HOW COULD 86 MILLION GERMANS JUST FOLLOW HITLER AND KILL THE INNOCENT JEWS AND ZIGEUNERS AND START A WORLD WAR WHILE THEY ALL CLAIM TO BE CHRISTIAN?

AND WHAT ABOUT ITALY?

THE MOST CATHOLIQ NATION IN EUROPE

COULDN4T THE POPE CALL THE PEOPLE NOT TO FOLLOW MUSSOLINI AND TAKE PART I N THE WAR

-- PUNKER (PUNKER@PUNKER.PUNKER), January 08, 2005

Answers

Well as much influence as we would like to believe the pope has on his flock we usually are disappointed...

-- Jacob R. (webmaster@stpeterslemoore.com), January 08, 2005.

How can millions of pregnant women have abortions and say the baby was just ''tissue''--??? Or is pregnancy a disease? That's what Punkers think; but it isn't. Lol!

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 08, 2005.

Because neither the Catholics in Germany nor the Catholics in Italy had any effective political or social power by the 1930s. Italy was created in 1870 by anti-Catholic masonic forces who crushed the Papal States and fused the various small principalities city-states into one country.... they outlawed the Church and since they had the guns... they ruled supreme.

Germany also was a relatively new country and in 1870 Otto Von Bismark began his culture war against groups that were independent of state control - Catholics mainly. By 1914 few independent organizations existed and hence there was NO organized opposition available and no civilian ownership of weaponry or planning available to "German Catholics" once Hitler took power in 1933.

You are asking Catholic civilians to do something that they had no means to do - like asking why land-locked Switzerland hasn't sent its Imperial Navy to safe the Tsunami victims or something.

Or asking why the beaten, cowed, and hopelessly abused Iraqi people didn't just rise up against Saddam... easier said than done, especially when the secret police are everywhere and instantly brutal.

Never discount logistics and circumstances. Some people - who have prior training and family ties, who have organizations well prepared and a sense of identity can resist outside invaders. But few countries have been able to overthrow home-grown tyrants without outside intervention...Including the American Revolutionaries themselves.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), January 11, 2005.

The comment regarding Bismarck and the Catholic Church is not quite accurate. The “Kulturkampf” (1872) was resisted by Pope Pius IX and issued rebuke and publicly called on Catholics to be involved with passive resistance. Many priests and bishops were exiled or punished. The Church lost property, religious rights, and political influence. Pope Leo XIII continued to publicly lead the resistance and insisted on a full restoration of Catholic rights and property.

Because the Catholic community was united in solidarity with the public protests of the two popes, Bismarck gave in and reestablished diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1882.

-- Robert Fretz (pastorfretz@oldstonechurchonline.org), January 11, 2005.