The Attitude of the Catholic Church toward the Jews: An Outline of a Turbulent History

Numen ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Konrad Szocik ◽  
Philip L. Walden
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
The Third ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Papal States ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Church

The practice of imprisoning Jews in ghettos and marking them out with special signs (as was introduced by Pius vi in the Papal States, inter alia, in 1775) is associated more with the Nazism of the Third Reich than with the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Church maintained its policy of perfidis Judaeis until the beginning of the 1960s, when it was stopped by Vatican ii, probably because of the pressure of social and political factors. This topic is, however, difficult to explain, often very controversial, and subject to many different interpretations. Here we show that anti-Semitic ideas were present in the Church before Vatican ii, and that they have a religious, theological, and philosophical background. We discuss those interpretations which, in an ideological sense, connect anti-Semitism in the Church with the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Third Reich. This article underlines the revolutionary change in the Church’s attitude toward Jews in Vatican ii, a change caused primarily by the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Mit Brennender Sorge: An Exegesis on the Encyclical to the Third Reich

Elements ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Valdez
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Holy See ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
German People ◽  
Or Organization

Throughout the 1930s, the ascendance of the Nazi regime not only diminished the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, but alos directly countered fundamental Catholic doctrines. In face of the mounting atrocities of the German government, Pope Pius XI, with the help of Eugenio Pacelli, nuncio to Germany, and German Bishop Michael Faulhaber, in an unprecedented outreach to the entire German faithful, issued the encyclical <em>Mit Brennender Sorge</em>. Appealing particularly to the youth and the laity, the encyclical challenged Germans to use conscience as a final resort in assessing the validity of a religious institution or political movement. In its address to the German people, Mit Brennender Sorge reflected the delicacy of the relationship between the Holy See and the Nazi regime by not referencing any person, party, or organization specifically. Nevertheless, the purpose and the timeliness of the encyclical was lost on few, partially dispelling the widespread belief that the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to the Third Reich.

Between Rome and the Godless: Martin Niemöller’s Apologetic Moves, 1930–50

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-94
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ziemann
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Weimar Germany ◽  
The Third ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Third Reich

Martin Niemöller’s apologetic interventions from the late 1920s to the early 1950s reveal a complicated trajectory. He stood at the front line of the Protestant struggle against aggressive secularism in Weimar Germany. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Niemöller quickly emerged as the figurehead of attempts to defend the dogmatic integrity of the Protestant churches, yet also maintained the conversation with the German Christians in a common front against the ‘godless’ Bolsheviks and Freethinkers. After he had seriously contemplated converting to the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to early 1941, he returned to a combative assertion of his Protestant identity vis-à-vis the Catholics in the early Federal Republic. Overall, the chapter argues that the dynamics of the religious field during the Third Reich are best understood as an intensification.

How “Catholic” Was the Early Nazi Movement? Religion, Race, and Culture in Munich, 1919–1924

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Hastings
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Race And Culture ◽  
Basic Level

Amongthe more durable tenets of postwar West German historiography was the widespread conviction that Catholicism and Nazism were, at some most basic level, mutually exclusive entities. While a flood of critical studies in the 1960s began to erode this conviction at least around the edges — as scholars subjected to greater scrutiny the actual responses of Catholic opinion leaders, the German episcopate, and the Vatican to the Nazi regime — the image of a fundamental, albeit not quite perfect, incompatibility between Catholicism and Nazism has remained essentially intact to the present day. The durability of this image has been due to some degree to the steady stream of primarily apologetic monographs produced by a large and energetic Catholic scholarly community in Germany, whose works have stressed the heroic oppositional stance and victimhood of the Catholic Church during the Third Reich.

Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-158
Author(s):  
John Connelly
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Nazi Era ◽  
The Church

This absorbing and well-researched book presents the story of Berlin's Catholic Church during the Nazi era from the perspective of a deeply committed believer. Professor Kevin Spicer is also Father Kevin Spicer. As such, it offers critics a chance to test their arguments against a serious voice from within the Church. But it also affords more neutral observers a chance to ponder the assumptions behind debates on the churches in the Third Reich, in particular, what acts can be considered oppositional and what drove certain religious believers into resistance.

scholarly journals A beleaguered church the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) 1941-1945

Balcanica ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 269-287
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Stojanovic
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Mass Killings

In the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from its establishment only days after the German attack on Yugoslavia in early April 1941 until its fall in May 1945 a genocide took place. The ultimate goal of the extreme ideology of the Ustasha regime was a new Croatian state cleansed of other ethnic groups, particularly the Serbs, Jews and Roma. The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), historically a mainstay of Serbian national identity, culture and tradition, was among its first targets. Most Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were demolished, heavily damaged or appropriated by the Roman Catholic Church or the state. More than 170 Serbian priests were killed and tortured by the Ustasha, and even more were exiled to occupied Serbia. The regime led by Ante Pavelic introduced numerous laws and regulations depriving the SPC of not only its property and spiritual jurisdiction but even of its right to existence. When mass killings stirred up a large-scale rebellion, a more political and seemingly non-violent approach was introduced: the Croatian regime unilaterally and non-canonically founded the so-called Croatian Orthodox Church in order to bring the forced assimilation of Serbs to completion. This paper provides an overview of the ordeal of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the NDH, based on the scholarly literature and documentary sources of Serbian, German and Croatian origin. It looks at legislation, propaganda, the killings and torture of Orthodox clergy and the destruction of church property, including medieval holy relics. The scale and viciousness of some atrocities will be looked at based on unused or less known sources, namely the statements of Serbian refugees recorded during the war by the SPC and the Commissariat for Refugees in Serbia, and documents from the Political Archive of the Third Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Health Reform and Race Hygiene: Adventists and the Biomedical Vision of the Third Reich

1996 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Blaich
Keyword(s):  
Health Reform ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
German Society ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Nazi Era ◽  
The Church

German Seventh-day Adventists entered the Nazi era with apprehension. As a foreign sect which resembled Judaism in many respects, Adventists were particularly threatened by a society based on the principle of völkisch racism. Yet the new state also had much to offer them, for it held the prospect of new opportunities for the church. The Nazi state banished the scourge of liberalism and godless Bolshevism, it restored conservative standards in the domestic sphere, and it took effective steps to return German society to a life in harmony with nature—a life Adventists had long championed.

The Nazi Empire

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Browning
Keyword(s):  
Total Mass ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
The Third ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Physically Handicapped ◽  
Slavic Populations

This articles addresses genocide in the Nazi Empire. Genocide in the Nazi Empire issued from a confluence of traditions: anti-Semitism, racism, imperialism, and eugenics. None of these was unique to Germany, but they came together in a lethal combination in Germany under Nazi rule to provide the ideological underpinnings for three clusters of genocidal projects. The first was the ‘purification’ of the German race through the mass murder of the mentally and physically handicapped within the Third Reich and the expulsion and mass murder of ‘Gypsies’ from the Third Reich. The second was a demographic revolution or ethnic restructuring within the lands deemed to be Germany's future Lebensraum through the decimation, denationalization, and expulsion of the predominately Slavic populations living there. The third was the systematic and total mass murder of every Jew — the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Defending Human Rights Through Social Action: The Role of the Catholic Church in Latin America in the 1960s–1980s

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madelyn Evans
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Social Mission ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Since the earliest days of colonization, religion – in particular, the Roman Catholic Church – has been a driving force in the Latin American politics, economics, and society. As the region underwent frequent political instability and high levels of violence, the Church remained a steady, powerful force in society. This paper will explore the relationship between the Catholic Church and the struggle to defend human rights during the particularly oppressive era of bureaucratic-authoritarianism in Latin America throughout the 1960s–1980s. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the Church undertook the struggle to protect human rights because its modernized social mission sought to support the oppressed suffering from the political, economic, and social status quo. In challenging the legitimacy of the ruling national security ideology and illuminating the moral dimensions of violence, the Catholic Church became a crucial constructive agent in spurring social change, mitigating the effects of violence, and setting a democratic framework for the future.

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