance in or about 1943
The Catholic Church, turned the other cheek, when it’s favorite alter boy was doing a little excommunicating of his own, the Jewish people of europe. Pope Benedict Arnold in his younger days served in the nazi youth.
Excommunication is not a political action used to seperate the Church from evildoers. I think people are confused about the purpose and nature of ecommunication. It isn’t to punish a person and let the world know that the Church disagrees with their actions, it is to let the faithful know that the actions or theological beliefs of a so-called Catholic, are heretical. This is to prevent others from being led astray.
There are many excommunicated Catholics. They do this to themselves by their actions. Not everyone’s excommunication is formally announced.
The Catholic Church usually announces an excommunication formally based on heretical actions. That means persons who claim to be within Catholic teaching who are clearly not, such as the small group of nuns who claimed their mother superior was Mary reincarnated. This is obviously a heretical belief.
The group of women who claim to be ordained Catholic priests, again this is a heretical stance and yet they claim to be Catholic. They are excommunicated the minute they follow through on their actions, yet the Church officially announced it in order to draw the line. This helps regular Church going Catholics know what is and isn’t Catholic teaching. If the Church remains quiet on these things assuming that all Catholics know these women aren’t really priests, there is too much room for confusion. This is why Sinead O’Connor was officially excommunicated.
Where someone like Hitler is concerned, there is no confusion. He excommunicated himself by his actions and no one I can think of would ever believe that Hiter was a faithful Catholic adhering to the teachings of the Church. Formal excommunication is not neccessary unless there is some heretical idea of belief that is in question. Hitler never claimed to be doing the work of the Catholic Church, he never claimed to be a good Catholic and told by the Virgn Mary to kill all the Jews…or something like that. He was raised Catholic but he never really was Catholic, nor did he try to draw his Catholic upbringing into any of his actions.
The bottom line is, that it’s just not neccessary. Someone like Sinead O’Connor directly attacked the Church teaching and thumbed her nose at it. Hitler just happened to have been born and raised Catholic, but he never truly was a Catholic and certainly was no Christian.
Excommunication is the consequence of an action, not a punishment by the Church meant to prove something to the world.
@sadsa: Yet Hitler did claim to be a Catholic. If you had bothered to read the post before commenting, you would know that.
Looks to me like certain behaviors, or nonbehaviors, as the case may be, have nothing to do with being Catholic, or being a “good” Catholic. At this point, considering all the allegations of abuse and the lack of outrage on the part of the Vatican concerning it, maybe Hitler actually was a “good” Catholic, and excommunication would never be a consideration. Perhaps only the nonchristian world is stunned and horrified by abuse.
I’m kinda thinking Hitler and the example he set does not belong in any institution claiming morality.
They didn’t excommunicate the “mother of a 9 year old rape victim”. Actually, in this instance they didn’t excommunicate anyone. If the author of the above article had done his or her homework, they would know that abortion and formal cooperation in abortion is an automatic latae senitae excommunication. Its an excommunication that you bring upon yourself. For this reason, the story seems dubious to me. No Bishop would need to excommunicate these people because they would have, by their own free will, excommunicated themselves. It doesn’t shock me however that so many people are willing to latch onto this story as gospel truth without checking the facts. This kind of eager and instant belief is based on hatred, plain and simple.
I can’t believe how gullible most of you are, but its your blind hatred of Catholicism that makes you so. First off, anyone who knows anything about Hitler would know that Hitler created his own brand of Christianity at one point called “Positive Christianity” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity) that has nothing in common with Catholicism and is in fact heretical. Hitler would have ALREADY placed himself outside of Catholicism as a heretic. There would be no need for formal excommunication. He did it to himself latae senitae, much like the abortionists mentioned in the article did.
And while Hitler’s Catholic mother probably wanted her son to wind up a Catholic, and may have done everything in her power to that end, its clear that she failed, despite what the above article claims.
Because the Pope lives in the Vatican, which is in Italy and the Italians were allied with the Hitler.
The fact that Adolph Hitler may have told one of his most needed generals, who happened to be a Catholic, that he himself remained a Catholic, should be seen in the light of other statements made by the often contradictory dictator. It was, at best, political – not a personal statement of deeply held belief – Hitler, if he were a Catholic, would have had attended Mass, for example (a requirement to avoid mortal sin and therefore excommunication). So often, the madman’s words did not match the reality of his actions.
