AP - A book released Monday has dredged up more painful allegations from Poland's Communist era, naming some 30 Roman Catholic priests, including several bishops, as registered informants with the secret police.

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We must always remember that it was the catholic church who aided and abetted the Nazi war criminals (Mengele and Eichman etc.) to get to Argentina just after the war, organising safe houses and passage on ships with false documentation. No questions were asked of some of the worlds most prolific and savage murderers.

Well Seno, 7 years of schooling before joining the Navy wouldn't have afforded you too much of an education, so allow me to assist you in at least this one area where you manifest total stupidity and more than a touch of bigotry.

1). After guarding Adolf Eichmann's diaries for almost 40 years, the Israeli Government made them public early in March, 2000. Eichmann, a Nazi SS lieutenant colonel, was executed in 1962 in Israel for "crimes against the Jewish people and against humanity."Eichmann wrote these diaries during the months following the passing of his death sentence. They are especially chilling in their description of the way the Nazi regime came to the "Final Solution" against the Jews, and the way the extermination was implemented.The pages are also very interesting in studying the Vatican's position on the persecution of Jews. Some people accuse the Church of having done nothing in October 1943, when the Nazis began to deport Jews from their "ghetto" in Rome. However, Eichmann wrote that the Vatican "vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting the interruption of such action; to the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly."This is a confirmation of the thesis of those historians who have collected documents on the action undertaken by the Vatican to defend Jews during those dark years. It must be kept in mind that Rome was occupied, and that the Church was the only institution that had the courage to denounce the Nazi action.In a chapter dedicated to Italy, Eichmann explains that "on October 6, 1943, Ambassador Moelhausen sent a telegraphic message to Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in which he said that General Keppler, SS commander in Rome, had received a special order from Berlin: he had to arrest 8,000 Jews who were living in Rome to deport them to northern Italy, where they would be exterminated. General Stahel, commander of the German forces in Rome, explained to Ambassador Moelhausen that, from his point of view, it would be better to use the Jews for fortification works. On October 9, however, Ribbentrop answered that the 8,000 Jews of Rome had to be deported to the Mathausen concentration camp. He emphasised that, in giving evidence under oath in the military prison of Gaeta on June 27, 1961, Keppler said that it was with that order that for the first time he heard the term 'Final Solution'.""At that time, my office received the copy of a letter, that I immediately gave to my direct superiors, sent by the Catholic Church in Rome, in the person of Bishop Hudal, to the commander of the German forces in Rome, General Stahel. The Church was vigorously protesting the arrest of Jews of Italian citizenship, requesting that such actions be interrupted immediately throughout Rome and its surroundings. To the contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly."The Curia was especially angry because these incidents were taking place practically under Vatican windows. But, precisely at that time, without paying any attention to the Church's position, the Italian Fascist Government passed a law ordering the deportation of all Italian Jews to concentration camps," Eichmann wrote in his diary."The objections given and the excessive delay in the steps necessary to complete the implementation of the operation, resulted in a great part of Italian Jews being able to hide and escape capture," Eichmann wrote. A good number of them hid in convents or were helped by men and women of the Church.
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/20...000p8_256.html

2). On January 1, 1937, a 25-year-old German doctor began his research assistantship at the University of Frankfurt's prestigious Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene. Soon he joined the Nazi Party and the SS. Six years later, on May 30, 1943, his career in the service of Nazi Germany's "racial purity" would reach its climax by taking him to Auschwitz and placing him at the center of the "Final Solution." Specifically, during his 20 months at Auschwitz, this Nazi doctor would conduct notorious medical experiments and preside at "selections" that would determine who would be gassed. His name was Josef Mengele. Mengele identified himself as a Catholic. It is worth noting, therefore, that as Mengele began his research at the University of Frankfurt, Achille Ratti, 79--who had earned a triple doctorate in philosophy, theology, and law--was working in Rome. Ratti would die before World War II began, but in the relative quiet before that genocidal storm, he faced important decisions about his relationship to Nazi Germany. Ratti was better known as Pope Pius XI, leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Pius XI and Josef Mengele never met. Nevertheless, the Pontiff knew about Mengele's Nazi masters and their devotion to "racial hygiene." From the beginning of Adolf Hitler's power, Pius XI had recognized two other realities as well. First, he understood that Nazism jeopardized the Catholic Church's authority. Second, he knew that Germany's Jews were besieged with difficulties. Pius XI's feelings about those matters coincided with the description that Winston Churchill offered on April 14, 1937: "We seem to be moving," Churchill said, "toward some hideous catastrophe." Hitler realized that official Vatican recognition of his authority could be politically valuable at home and abroad. He sensed correctly that the Papacy would consider it wise to safeguard the status of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. In the spring of 1933 Nazi inquiries were favorably received by the Vatican's secretary of state, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, a former papal diplomat to Berlin. During an elaborate ceremony on July 20, 1933, a concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich was officially signed and sealed by Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen and Cardinal Pacelli. It affirmed legal status and protection for the Catholic Church and its organizations in Germany if--but only if--they were dedicated to purely religious activities .The concordat gave no comfort to Germany's Jews, for the treaty conferred important international legitimacy on the Third Reich. Indeed, Hitler regarded the concordat as a useful tool to be wielded in the Reich's battle against the Jews. Meanwhile, the Nazis' anti-Catholic pressure did not relent, and by 1937 a mounting list of arrested nuns and priests, closed convents and monasteries, and harassed parochial schools led Pope Pius XI to write "Mit brennender Sorge" ("With Burning Concern"). Issued on March 14, this encyclical protested the Catholic Church's difficulties in Germany, accused the Nazi government of violating its word, and warned against the deification of race, nation, and state. Smuggled into Germany, printed secretly, and distributed to the clergy, it was read from Catholic pulpits throughout the Reich on March 21, Palm Sunday.

read on......http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/111.html3

3). Ever heard of Maximillan Kolbe? - do a search

4). Ever heard of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty? - do a search, or if that's too hard rent the DVD "The Scarlet and the Black," where the real Monsignor is played by Gregory Peck.

