Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 37

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Just a moment please...

I haven't been involved in this discussion for some while, but I noticed this remark as a justification for removing Hitler from the category of "Roman Catholic politician" and found it extremely weak in certain points:

It's POV to list as a "Catholic politician" a lapsed Catholic who rejected and lived in violation of Catholic teaching, and who martyred Catholic..

Well, there are actually three criteria for not being listed as Roman Catholic expressed here and two of them are easily refuted. 1) probably the vast majority of modern Catholics, many Popes and powerful prelates of history have "lived in violation of Catholic teaching." Indeed, if this is the criterion, then there I sincerely doubt that anyone would be classifiable as a Roman Catholic. 2) he "martyred Catholics". Yes, so did the major leaders, and the Popes who authorized, the horrible persecutions and annihilations that go under the name of the Inquisition. 3) He "rejected" Catholicim. IF this is true, then I agree that he shouldn't be classified as a Catholic politican. But I would need to see the authoritative sources on this claim, otherwise it is just an assertion of opinion. Failing the three, someone needs to define other criteria. It's not that I'm convinced that Hitler should be included in the category of Roman Catholic politicians, but I would like to see either sound evidence that he truly "rejected" Catholicism or some more adequate justification for excluding him from the category. --Lacatosias 09:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Good points Lacatosias. I agree with them, and for your third point/questoin, no Hitler never rejected his Catholicism. Infact he frequently professed it both in public and in his more private writings. He was never excommunicated either. The fact that other Catholics don't want count Hitler among their ranks is quite understandable but its POV to say he was not one. Along with the development of facism there has been a Christian fascism in its service, and this includes a right wing conservative wing of the Catholic Church that is fascistic in it own right. For instance Catholic clerical fascism, or Catholic integralism is sometimes used. Charles Maurras comes to mind, and ofcourse we have the modern Christian Identity Chruch's which declare the mainstream Christian interpretations "heresy" while proclaming their racist and fasicst interpretation of the Bible, just like historically we have some Catholics (The Western Church branding the Eastern Chruch as heretics, and vise versa and then killing them as the Crusades happen to pass by on the way to kill Muslims). In anycase, I see no real basis to claim that these Christians are not Christians as a matter of fact, other than simply asserting a POV. About Hitler, see: [1]. I particularly like the photographic evidence link that this site provide. Giovanni33 13:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Welcome back, Lacatosias,
however, I must say that Ann is right in removing the category.
1) your first objection doesn't actually address her change - she didn't put him in a category of "lapse Catholics" (if it exists), she only removed him from the one he was in.
2) I am not as pessimistic about adherence of Catholics to Catholic teaching, which is BTW not the same as managing to live blamelessly. Even Alexander VI, I guess, considered adultery wrong (but did so anyway - well not actually adultery but fornication and a breaking of his vows, but you know what I mean). Hitler in contrast didn't do what he did despite misgivings about its moral character and because he couldn't resist it. He didn't agree with these moral precepts in the first place. That's something different.
3) He martyred Catholics - "major leaders" that martyred Catholics shouldn't be classified as Catholics, and I don't think there are great many examples of Catholics leaders martyring Catholics. You Inquisition analogy doesn't hold, as the Inquisition prosecuted/persecuted alleged or real heretics - that's not quite the same - the Inquisition killed those (it thought) no longer Catholic (a gross simplification, of course), while Hitler killed those who let their Catholicism interfere with his politics.
4) There are various utterances from church leaders commenting on the moral character of Nazism and Hitler (though sometimes Hitler is seen as less evil than other Nazis, especially in the first days) and utterances of Hitler on the Catholic Church and how bad it is. Also consider that "Mein Kampf" was on the track of being placed on the Index and didn't make it only for diplomatic considerations.
Last but not least, being a Catholic is more than just having been baptized and confirmed. Hitler however did not practice the faith (such as attending Mass, receiving sacraments) from the time he got away from home, so I actually don't see any basis for calling him a Catholic at all.
(self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 09:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Lacatosias. Yes, I was just coming to this page, but you got here before me. As far as I know, Hitler did not attend Mass and receive the sacraments as an adult. He persecuted and martyred Catholics. He rejected and lived in violation of Catholic teaching. This has been discussed on this page before, although I didn't take part. It's true that he wasn't formally excommunicated, but formal excommunication just announces that someone has already put himself outside the Church through his beliefs or actions; you can be outside the Church without getting an announcement from Rome. (Just as an annulment doesn't make a marriage invalid, but states that the marriage is invalid.)
Being a Catholic is not quite the same as being Jewish, since it doesn't carry any meaning related to ethnicity. So you could be listed among Jewish politicians and never go near a synagogue. However, to list a lapsed Catholic (and a particularly infamous one at that) in a category of Catholic politicians is certainly trying to make a rather biased statement.
A few months ago, we had a problem with a stub template which said "this article about a pope is a stub", and which was added to a lot of antipope articles. Some rather eager editor created an antipope stub template, which was deleted on the grounds that there weren't enough antipopes to popluate that category. He then changed all the antipope articles from a pope stub to a general stub, which also wasn't the appropriate thing to do. We finally reached a solution by editing the pope stub to say "this article about a pope or a claimant to the papacy is a stub". Voilà. Everyone happy! Now there are good reasons to object to Hitler being listed among Catholic politician. The very existence of such a list suggests that the Catholicism has some meaning — perhaps such a politician is likely to vote against euthanasia, for example. Was there anything Catholic about Hitler (other than the fact that he, like many ex-Catholics and lapsed Catholic) was brought up in that faith? As in the case of the pope template, I would have no objection to a category for politicians who were brought up as Catholic, or who were baptized as Catholics, which would include practising Catholics and lapsed Catholics. (Actually, I would have objections, as I think such a category would be rather pointless, but I wouldn't object on the grounds that it was introducing a POV statement.) AnnH ♫ 09:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I can't answer your specific points now, as I was typing my part while you posted yours, and I'm going out shortly. I'll just say that Popes who lived in violation of Catholic teaching were not lapsed! I don't deny that the Inquisition killed people unjustly. Some (not all) of those people may indeed have been martyrs — for example, if they sincerely believed a particular "heresy", and refused to recant because they didn't want to offend God. But they weren't martyred for being Catholic. AnnH ♫ 09:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
There are some valid points here. The real problem has to do with the subjective, POV use that is often made of categories. What I'm trying to get at is criteria. For example, Philip J. Romani (invented personage) is a Roman Catholic politician. He was baptized Roman Catholic and claims to be Roman Catholic in some broad sense of the term, but he does not attend mass regularly, is pro-choice, lives out of wedlock, etc, etc-.. There are millision of such people all over the world these days. He declares hmimself to a Catholic and works to obtain the Catholic vote. Is this person to be considered a Catholic politician or no? If not, why not? What if he does attend Church but does not follow any of the teachings (as an emormous number of mafiosi politicians here in Italy do (;) and indeed is morally repugnant from any point of view. Is he to be conisdered a Catholic politician? Also, it is certainly true that Hitler persecuted Catholics because they got in the way of his power and not in oder to reform their souls or some such matter. Howverem, it is almost certaonly the case that many of the high prelates of various faiths (not just Catholic) have persecuted memebers of their own faith hypocritcally in order to reform them, but actualy in order to intimidate them or maiantin power and so on. (Cesare Borgia comes to mind). Why would Cesare Brogia be considered a Catholic pol and not Adolf Hitler? These are just some questions that puzzle me about religious categorization in general. Shoudldn't the Chruch be ashamed to classify Cesare Borgia as a Catholic? In sum, Why is it improtant to classify Ceseare Borgia (or someone more abominable who 'hypthetcially commited worse crimes than are attribuited to Borgia as a Catholic) and to prevent AH from being so classified. What is the essence of the Cathlicism of Borgia, if he is to be considered Catholic?--Lacatosias 10:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
At any rate, I've arrived at the conclusion that categories are too simplistic. Period.--Lacatosias 10:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
