Idolatry, created on the backs of the poor
Idolatry, created on the backs of the poor
Membership of the Hitler Jugend (the Hitler Youth) during World War II is a sensitive issue that haunted the German-born Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to the Holy Land. The Vatican issued a denial that the Pontiff had ever served in the Hitler Youth. A spokesman said the Pope, formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger, served during the war as a 16-year-old seminarian in an air defence squadron “that had nothing to do with Nazism or Nazi ideology”. The spokesman insisted that, in his teenage years, the Pope was never in the youth movement ideologically linked to Nazism.

But this revelation contradicts the Pope’s own account of events in a series of interviews published in the 1996 book Salt of the Earth, in which he, then still a cardinal, said that he had been drafted into the Hitler Youth, like so many other young Germans. “When the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young but later, as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back,” he said at the time.

The stance on the Second World War by the Roman Catholic Church in general, and the Pope in particular, is controversial to say the least. Hitler was consistently supported by it. Despite exploiting the most absurd religious ideas and racial claptrap imaginable to justify his horrendous crimes, Hitler nevertheless enjoyed tacit support from the Roman Catholic Church until he shot himself in a Berlin bunker.

The then Pope Pius XII (from 1939 until 1958) found himself between a rock and a hard place. In January 1943, Pius declined to publicly denounce Nazi violence against Jews. Although history reports the Roman Catholic Church had saved many Jews from deportation to concentration camps, many Holocaust survivors denounced its lack of action. At the end of the war, Pius XII advocated a lenient policy by Allied leaders in an effort to prevent what he perceived to be the mistakes made at the end of the First World War. On his trip to the Holy Land, the Vatican asked that Benedict XVI be allowed to sidestep a Yad Vashem exhibit criticising his wartime predecessor for ignoring the plight of Europe’s Jews. The Vatican denies that interpretation of history, and is meanwhile working to declare Pius XII a saint.

On July 2, 1988, Pope John Paul II issued an order reaffirming the excommunication of British-born Bishop Richard Williamson. Since the late 1980s, Williamson has been charged with anti-semitism and Holocaust denial. Williamson has denied the existence of gas chambers or that millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis, and praised Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. During an interview on Swedish television recorded in November 2008, he stated: “I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against, six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler” and “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers.”

The current Pope reinstated Bishop Richard Williamson on 21 January 2009, on the same day the Swedish interview was broadcast in Germany, stirring widespread protests all over the world. In Germany, Holocaust denial is illegal and punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. Two weeks after the broadcast, German prosecutors announced the launch of a criminal investigation into the statements. And yet the German Pope says he knew nothing about the views of Bishop Richard Williamson. Could that be because Williamson worked for many years in Germany and then moved to Argentina, where many German war criminals hid after the war?

On his trip to the Holy Land, the Pope insisted that his pilgrimage was non-political, but he was increasingly sucked into the conflict that has cast a shadow on the region for decades.

Religion: A cross we have to bear. Picture by Lussiya at Dreamstime.com
Religion: A cross we have to bear. Picture by Lussiya at Dreamstime.com
The Pontiff is skating on very thin ice. In the 21st Century, his Church seems to have little influence, since specialised state agencies have taken over many activities formerly carried out by it. The secularisation of society seems unstoppable, but it might help if Church leaders woke up and came clean about the skeletons they hide in dark and deep cupboards. Countless cases of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, attempts to stop the abortion of a nine-year-old Brazilian girl carrying twins after being raped by her Roman Catholic stepfather, and the Vatican’s stance on contraception and abortion are just a few examples that help to explain the large-scale loss of faith.

The twisting attitude of the Pope on historical facts, and his gaffes on the Middle East trip, will do organised religion no good. Not that the Jews are helping much, either. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister for at least the next five minutes or so, declares that his country is ready to immediately talk to the Palestinians, just so long as they fulfil one or two tricky UN conditions (while Israel will continue to pay no attention to the UN).

Ben and Benedict like to occupy the moral high ground, with Israel hiding nuclear weapons while stating that a nuclear Iran would be a threat to the world, and Benedict claiming divine right to rule over an enormous congregation of mostly impoverished people.

As always, the trouble lies in misplaced faith and the Devil’s in the detail – as Michelangelo discovered to his cost.

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(To fully appreciate the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church when it comes to religious real estate, use your arrow keys to move around this image.)