5). Want to know why the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, converted to Catholicism in 1944 and took the name Eugene after Pope Pius XII? - do a search

6). A shameful number of Catholics, including leaders in the Catholic Church, supported Germany and or Nazism pre-WWII and during it. But so did some British, Americans, Australians, etc. To say the whole Catholic Church "aided and abetted" any Nazi's - especially the two you cite, notwithstanding the few anti-Catholic texts and websites that propagate such nonsense, is ridiculous.

End of Lesson One. Lesson Two is ready when you are.

I have my pen an paper ready to take more notes when you wish to proceed Padre, I just learned a few new intriguing historical bits. I like learning.

Padre, this is not a personal attack on you or the church it is just a statement of fact. A selective fact perhaps, but a fact never the less.

I do not deny that the church may have done many great acts and may well have resisted the Nazis prior to and during the war.

I actually have no great interest in the matter, it is just that the last episode of a TV mini documentary "The SS" was shown last week and it dealt with the Odessa Organization and how the church worked with them supplying safe havens for escaping ex SS members. Smuggling them to Rome where they were given false documentation and sent to South America. It is a matter of history.

Please don't get personal in your remarks, remember I an an ex PO Dusty and merchant seaman, I may not be a Rhodes Scholar but I can certainly hold my end up when people start on character assassination and innuendo. (I refer to your rather "cheap" shot at my schooling, which was however incorrect) and always remember a tertiary education is no guarantee of infallibility, in fact somewhat the reverse. This is the last I will say on the matter.

P.S. I am not a Catholic basher, nor Jewish, Methodist, Calathumpian or anything else, I focus on my own beliefs rather than attacking those of people about me.

LESSON # 2.

If you post crap on this forum, someone's going to smell it and comment on it.

If you post crap on this forum about the Catholic Church, I will smell it and come along with (a) toilet paper for you to clean it up (b) facts, and (c) my cricket bat. Understood?

Innuendo? What innuendo? I was as blunt as a Aussie typically is.
PS:
If you are still maintaining your post as a statement of fact - I have yet to see the "facts" to back it up.

The statement you have the onus of proving is "We must always remember that it was the catholic church who aided and abetted the Nazi war criminals (Mengele and Eichman etc.) to get to Argentina just after the war, organising safe houses and passage on ships with false documentation. No questions were asked of some of the worlds most prolific and savage murderers."

waiting........................................... ..............

Seno, I don't know who made that documentary, but it is quite incorrect, Odessa was organized by former SS and funded VIA sales of stolen treasures from all over Europe, the Catholic Church throughout WWII made extensive efforts to help Jews all over European, even if they were not so open about it and very secretive for the simple reason that if they were discovered the Germans would retaliate.

Well Damien if you think it is incorrect, you should tell that to the Odessa members that were interviewed for the documentary, they believe it because they were, and if alive are still part of it.

Padre your innuendo alluded to my perceived lack of education being some sort of drawback for me to be able to report what I know, as I said I have no particular interest in the matter as it is history and no amount of dodging around will change it. I don't make the facts, i just state them as I know then to be.

Without any effort whatsoever, my first Google Search bought up this, I am not interested enough to bother reading the remainder but it is obviously well documented, and from what i can read there are enough books on the matter.

ODESSA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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See Odessa (disambiguation) for other uses of the word "Odessa". ODESSA (German: Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, "Organization of Former SS-Members") is the name commonly given to an international Nazi network alleged to have been set up towards the end of World War II by a group of SS officers. Some historians, while acknowledging that there were secret postwar organisations of former SS members, deny that any organisation called ODESSA ever existed.
The purpose of such groups was to establish and facilitate secret escape routes, called ratlines, out of Germany to South America and the Middle East for hunted members. With alleged ties to Argentina, Egypt, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Vatican they operated out of Buenos Aires and helped Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich Priebke, Aribert Heim, Eduard Roschmann and many other SS members find refuge in Latin America and the Middle East.



Take it or leave it, I care not a fig, it is just that I care to believe it. I post what I know, without fear or favour. I have no vested interest what ever way it goes. If you care not yo believe it that is your business, it's just that I along with many others obviously do believe it. Go and attempt to browbeat someone else you are wasting your time on me.

I really, really, am biting my tongue and using maximum strength not to let fly Seno, but are you a complete ?

Where does your quote above implicate the Catholic Church or the Vatican in aiding and abetting Nazis? Did that dawn on you as you cut and pasted above? Are you that thick?

Does the word Vatican ring a bell?

The purpose of such groups was to establish and facilitate secret escape routes, called ratlines, out of Germany to South America and the Middle East for hunted members. With alleged ties to Argentina, Egypt, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Vatican

Again I ask that you keep a civil tongue in your head, as I am not of the habit of using abusive language to a man of the cloth. Even when they do have a differing opinion, I respectfully suggest that it may be more appropriate for yourself also.

Have you tried Googling for words such as Odessa, Vatican, and ratlines? I got 4940 hits for the above search.

Don't waste your time trying to upset me with inappropriate comment, because I have a far thicker hide than Monte.