As stated above, I agree with Lacotasias here and I'm interested in hearing the the answers to his questions. Also, I'll point out that Hitler did not attack Catholics because of their religion, but only because of their politics, which the religion can serve in either direction--both the right and left. In fact the actions of Pope Pius XII him during the Nazi era, was to assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany through the pursuit of a concordat. On the significance of the Reichskonkordat, Guenter Lewy, author of The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, wrote:
"There is general agreement that the Concordat increased substantially the prestige of Hitler's regime around the world. As Cardinal Faulhaber put it in a sermon delivered in 1937: "At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad."
But back to the point medieval Catholics killed Christians for disobedience too; does this make them non-Christians? George W. Bush approved of the execution of many criminals who were Christian; does this make him not a Christian polititian, too? The question is not whether Hitler killed Christians; the question is why. When one considers that Hitler himself openly professed his Christian faith in both his writings and public speeches, and when one considers the specific actions for which Christians were arrested and killed, it's obvious that they were killed for actively opposing his government, not for being Christian. This is entirely different from his hatred of Jews (whose only crime was their religion and race) and Slavs (whose only crime was citizenship in a "Godless Bolshevik" state), or any leftists like the communists which were his bitter enemies. To say that a polititian like Hitler who says openly , for example, "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter," and, "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." can not be listed as such, and to give as reasons objections which do not withstand scrutinty, esp. when one applies the same criteria to others, seems to me to be just POV that a Catholic can not be a fascist, which certainly is not true. See[2]Giovanni33 14:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, if it's of any interest a similar (though not nearly so explosive) controversy was resolved concerning Ayn Rand and homosexuality. It was decided to take a different approach: she is now classified as BOTH a gay-rights acitivist AND an anti-gay homophobe (or something like that)..Categories!!--Lacatosias 15:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Having looked over the pages of several of the more brutal leaders of history, it must be said that there is no mention whatever of their religious affiliation, lack of affilaition and so on. I can see no logical reason to single out Hitler as a Catholic pol., while not categrozing Stalin and Lenin and Pol Pot as atheist pols., Saddam Hussein as Muslim pol., some other brutal person as a Lutheran pol. etc...--Lacatosias 15:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Hitler's religion should be singled out either. I am for categorizing Stalin and Lenin as athesist, Hussein as Muslim, etc. In the case of Hitler its particularly relevant since he used his religious affiliations and proclamations in a very decisive fashion that had very profound reprecusions, i.e. winning over the Catholic centre party learder Kaas that lead dictatorial powers and rule, for example. Giovanni33 15:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
My first reply to Gio has eaten up by some edict conflict (hence no explanation of my revert appeared) so I will try again:
I agree with Lacatosias on the usefullness of some categories. He also makes good points in regard to Cesare Borgia - only that that doesn't help us on this issue. But I am all for consistency and criteria.
Possible criteria are practicing a certain faith, speaking out on behalf of it or holding a position in the respective religion. Merely being born into a religion doesn't help it. Should we mention Buddha among famous Hindus?
IMHO none of this applies to Hitler. Hence deleting him from this category is completely accurate.
Gio, your points raised above are irrelevant. I grant you that "clerical fascism" exists and I wouldn't object to label Mr Franco, Mr Salazar or Mr Tiso as Catholic politicians. Austrofascists would also fit the picture. (Charles Maurras BTW was an atheist.)
Italian Fascism wasn't a Christian or Catholic movement, but maybe some of its later leaders would apply, certainly not Mussolini.
Nazism however is a completely different boat and has been anti-Catholic from the get-go. Hitler used this to his favour, being thought of as more moderate when compared to Röhm or Rosenberg.
Christian Identity is completely irrelevant here. We are talking about Catholicisim, which is much more easily defined than Christianity in general.
Your understanding of the East-West controversies and the crusades is unfortunately lacking, but that's beside the point.
Lewy's remark notwithstanding (he is a bit dated, but the gist of the quote still stands), what he says doesn't make Hitler a Catholic - only a shrewd politician able to capitalize on certain anxieties and maybe onesided perception on the side of the Holy See.
As for Hitler murdering Catholics (leaving out the issue of martyrdom) - Hitler did murder Catholics because their faith interfered with his politics - so he did kill them because of their faith. He also killed JWs for their faith, not for theological subleties but because they would serve in his (or any other) army. Your Bush analogy doesn't work either, as Bush actually has killed noone (okay - no American citizen) - he only signed death verdicts given by the courts (which is already different from Hitler) and also those he "killed" were convicted criminals. Those killed by the Inquisition were killed because of heresy and not for being Catholic. It might be deplorable but it is still a different matter.
You also are very credulous towards Nazi propaganda I must say, Hitler's professions are gospel and so are the announcements about "godless Communism", as if Hitler had a problem with Communists because of their atheism. His hatred had other sources. BTW. Hitler saw Christianity as the progenitor of Bolshevism.
Repeatedly quoting the same website comentary by an author clearly not very fond of Christians (to use the old English virtue of understatement) is not enough to make your case, neither is repeating one Hitler quote. It wasn't up to Hitler to decide whether he was a Catholic or remained one. The Church doesn't work that way - call that authoritarian or mediaeval or old-fashioned if you will, but that's way it is.
(self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 22:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Charles Maurras, was Catholic, and his base of support was among the coservative French clergy. He and his co-leader Léon Daudet sent a humble letter of regret, disavowed all error and gave guarantees of respect for the Catholic religion in the future. In the end, Maurras died a fervent Catholic. I quote "[Pope] Pius [X] forgave his atheism. He even called him a "fine defender of the faith." With such advisers Pius initiated his great purge of Catholic democrats [1903 - ]." And from Encyclo. Britannica, Maurras "Reconciled with the Roman Catholic church, he produced the poems of La Balance intérieure (1952) and a book on Pope Pius X, Le Bienheureux Pie X, sauveur de la France (1953). [3] [4]
Sorry, Gio, but you are in the wrong - Maurras was an atheist in his personal beliefs. He is amongs those "secular arguments against the separation of Church and state". (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
My understanding of the "East-West controversies and the crusades" is accurate. I quote the Encarta encylopedia main article on Christianity to support my statment, "which finally produced the East-West schism. Historians have often dated the schism from 1054, when Rome and Constantinople exchanged excommunications, but much can be said for fixing the date at 1204. In that year, the Western Christian armies on their way to wrest the Holy Land from the hand of the Turks (see Crusades) attacked and ravaged the Christian city of Constantinople." [5] Is this not a case of Catholic leaders going off an killing other Catholics? Heresy is rather meaningless here since they each called each other heretics. The point is that they were both Christian Catholics and thus their killing each other is not a valid basis not to count them as such, otherwise you would not be able to call almost anyone a Catholic, which is very POV. (GIO)
Can you get any more arrogant? Heresy is meaningless? According to your defintion, of course, you are a Catholic wikipedian because no one should be excluded. In the deplorable case of 1204 it was not Catholics killing other Catholis, but Catholics (for whathever motives) killing Eastern Orthodox Christians. If you must use Encarta, please at least do sufficent reading. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I am not credulous towards Nazi propaganda. It is widely acknowledged that the most authoritative statement on Hitler's beliefs and plans was his infamous book "Mein Kampf". Mein Kampf is his most personal work. Far from being the carefully crafted political statement that some would make it out to be, it was Hitler pouring out his soul and revealing all of his life's plans to his closest confidante. He dictated and Hess transcribed the text of Mein Kampf while he was in prison in 1923-1924, finishing it after his release and publishing it in 1925. In it, he revealed everything: his plan to expand Aryan "living space" at the expense of the Slavs (ie- the foolish attack on Russia that so few saw coming), his plan to avenge the German defeat of World War I by conquering France, his belief that all of the world's races should be subjugated under the Aryan race, and his plan to exterminate the Jews. By reading this single document, one can predict every major action Hitler would take over the next two decades including the Holocaust and the "surprise" attack on Russia, yet Christian apologists would have you believe it was nothing but a misleading propaganda piece. Also, I do not rely on just "one quote" of Hitler. I've argued this point at length before just to get a mention of Hitler's religion in the article, and if I do so again, I'll get admonished by Musical Linguist and my post will be quickly archived. But, anyone who studies Hitler's writing will see that it is full of phrases such as this: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."His Christianity is a major part of his influence. (GIO)