It is a well recorded fact that, in private, Adolph Hitler despised the Catholic Church, and the first victims of Nazism were Catholics – including Benedict XVI’s disabled cousin. In fact, the first open criticism of the Nazi regime came from the Catholic Cardinal of Munich, who condemned the party’s policy of euthanasia (first put into practice in Bavaria). Because of this, several priests in Bavaria were killed, which led to Pope Pius XI’s severe condemnation of Nazism – he ordered a Papal encyclical to be read in all German churches in 1936/7. (The letter’s introduction was by Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pius XII.) It condemned Nazi race and anti-life policies, as well as the state’s persecution of the Church. It is the only Papal encyclical to have been first published in a language other than Latin. It was a pure and prophetic condemnation of Nazism – which basically said that a man couldn’t be both a Nazi and a Catholic – for which the Catholic Church was persecuted under Nazism (more than 50,000 priests were targeted and killed from the late 30s onwards).
When we consider Hitler’s pronouncements on religion, and his Gnostic and neo-Pagan slant on Christianity, they show him to have been heterodox at best. Most historians conclude that, like modern politicians in some countries, Hitler used religion / religious language to try and garner support (most of his religious language was poetical and designed to appeal to nationalist Lutherans – it borrowed heavily from Luther and others). It is entirely obvious, though, from his remarks to men like Bormann and Goebbels, that he saw Christianity (and especially Catholicism) as a ‘disease’ and something that had weakened the German spirit. He also spoke favourable about Julian the Apostate, the last Emperor to persecute Christianity. Also, his actions and beliefs in the public sphere – such as mass murder, unjust war, euthanasia, persecution of the Church, and so on – demonstrate that he was no loyal or real Catholic. His attachment to the religion of his childhood, if he had a real one, may have been something to do with his inordinate love for his mother. (Bizarrely, AH said more complimentary things about ‘Mohammedanism’ than he did about Christianity.)
Excommunication is incurred in two ways: either through a grave sin which would automatically bring about excommunication, or through some form of public heresy or defiance of the Church. It can only be applied to someone who either is a practicing Catholic, or who appears to be one. It cannot be imposed one someone who rejects the faith or who no longer practices it – or appears to, at least.
The former form of excommunication is automatic, and is incurred when committing things such as abortion (or mass murder or persecution of the Church). In that sense, any manifest sinner is excommunicated, as s/he would not be able to receive Communion (excommunio, “outside communion”). The other involves a process, which requires justice and can be appealed… Men like Castro and Napoleon fall into this latter category. They never formally or informally left the Church and could have been seen as being in favour with the Church by ordinary people. But their policies / ideas ran contrary to the teachings of the Church. They were not, so to say, manifest sinners – even if there may have been questions about their behaviour – so they had not automatically excommunicated themselves. It is for that reason that the Church acted to formally excommunicate them. She did not have to do this with Hitler as he was no longer in communion / good standing with the Church. No one really knew what his religious / non-religious beliefs were, and he certainly never publicly identified as a practising Catholic in public (excommunication is usually public not private).
In the case of abortion, the excommunication would have been automatic, but someone may seek clarification, at which point the Church would always say that anyone who has committed a grave sin – such as murder or abortion – is de facto excommunicated.
Also, to remain a Catholic one must keep the Six Commandments of the Church. Here are three of the most important, all of which Hitler did not kept in any way, shape or form, throughout his adult life: 1) attend Mass on every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation; b) make an annual Confession of sins; c) receive Holy Communion once a year, preferably at Easter. As Hitler did not attend Mass at all, not even once as far as we know, as an adult, he was no longer a Catholic in good standing. For excommunication to be effective, it must be a sentence upon someone who is a Catholic, or who would otherwise be viewed / could be viewed by many as being one (in good standing). There is no way Hitler could have been viewed in that way, as both the local German and the universal Church had condemned his racial and pro-death policies.
He was not a Catholic, even if possibly he did once claim to be one in order to gain the support of one of his most needed (Catholic) generals.
In the words of another Austrian “Catholic” (who had lapsed and was de facto not a Catholic): “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should keep silent.”