Indeed you do not rely on one quote, you rely on your preference of making Hitler a Christian because it suits your prejudice. However, even your longest stretch to make him a Christian won't succeed in making him a Catholic. But I guess facts are meaningless too. Mein Kammpf was a personal work and it was propaganda too. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
You made the claim that Hitler spoke out against Christianity? Sorry but that is not true. Postwar Christian apologists have put perhaps their greatest efforts into creating the myth that Adolf Hitler was not a Christian and spoke out against it. An entire cottage industry seems to have sprung up around the desire to perpetuate this myth, and while its motivations are perfectly understandable (who would want to be associated with Hitler in any way?), its dishonesty is unjustifiable. The truth, however uncomfortable, is still the truth. If you do plan to support your statment, I'd adivise you to double check your sources. There are only two souces around Hitlers tabletalk that allege any anti-Christian sayings based on heresay and these have been dismissed. (GIO)
And there is more about Hitler's religious convictions and there were not Christian, let alone Catholic. (And it is the latter that's in question, not the former.) I suggest you read Hitlers Gott by Michael Rißmann (2001, ISBN 3-858-42421-8), if there's a translation. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
He opposition to the Catholic church only manifested in the fact that its seat of power was in Rome, not Berlin. He was intolerant of competing versions of Christianity (an approach lifted directly from the Catholic playbook), but at no time did he ever commit acts or express beliefs which were not expressed by other Christians before him such as Martin Luther (as well as certain Christians after him, right up to this day.) Hitler never publicly spoke out against Christianity right up until the very end; it seems absolutely ludicrous to believe that he was still hiding his true beliefs for fear of offending religious groups even after he has complete power. Infact, no one in the Nazi regime ever spoke against Christianity, and Hitler publicly, loudly, repeatedly professed his Christian faith. Compare this to the founding fathers of the US who did pay some lip service to Chrstians which they did not really believe. They did not so proudly proclaim over and over the message, and their private writings, notably Jefferson, show his distain for much of Christianity. This was not the case with Hitler. (GIO)
Assertions without prove! Where did you get "manifested in the fact that its seat of power was in Rome, not Berlin" - Hitler was not Catholic in substance. "He was intolerant of competing versions of Christianity" - where did you get that? Where was Hitler persecuting "other versions" (oh that notorious wording again)? You refer to Martin Luther, but maybe you haven't heard yet: Luther was not Catholic. Your claim that "no one in the Nazi regime ever spoke against Christianity" is quite revealing, as you manage to leave out Rosenberg and Himmler. Note, the message of Christianity is not "I am a Christian" or "We are Christians" or "There is a God". That's hardly Christianity, let alone Catholicism. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
As others have pointed out the medieval Catholics did everything Hitler did and more; does this mean they weren't "true Christians" either? Are gas chambers are so much worse than hacking a "witch"'s breasts off, violating her with heated metal instruments, and then tearing her limbs out of their sockets on the rack? To define Christianity in such a narrow manner, would mean making most self-professed "Christians" throughout history to not be truly Christian. (GIO)
Again, you are relying on Nazi propaganda. Only, mediaeval Catholics did not "everything Hitler did and more" (!more!) - witch hunts were not a phenomenon of the Middle Ages and were not restricted to Catholics (on the contrary, the hot beds of witchhunts was Protestant Germany, though Catholic Germany is certainly not blameless). The difference is clear: Catholic witch hunters, deluded as they were, acted out of a twisted interpretation of their faith, and based on the belief that there actually were witches roaming around using black magic - Hitler was motivated by racism and antisemitism and dreams of German greatness and expansion and some Wagnerites ideas of Götterdämmerung - there is nothing Christian about that, let alone Catholic, even if he sugarcoated it (to himself and others) by saying he is doing the Lord's work. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
From Vol.1 Chap.#3, In MeinK. "The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schonerer's opinion, in the fact that the directing body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our nationality."(affirming that Hitler's only real problem with his childhood religion was the fact that its power base was not in Germany). His other issue was that Jesus, to him, was not a Jew but an Aryan. Any other issues had to do not with relgious reasons but political, ie. the role of the Church to the State. He wanted the State as supreme and the Church subservient to it, but a focus and thus a Christian State. This is no different than anything in the past with other Christian dictators (emperors) of antquity in their own totalitarian reigns of power. (GIO)
Strange, Hitler describing the Ritter von Schönerer's views is turned into Hitler talking about himself. It was Schönerer who - in Hitler's mind - rejected a Rome-centred Church. And BTW, Hitler says "root of the whole evil" - Schönerer probably thought that once the church was centred in Germany, the pope (of course a German too) would no longer have such strange views about racism and would no longer be so lenient towards Jews. Whether Hitler knew that well what Schönerer was thinking is of course problematic, given that the two never met - Hitler knew Schönerer only as a political celebrity. But be that as it may, Hitler here is talking about Schönerer and actually criticizes the Ritter for his approach. Now, "His other issue" was merely that "Jesus ... was not a Jew but an Aryan" (I leave out the "to him", as it is nonsensical; Jesus either was a Jew or not, either was an Aryan or not; one's view doesn't change reality), but that is already a long leap. Even assuming that these were Hitler's only objections, it's enough to make him a non-Catholic in his beliefs. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Lastly, your objection to Bush not killing anyone is funny. Signing death warrents (over 150)presiding over the executions means he is not culpable because he himself did not kill them? This is like Hitler not being responsible for the orders he gave. Thats nonsense. About them being guilty criminals, this also is not an excuse. Take for example, the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man of thirty-three with the communication skills of a seven-year-old. Washington's plea for clemency came before Governor Bush on the morning of May 6, 1997. After a thirty-minute briefing by Gonzales, Bush checked "Deny"— just as he had denied all other pleas for clemency in his first twenty-eight months as governor. But, Bush can not be said not to be a Christian, and even Catholic theological fathers such as Aquinas argue for the death penalty, even for someone simply because he doesnt agree with established dogma.Giovanni33 03:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Gio, this is totally beside the point. I don't like the execution figures in America either and I disagree with Bush's stance on the death penalty. However, it is the law of the land (not instituted by Bush) and the verdicts were reached by independent courts (and not by Bush). Also, these are not order to round up and kill people. Do you really believe what you wrote - it is downright bizarre.
Finally, I want to repeat the fallacy running through all of your points. You talk about Christianity all the time (without having a clue about it), but we are arguing about Christianity only in its Catholic "version", which is much easier too define. There's no ambiguity about it. It might be POV to state Catholicism as the correct interpretation of Christianity, but it's not POV to state Catholicism is Catholicism. And Catholicism is defined clearly - you cannot take out a single element. You are either 100% Catholics or you are not a Catholic at all. Hitler belongs into the latter group. Peroiod. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem at this juncture is that you think, that Hitler was not catholic because he did not act in that manner. If we were consistant to apply this standart we would have to remove a very large proportion of Catholics from the lists they are on. In fact the figure of 1 Billion adherents that is stated would be totally wrong. Then there is always the question, that a misdemenior that might disqualify someone in your eyes might be acceptable by others. So the only way we have to identify someones religion as far as wikipedia is concerned is like with anything else - are there any credible sources that identify him as a Catholic. Digging through old records I found that a lot of German records have the religious affiliation included. Currently this is done for taxation purposes so that would be an avenue to explore. What do historians in general say about his religious affiliation and the way Hitler played on being a catholic so he would get the support - especially in the early days? - These are - one way or another - verifyable facts and could fill a whole section of the acticle. The far easier option would be to delete the whole category as POV-inviting. Agathoclea 13:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I am the one who added Roman Catholic politicians category to the article. I based this on these points:

  1. Hitler was a self-professed Catholic, and the quote in the article shows that.
  2. If your rationale for not including him is that he killed Jews, that will not be good enough. By using this logic, the Pope wouldn't even have been Catholic, because during the Inquisition the Pope and the Catholic church persecuted Jews and expelled many of them from Europe.
  3. Hitler frequently prayed. Not attending mass or church is not an excuse for saying someone doesn't adhere to a religious group. I attend church little, but that doesn't mean I am not a devout Christian.
  4. Hitler was baptized. I am unsure whether it was an Episcopal baptism or Catholic, but in the case of the latter, then it is legitimate to include.

It doesn't matter if you can face up to it or not, Hitler was a Catholic. Эйрон Кинни (t) 01:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

So, Kinneyboy, it was you started this nonsense.

  1. Hitler was not a practising Catholic - many of his thoughts and deeds contradict this. Not speaking of his crimes but about his lack of practising the faith he was born into.
  2. Whoever talked about "killing Jews"? Read discussions before you post - we were talking about killing Catholics (which he did). But if you want to talk about killing Jews - he didn't kill the Jews for their religion but for their alleged "race".
  3. So Hitler prayed? When? Where? To whom? And does that make hime a Catholic? (I have seen GW Bush pray in public - does that make him a Catholic?) Not attending Mass (while one is able to attend - we are not talking about someone confined to his bed etc.) is a good indicator whether one is a Catholic. I don't know which church you belong to, Kinneyboy, but if it is Protestant, I have to say that you cannot use Protestant ideas on the Catholic Church. Note, we are talking about CATHOLIC not merely CHRISTIAN.
  4. Your comments about baptism betray an ignorance of the Austrian situation around 1900. There were not "Episcopalian" bishops in Austria. No one denied he was baptized into the Catholic Church, but that is not enough to make him a Catholic later on, if he doesn't practice the faith of his fathers (not judging how conventional his fathers were in this).

What doesn't matter is your wish to cast bad light on Catholicism by making Hitler a Catholic. We have to face up to the fact that Hitler came from a Catholic family, but you have to face up to the fact that you cannot legitimately use this stick to beat the Church. Go and get yourself another stick. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The church could have ex-communicated him but choose not to. Agathoclea 06:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you understand how excommunication works? I will quote what Ann wrote above: "It's true that he wasn't formally excommunicated, but formal excommunication just announces that someone has already put himself outside the Church through his beliefs or actions; you can be outside the Church without getting an announcement from Rome." (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

All I know is that over the history of the church it was an incredible tool to remove the support of the people to a ruler whom the church it did not like. They could have done that here, but they did not. Hitler saw/portrait himself as Catholic and that view was not opposed - nor was it refuted by the church officially after the fact. When everybody else was switching sides and stated that they had always thought that Hitler was a baddie (And hey - he was dead, so no harm done) the church never taken the title Catholic of him.
Anyway I believe your next revert within 8 hours would be in violation of WP:3RR Agathoclea 07:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
This tool has been used against Henry IV with limited success, against Frederick II with success but also with the result of plunging Germany and Italy into disorder, against Elizabeth I of England and Napoleon I of France with not success at all. After that, Popes had come to realize that excommunicating a unjust ruler would not work anymore and hence they refrained from formally excommunicating Hitler, which would have resulted only in negative repercussions without achieving anything. He who has ears will listen. Hitler had none. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I can see now that some folks are trying to use the categorization of Hitler as a Catholic as a simplistic and absrudly reductive way to cast a negative light on the Catholic Church in general. My whole point in making the comment on the edit summary was simply that I thought the arguments that were being used justify Hitler's exlcusion from such a category were not particuualy logically sound. On the other hand, the arguments FOR including Hitler in such a category seem to be even weaker. Hitler's relationship with any form of Chritianity is obvioysly a comlex and controversial question and the different views on such a matter should be discussed in the article. Forget categories. I will only say, in response to Str1977, that if your main criteria for Catholicism is "attening mass" and partcicing the fauth", then it is true that Hilter should not be conisderd a Catholic. However, you will then have to include many unsavory people who DO attend mass regularly, procliam the faith and then go out and do horrible things (such as mafiosi). There are sort of paradoxes here with the result that f you use certain criteria, you end up inlcuding people you might not really want to include and if you use others, you ends to exclufing other peopl you want to include, etc.. This is probably true of all major religious and poitical movements however. As I understand it (and I don't claim to be an expert in this subject), all we really KNOW is that Hitler was bapized and raised as a Catholic. He later rebelled (at least to some extent) and stopped attending mass, started flirting with Aryan mythological ideas and occultist stuff, developed a beleif that Jesus was not a Jew but an Aryan superbeing (not unlike himself) and so on. So it seems that he never truly abdandoned some idiosycratic form of Christianity. Even this is debateble, however, since he (like Mussolini before him) almost certainly realized that, even if he did not adhere to Christianity in any form, he would need to appeal (or at leats not alienate) the vast majoty of people whi were Chrsitina and the oerful insitution of the Catholic Chruch would need to be recruited on his side in his crsuade agaisbt Jesish Bolseheismn, etc.., etc.. It's difficult for me to beleive that Hitler did not envision some form of religion in which he, himself, megalomaniac that he was, took took total control and subordinate all other competing authorities to himself. At the same time, it's difficutl for me to believe that he did not base his profond anti-semnitism on some form of Christianity in which he was "doing Christ's work" be elimianting the Jews. It's a complex and interesting issue. But now I must stop bllabering oin talk pages and get back to work on other matters. Basta.--Lacatosias 09:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Claiming to be a Catholic is not the same as being a Catholic. In fact, Giovanni is trying hard elsewhere to insert "self-professed" before "communist party", so it's odd that he insists on categorizing Hitler as a Catholic, with no qualification.

I never suggested that claiming to be a Catholic and being a Catholic were the same thing. Indeed, I thought I was quite careful in pointing out an example of the contrary: Mussolini.

The Pope's excommunication of Elizabeth I turned out to be disastrous for Catholics living in England. When the Dutch Bishops issued a statement condemning Nazi-ism, all Jews who had converted to Catholicism (including Saint Edith Stein) were promptly sent to concentration camps. The Church does not excommunicate people after they're dead, so the fact that the Church hasn't done so with Hitler more recently is irrelevant. Going to Mass, unless it's impossible, is an essential part of being a Catholic; going to Church regularly is not necessarily an essential part of being Christian, as not all Christian churches require that. It is one of the precepts of the Catholic Church. Yes, there have been many unsavoury people who went to Mass regularly. They were bad Catholics; Hitler was a lapsed Catholic, which means that he was not a Catholic, unless you get into theological arguments about baptism putting an indelible mark on the soul. For all practical purposes, he was not a Catholic. If my parents were feminists, and brought me up as a feminist, and if I attended feminist meeting and ceremonies as a child, and if I drifted away from feminism, and then became convinced that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, and started campaigning against it, would you categorize me as a feminist? People can call themselves what they like, which is presumably why Giovanni wants to have "self-professed communist party" rather than "communist party", even though there's far less reason for calling Hitler a Catholic, other than the reason of showing the Church in a bad light. AnnH ♫ 12:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This directly and satisfactorily answers my question about some clear crieria. I honestly didn't know that attending mass was a requirement for Catholics (and I grew up a Catholic). I wonder how many of my relative and friends over here in Italy who caall themselves Catholcis and don't attend mass realize this. That's interesting. Thank you for this clarification. Clearly, Hitler can not be called a Catholic by say stretc, if this true. I have no agenda here, BTW, I am just curious as usual (like my hero Socrates).--Lacatosias 15:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In if you have ever read any of the scads of books detailing the theosophist movements and the Thule Society, it would be clear that Hitler denied the precepts of Catholicism, and did not hold the Catholic people as a primary constituency. From World War I, he held these beliefs, as easily evidences by the texts. During World War II a prayer to Hitler was composed and distributed. Both actions would lend themselves to conclude Hitler was not Catholic years before hsi acendancy as he suffered a Latae Sententiae excommunication sometime before WWI. Dominick (TALK) 13:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I've read something about this Thule stuff but not much and all I know about Blavatsky is that she was pretty much exposed as a charaltan, if I rerember correctly. However, a quick scan with Google turned up the following delightful piece of madness (pretty much what I expected):
In past programs, we have stated that the New World Order could not have been realized had it not been for the intense activities of various secret societies throughout the world. We have mentioned one world-wide secret society, the Brotherhood Of Death Society, whose symbol is the skull with two crossed bones. The German Brotherhood of Death Society is the Thule Society. Adolf Hitler joined this society in 1919, becoming an adept under the leadership of Dietrich Eckhart. Later, the Thule Society selected Hitler to be their leader of the New World Order, as Eckhart revealed on his deathbed, saying, "Follow Hitler; he will dance, but it is I who have called the tune. I have initiated him into the Secret Doctrine, opened his centers in vision, and given him the means to communicate with the powers." (Trevor Ravenscroft, The Spear Of Destiny, p. 91).
In August, 1990, President George Bush announced that the world had now entered into a New World Order. Shockingly President Bush is an adept in an American Brotherhood of.. the Yale Skull and Bones Society. As we stated earlier, Bush's New World Order is virtually identical with Hitler's; the key connecting point is the common membership in their respective Brotherhood .. (Behold A Pale Horse, p. 81; Introduction To The Order, p.7).
Everything has now become clear to me!! (;.........--Lacatosias 15:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Please don't muddy the waters. The Skull and Bones in no way compares to the secret neo-gnostic groups from the 20th century. It would be like saying a College Fraternity is linked to the Cathers of old. My point was is his membership in these groups as far back as 1919 would end his membership in the Church. In my own reading, I surmise his adhering to these odd beliefs through the war hampered his ability to be promoted in the German army, as people who belong to mystery cults could have been considered "lacking in leadership skills". I don't think I could source it well enough for wikipedia. Now if we wanted to add him to the pagan politician list... Dominick (TALK) 15:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Relax please!! Can you read, sir? Before the quote , I wrote "this delightful piece of MADNESS". Never mind. --Lacatosias 16:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
AHH the linkage ISNT yours. Whaddu want! This is the internet, flaming is a fringe benefit! Dominick (TALK) 16:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

fresh start on Hitler's religion

The other section got a bit too long, and I wanted to meander off a little. The category Category talk:Roman Catholic politicians states rightly or wrongly "This page lists politicians who have been born or raised as Roman Catholics, they are not necessarily still Roman Catholics or any other sort of Christian." Maybe it might we wise to sort out the category first before argueing about somebody who fits into the category by current standarts. Agathoclea 13:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Now this muddles things again very greatly. If this is the standard, then Hitler should definetely be included in the category or the category should be changed. It is a simple matter of fact that he was baptized as a Roman Catholic. It shouldn't even be controversial to Catholics.--Lacatosias 15:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Wait a minute, now, That's a comment on a talk page, if I'm not mistaken though. It's not a defintion of the category. It also says, for example, that "Vince Foster was neither Cathlic nor a pol" and "This catgory is wrong". Is that a variation on the liar paradox, BTW. (;..............--Lacatosias 15:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The point being that we need some clarification on that Category first. And as the other comments show it is not up to us to decide what he was or not, but it needs to be referenced. Incidently the Category includes a list: List of Catholic leaders and politicians Again without any clear inclusion guidelines - with Hitler and François Duvalier(excommunicated from 1960-1964) (a statement that need verification) Agathoclea 15:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
As far as I follow this: Hitler was baptised and raised a catholic, and continued to profess himself a catholic in later life. The claim against him is then: despite this, he should be considered excommunicated because his actions contravened catholic teaching. In the absence of any formal statement by the church, how do we determine whether he was effectively excommunicated? I think it goes against all WP principles for editors to take it upon themselves to decide this. For an editor to say 'in my opinion Hitler's actions were anti-catholic, therefore he was not catholic' is original research in the first degree.
As in any WP dispute, we need to go beyond editors' opinions to reputable sources. Obviously the best source would be a direct statement from the church, but we don't have that. In second place, are there eg. individual statements from church leaders of the time? Or later theologians who have commented directly on Hitler's catholicism? I know there were statements on the Nazi party, both for and against, but were there any direct comments on Hitler's religion? (Eg. here's a quote from Cardinal Pacelli, later Pius XII, in 1933 "it is to be hoped and desired that, like the Centre Party and the Bavarian Peoples' Party, so too the other parties which stand on Christian principles and which now also include the National Socialist party, now the strongest party in the Reichstag, will use every means to hold off the cultural Bolshevizing of Germany, which is on the march behind the Communist Party." Klaus Scholder "The Churches and the Third Reich" volume 1 p.157. Saying that Hitler's party 'stands on Christian values' seems to fit oddly with considering him excommunicated.)
I think the burden of eveidence has to be on finding sources to say that he was not a Catholic. So far the only verifiable claims are that he was baptised and continued to profess the religion - evidence for his catholicism. If there is no verifiable evidence to the contrary then that has to stand. To repeat - it is not for wikipedia editors to pronounce the excommunication.Bengalski 14:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the category, by design, is vague and perhaps over-inclusive. Hitler does qualify. Even if his personal convictions were un-Christian. The category is not a statement of his personal ethics. If that's objectionable, maybe the problem is the category's criteria. Peter Grey 16:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Hitler is un-christian if a christian is someone who in practice follows the teachings of christ. But I think such a categorisation would rule out 99.999% of all those any encyclopedia would need to recognise as christians. We shouldn't redefine categories to avoid classifications some consider 'objectionable'.Bengalski 17:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the standard should have been for those who identify with the community in question. He fits in the category of "famous Germans". He fits in the category of "world leaders of 1939". He fits in the category of "victims of suicide". He does not fit in the category of "Famous Jews" even though he could be Jewish. The same issue applies to Catholics. He is not identified as a Jew or a Catholic, even though he may be by birth or upbringing. Even as he was born, his early adulthood disqualified him as being a member of Catholicism and of Judiaism, and more importantly he made no attempt to bring himself into compliance with either community. Dominick (TALK) 17:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, by whom is he 'not identified' as a catholic? By catholic wikipedia editors who feel uncomfortable with Hitler's self-identification as a catholic? Or by actual reputable sources? (This 'he could be jewish' merits no response.)Bengalski 17:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
No, his ideology have been condemned by church authorities. Several of his beliefs contradicted Catholic doctrine. He did not practice the faith, e.g. go to Mass. It is NOT my or someone else's dislike for Hitler but these facts. You cannot equate with "normal misdemeanour" (including Lac's mafiosi) who commit bad things while still believing the truth of the faith.
Ben, the Christian principles quote sounds like me to be what in German is called Zweckoptimism (optimism for a particular aim), namely to try to bind the NSDAP by using the passage in its manifesto which talked about "positive Christianity" - however, it is this adherence to "positive Christianity" that makes the party anti-Catholic, especially since the reference is followed (and thereby defined) by "as long as in line with the laws and needs of our race" (quoting from memory) - this is not Christianity in any meaningful way, let alone Catholicism. May I remember editors that it is Hitler's Catholicism that is the issue and not his Christianity. Though I wouldn't consider him a Christian either, the category in dispute is called "catholic", a term much clearer defined. 18:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
His grandfather may have been Jewish. He is not identified as a Catholic by the Church. You may not have been reading what editors here have been saying. Because a person may have been admitted at one time to the Church does not mean that can't be expelled. Dominick (TALK) 18:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
You clearly haven't been reading what I have been saying. What is your source for 'he is not identified as a Catholic by the Church'? Again - ate there actual recorded instances where the church 'expelled' H or identified him as not a catholic; or if there's no official statement, then at least some statements from significant individual churchmen, theologians, or other relevant authorities would be a start.Bengalski 18:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
And even the Jewish claim is, at least in the form it was brought up, bogus. It got attention and hence it needs to be reported on WP, but we shouldn't forget that there's no evidence. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 18:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
And even if it were true, it would only make him a jew if you accepted the definition of the Nazi race laws.Bengalski 00:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
There are specific things that carry an automatic latae sentancae excommunication. No decreee is usually made. Apostosy is the most obvious and like I said before, this occured publically during World War I, but was public in 1919. The Church need not declare a person who joins a cult is no longer a Catholic in good standing. The Church also does not compile lists, you have it confused with Santa Claus.
The burden of proof is really on those that would like to claim he was Catholic. Catholicism is is not an ethnicity. If you can cite cases of him attending Mass after 1919, perhaps we can find where he met other precepts of the Church like yearly confession at Easter. He was not claimed by the community of Catholic, and indeed he made no attempt to change his behavior to conform with Catholicism. Dominick (TALK) 19:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Going by the WP articles on Excommunication and Apostasy, not going to mass or confession are not grounds for automatic excommunication. (Nor are unchristian or uncatholic acts in general - it seems there's a particular provision for procuring an abortion, but nothing for mass murder). Apostasy plainly is, but apostasy is described as "a term generally employed to describe the formal renunciation of one's religion". I would think if Hitler did formally renounce his religion it shouldn't be so hard to find a credible source confirming that.Bengalski 20:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Apart from the category problem - Most lists of famous people of a religious connection carry people that are lapsed, ex or whatever - The burden of proof lies with acceptable sources that say that his Catholicism had lapsed. None of us can make that decision. The only historical facts that we do have is that he was brought up a Catholic (enaugh to include him in the general category) and that he was still paying church tax at end (how credible that German source is I don't know and I lost it again in a computer crash half hour ago) Agathoclea 19:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually even excommunication may not be an issue. According to the 'catholic encyclopedia', it seems AH would count as a catholic just by the fact of his baptism - it doesn't seem to recognise the idea of a 'lapsed catholic' being no longer a catholic. In fact (in the entry on excommunication) it says: "The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced". (Noting that for the purposes of that encyclopedia christian = catholic: "the Christianity of which we speak is that which we find realized in the Catholic Church alone; hence, we are not concerned here with those forms which are embodied in the various non-Catholic Christian sects, whether schismatical or heretical.")Bengalski 20:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

that would explain the expression "once a catholic, always a catholic" (BTW google list 578 entries on that phrase alone) Agathoclea 22:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
It is true that according to Canon Law no one who has been baptized can become un-baptized again, can become a non-Christian again, no one can actually leave the Church. You can however become an apostate (which is worse than a non-Christian). All these are precepts of the Catholic Church - however, we are writing a secular encyclopedia and should not confuse readers by speaking Catholocese - in secular terms a Catholic can very well leave his Church and for our purpose a Catholic who has in thought and deed abandoned his faith is not to be considered a Catholic.
The burden of proof lies on those who include Hitler into a category. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 06:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree the burden of proof is on those who insist that Hitler's documented Catholism (all the evidence points to the fact that he was a Catholic), is not withstanding because he did not attend Mass or for some other reason that is estabalished as compellling and able to overturn the estabalished evidence. This can not be simply be the opinion of Wikipeadia Catholics, but must be scholarly authorities on the question that provide a clear standard that is used for others and generally accepted. Given reputable sources currently standing that support the placement of the category, a verdict about these sources on the question of Hitlers official standing within the Church must be furnished by reputable sources to this effect. So far the opinions stated by other Catholics about what is a requirement is not convincing since I personally know many Catholics who consider themselves such but do not attend Mass. I can't wait to go tell her she is not really a Catholic anymore, so she should remove all the crosses and other Catholic paintings and such, and stop talking about it, or calling herself that because she is lying. Giovanni33 00:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
We need to reach consensus on a definition of what it means to be Catholic for the purposes of Wikipedia identification. How could someone who publicly denies what the Church teaches and professes to be revealed by God be called a Catholic?
Perhaps the categories themselves need some restructuring to include (1)baptized-as-infant-and-nonprofessing-Catholic and (2)professing-Catholic where this distinction is known with certainty. patsw 03:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
But he was alwasy professing and his teachings are not opposed to his religious upbringing, in the least. They are historically consistent with other Christians. Where did he publically or otherwise deny any of the Church teachings to the degree that it could be said he was not a Christian and Catholic?
Hitler Biographer John Toland in explaining Hitler's reason for exterminating the Jews, states: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, 'I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so,' he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God-- so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty.[Toland, p. 703]
Moreover, there are no known documents, speeches, or proclamations by Hitler where he even comes close to denouncing his belief in Christianity, or Jesus. The Protestant and Catholic Churches in Hitler's time never accused Hitler of apostasy. Hitler's Christianity in Germany was never questioned until years after WWII and then only by Western Christians who are embarrassed to have him as a member of their faith-system. If Hitler had really wished, he could have attacked the Church, but he defended it, infact, he acting to unite the Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany. Why did he remain a Catholic in good standing, according not only to his own professions but also those around him, including Chruch officials, how never once refuted or spoke out against this idea. And so it remained until he died. Why did Hitler not break the Concordat between the Vatican and Germany? A case might be made that Hitler signed the Concordat in the first place, to help himself into power, but by no means does it explain why he kept it after winning power. His absolute power of the German state, Hitler could have, at any time, broke the Concordat if he was against the Catholic religion. Why did he not do so, nor even consider it?
In Albert Speer's memoirs, Speer recalls Hitler as saying: "The church is certainly necessary for the people. It is a strong and conservative element." [Speer, p. 95] Although Hitler approved of destroying Judaism and other cults, never did he give orders against the Protestant or Catholic Church. Hitler even ordered his chief associates, including Goering and Goebbles, to remain members of the church. Why? Hitler too, remained in the church until he died. [Speer, p. 95-96; Helmreich, p.220]
Speer, it must be remembered, was Hitler's architect who had planned the future buildings of Berlin. Hitler's plan for the future included the building of new churches. Speer had consulted with the Protestant and Catholic authorities on the location of churches in the new section of Berlin. This is a revealing from Speer:
Even after 1942 Hitler went on maintaining that he regarded the church as indispensable in political life. He would be happy, he said in one of those teatime talks at Obersalzberg, if someday a prominent churchman turned up who was suited to lead one of the churches- or if possible both the Catholic and Protestant churches reunited. He still regretted that Reich Bishop Muller was not the right man to carry out his far-reaching plans. But he sharply condemned the campaign against the church, calling it a crime against the future of the nation. For it was impossible, he said, to replace the church by any party ideology." [Speer, p. 95]
Hitler had no problem with the elimination of the Jewish religion but note that the Christian Churches in Germany remained strong until Hitler died. The established Methodist church paper, the Friedensglocke, vouched for the authenticity of a story about Hitler where he invited a group of deaconesses from the Bethel Institutions into his home at Obersalzberg:
The deaconesses entered the chamber and were astonished to see the pictures of Frederick the Great, Luther, and Bismarck on the wall. Then Hitler said, "Those are the three greatest men that God has given the German people. From Fredrick the Great I have learned bravery, and from Bismarck statecraft. The greatest of the three is Dr. Martin Luther, for he made it possible to bring unity among the German tribes by giving them a common language through his translation of the Bible into German....One sister could not refrain from saying: Herr Reichkanzler, from where do you get the courage to undertake the great changes in the whole Reich? Thereupon Hitler took out of his pocket the New Testament of Dr. Martin Luther, which one could see had been used very much, and said earnestly: "From God's word." [Helmreich, p. 139]"
Even the Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich who visited Hitler at his mountain retreat in Obersalzburg confessed: "Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture..."[Helmreich, p.279] And this comes from reputable Christian sources of the day including a Cardinal. How odd that there are Christians today who think they can divine the mind of Hitler they never met, removed by a generation, and dismiss all his direct quotes about Jesus, while denying their own brethren of the Church who actually talked with Hitler. If prominent Christians in the 1930s could be so easily deceived, could not be the same be applied to today's Christians?
On the Concordat between Germany and the Vatican, Hitler remarked:
"We do not forget the influence of the churches. There will definitely be no Vatican crusade against us. We know Monsignor Pacelli since he was the Vatican's diplomatic representative in Germany for twelve years; as Secretary of State and adviser to Pope XI it is greatly in his interest that the German Catholics should at last have a statute [Concordat].

-Hitler, in Secret Conversations With Hitler, p. 79"

Throughout his's life, Hitler saw himself as a Christian savior of the German people, and he acted according to his beliefs. He called himself a Christian and spoke in admirable terms about Jesus. At no time did Hitler denounce his own Christianity, and in fact, appealed to Christ as a fighter, just as he saw himself as a fighter. He was baptized, he took the sacraments and received Communion. Was he a devout church goer? No. Did he appeal to prayerful priests? No. But this does not, nor did it at his time by the Churches form a basis to deny his own proclamations about his Catholic Christianity. He defended the Christian churches and those who were attacked were so not because of their being Christian but becaues of their political activity.
Hitler makes his position clearly known about priests violating state concerns when he said: "So long as they concern themselves with their religious problems the State does not concern itself with them. But so soon as they attempt by any means whatsoever-- by letters, Encyclica, or otherwise-- to arrogate to themselves rights which belong to the State alone we shall force them back into their proper spiritual, pastoral activity."-Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin on the May Day festival, 1937 [Baynes]
Hitler explicitly makes his position known about his feelings for religion: "The Churches are the greatest landed proprietors after the State... Further, the Church in the National Socialist State is in many ways favoured in regard to taxation, and for gifts, legacies, &c., it enjoys immunity from taxation. It is therefore, to put mildly-- effrontery when especially foreign politicians make bold to speak of hostility to religion in the Third Reich....I would allow myself only one question: what contributions during the same period have France, England, or the United States made through the State from the public funds?. The National Socialist State has not closed a church, nor has it prevented the holding of a religious service, nor has it ever exercised any influence upon the form of a religious service. It has not exercised any pressure upon the doctrine nor on the profession of faith of any of the Confessions. In the National Socialist State anyone is free to seek his blessedness after his own fashion....There are ten thousands and ten thousands of priests of all the Christian Confessions who perform their ecclesiastical duties just as well as or probably better than the political agitators without ever coming into conflict with the laws of the State....This State has only once intervened in the internal regulation of the Churches, that is when I myself in 1933 endeavoured to unite the weak and divided Protestant Churches of the different States into one great and powerful Evangelical Church of the Reich. That attempt failed through the opposition of the bishops of some States; it was therefore abandoned. For it is in the last resort not our task to defend or even to strengthen the Evangelical Church through violence against its own representatives....But on one point it is well that there should be no uncertainty: the German priest as servant of God we shall protect, the priest as political enemy of the German State we shall destroy.-" Adolf Hitler, a speech in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1939 [Baynes]
Hitler emphasized that he attached the greatest importance to cooperation with the Catholic church and spoke of himself as a Catholic:
"I am absolutely convinced of the great power and the deep significance of the Christian religion, and consequently will not permit any other founders of religion (Religionsstifter). Therefore I have turned against Ludendoriff and separated myself from him; therefore I reject Rosenberg's book. That book is written by a Protestant. It is not a party book. It is not written by him as a member of the party. The Protestants can settle matters with him. My desire is that no confessional conflict arise. I must act correctly to both confessions. I will not tolerate a Kulturkampf.... I stand by my word. I will protect the rights and freedom of the church and will not permit them to be touched. You need have no apprehensions concerning the freedom of the church." -Hitler [quoted from Helmreich, p.241]
As for schools, it was a matter of utmost importance to the Catholic hierarchy, and agreed to by the Reich Concordat between the Nazis and the Vatican. Hitler went on in this chilling observation:
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. from our point of view as representatives of the state, we need believing people. A dark cloud threatens from Poland. We have need of soldiers, believing solders. Believing solders are the most valuable ones. They give their all. Therefore we will maintain the confessional schools in order to train believing people through the schools, but this depends upon having truly believing teachers, not by chance Marxists who do not stand fully by their religious faith, as teachers."-Hitler, [quoted from Helmreich, p.241]
Hitler officially held Catholic status, and only opposed political Catholicism when it conflicted with the Nazi state. The Catholic Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich visited Hitler at his mountain retreat at Obersalzburg in November 1936. Faulhaber observed:
"Without doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture.-Cardinal Faulhaber [quoted from Helmreich, p.279]
Church hierarchy did not feel convinced of Hitler's belief in God and Christianity, then why oh why would Pope Pius XII in 1939 instruct Cardinal Bertram to send a birthday message to Hitler: "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany" which was added, "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."? These greetings became a tradition and were sent every April 20th.

If you cannot take the word of Hitler's own words in his claim of Christianity, or contemporary Christian believers, or bishops, or cardinals or Popes, then what other Christian authority could you possibly turn to?

Although many Christians may want to deny it, there simply occurs no way to honestly avoid the destructive actions by Christians throughout the history of Christianity. Not only did many prominent Christians perform or condone atrocities, but the established Christian denominations supported wars, inquisitions, and exterminations of other faiths and even heretical sects of their own religion. Adolph Hitler simply acted as one of many along a long line of Christians who used his beliefs as a foundation for his actions.
From the respected biographer, Toland, the fact is that Hitler grew up in the anti-Semitic Austrian/German Catholic culture of his time. A priest baptized him. He got educated in a Catholic monastery under the schooling of Padre Bernhard Groner. On the way to the monastery, Hitler had to pass by a stone arch which had a carved monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika (which some speculate gave him the inspiration for the Nazi cross). He attended the choir. He attended religious services and festivals. An abbot became his idol and he hoped to join the Church as a priest. As a child he used to wear a kitchen apron pretending himself a priest giving sermons. In 1904 Hitler got confirmed at the Linz Cathedral. [Toland] As he grew older, other Christians influenced him, Catholic and Protestant alike. He always paid his church taxes on time. He remained a member in good standing of the Church of Rome until his death. And in 1941 Hitler said:
"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." Although Hitler had a strong Catholic childhood, he did slowly became more Protestant-like as he grew older. He read evangelist literature and he greatly admired Martin Luther (a Jew hater). Many of his actions fulfilled what Luther desired in his book "On the Jews and their lies" (1543). It appears clear from Hitler's own writings that his anti-Semitism came directly from the community of Christians:
"I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party.-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)" "How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all."-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) And we know that were the great German reformer [Martin Luther] with us to-day he would rejoice to be freed from the necessity of his own time and, like Ulrich von Hutten, his last prayer would be not for the Churches of the separate States: it would be of Germany that he would think and of the Evangelical Church of Germany."-Adolf Hitler, in his Proclamation at the Parteitag at Nuremberg on 5 Sept. 1934 [Baynes]
Throughout the history of Christianity, priests and religious leaders have excommunicated those who desecrated the image of the Lord. They did not for Hitler. Infact, Hitler appears just like a medieval priest when he wrote:
"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.""-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Many Religious Right rail against liberals and far right groups such as the KKK use Jews and liberalism as a sword for their holy cause. Notice how Hitler appears like a Christian extremist here: "all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave about the necessary progress of mankind.-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) Just as many preachers today speak against the unfaithful, Hitler fought against atheism and felt convinced that people require faith: "We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."-Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [Baynes]
Hitler even defines Christianity in his own terms, just as many Christians do today in opposing communism, atheism, degeneracy and crime in what he calls "real" Christianity: "National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity....For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life... These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles!"-Adolf Hitler, in his speech at Koblenz, to the Germans of the Saar, 26 Aug. 1934 [Baynes]
Politically, Hitler acted from a dictatorial stance to enforce what he called "positive Christianity." The original twenty-five point party program, a Constitution of the Nazi party, included a demand for liberty "for all religious denominations in the State" and that it stood for "positive Christianity." Hitler insisted and declared the twenty-five points as unalterable [Toland p. 218] (in spite of the anti-Catholic feelings of Martin Bormann,who was unable to convince Hitler, and who Hitler gave orders to not bother the Church). Hitler got his way.

Hitler stressed the importance of a strong, well-organized Evangelical church which would work in close cooperation with the state. He conceived of creating one large united Protestant church to stand parallel to the Catholic Church. And to the Catholics, Hitler wanted their freedom of spiritual and educational power, as long as they did not come in conflict with the political will of the government. Thus, the Nazis and the Vatican worked for an agreement, conducted by Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII). On July 20, 1933, the Nazis and the Vatican singed the Reich Concordat, establishing the freedom and power of the Catholic Church in Germany.

Again, if anyone has doubts as to the support of the German Churches for Hitler, one need only to examine the respects paid to him by Church leaders throughout Germany and the Vatican. For example, Pope Pius XII initiated the celebration of Hitler every April 20, whereby Hitler received a message stating: "warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with "fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars."Hitler once celebrated Christmas in a speech which asserted his Christian feelings: "Christ," he said, "was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews." Hitler thought of himself prescribed by Providence when he said, "The work of Christ started but could not finish, I-- Adolf Hitler-- will conclude." [Toland p.222]
According to Toland, "The born and bred Catholic Hitler rebuilt his SS on Jesuit principles by assiduously copying "the service statutes and spiritual exercises presented by Ignatius Loyola." [Toland p. 760]
When the Law Against Overcrowding of German Schools reduced the number of Jews in higher institutions, Hitler defended his action by reminding the priests that the Church had banished Jews into ghettos and forbidden Christians to work with them. Hitler only did more effectively what the Church of Rome had attempted to do for many centuries. [Toland p. 311] Note the Church of Rome not only condoned Hitler but blessed him as well! Pope Pius XII subscribed to the same principles as Hitler and proved by a concordat signed between the Vatican and Hitler. The Vatican felt so appreciative of the recognition as a full partner that it asked God to bless the Reich. There followed an order for German bishops to swear allegiance to the National Socialist (Nazi) regime. The oath went as follows: "In the performance of my spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and the interest of the German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might endanger it."Hitler campaigned to convince the German people to back his withdrawal from the League of Nations. The Church gave enthusiastic support. Every bishop approved as well as did Cardinal Faulhaber. [Toland p. 320]
We must not forget that Hitler's own contemporaries, the highest Protestant and Catholic leaders (including Popes and Bishops) thought of Hitler as a Christian. How can one sit here, decades from his history, and judge against Hitler's Christianity, when his own fellow Christians thought of him as a Christian?
We must also not forget that Hitler ruled the most devoutly Christian country in the world, a country that spawned Protestantism while still embracing Catholicism, a country where its Christian citizens and soldiers exterminated political enemies, gypsies, homosexuals, atheists, and six million Jews.
Not only did Hitler's atrocities remain consistent with God and Jesus' actions in the Bible, but his intransigent attitude parallels many of the fanatical beliefs of Right-wing conservatives of today. Hitler even used his faith in the same way as many mainstream American Christians. It appears clear from the history of Christianity that Hitler brought nothing new to Christianity, albeit he brought its violent nature to new heights. Like the Biblical God, Hitler created war and destruction. Similar to the Biblical laws against marrying outside one's group, the Nazi race laws outlawed Jews from marrying Aryan Germans as outlined in Hitler's private notes. Julius Streicher confessed that the race laws got based on Old Testament laws. Like many Christians in the past and today, Hitler aimed to protect the image of the Lord.

Like Christian leaders of the past, Hitler wished to unite the churches. He fought for his beliefs using the Lord as his justification. He created intolerance, divisions, and hatred as have Christians of the past. Hitler lived as a confessed Christian. His parents raised him as a Catholic and he spoke and prayed as a Christian. He believed that the Bible represented the history of mankind. Nothing in his rhetoric spoke against Christian faith. Although he did have a few Christian enemies, they posed a political danger, not a religious threat. Hitler allowed the destruction of Jewish synagogues and Temples. But if for one moment you still harbor the thought that Hitler acted against Christ belief, then ask yourself why he never ordered the destruction of Catholic or Protestant churches? Why did he not prevent his Nazis from worshiping in Christian churches, but instead encouraged it, ordering it even? And why did he spend so much time in trying to strengthen and unite the Christian denominations into one Christian Reich Church? Even acknowledging Hitler's most atrocious acts as sinful cannot exclude him from Christianity. Tenets of Christian belief allege that all people sin and only redemtion through faith in Jesus Christ can absolve them. A Christian, therefore, can never use sin alone, regardless of how horrible or atrocious, as an argument against Hitler. Clearly, Hitler's own words reveal his Christian faith, and Christians must, by their own tenant and upheld by their Bible, not to judge others.

Under all possible conditions then, Hitler lived and acted as a Christian and anyone who does not think so can only redefine Christianity from their own ignorance and denial. Christianity itself does not create the root problem but rather that the foundations of any faith (reliance on hope and ignorance) creates a defense mechanism that must act to protect itself at all cost, including the slaughter of innocents if necessary. A fanatical believer who gains political control of destructive weapons cannot help but use these instruments to favor his religious and political inclinations. A belief-system that contains violent scripts such as Bibles, or Korans can easily create similar intolerances that occurred in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler's faith, his Christian actions, the majority of Christian churches who supported him, his followers who believed in him, and the very Bible with its appeal to superstition, provides important examples of how beliefs can create dangers to society. Lets not bury that or sweet it under the rug. Truth is truth. Giovanni33 05:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Gio, how come? Suddenly talking about "truth"? What you write merely betrays your hatred and your lack of understanding of Christianity. Also, bulk of words are not a sufficient substitute for accurate arguments (so don't jump if I don't address all of your points).

  • Once again, your are plainly falling for Nazi propaganda - of course Hitler liked to justify his murderous acts by references to "God's work" or "Christkillers" but these are figures of speech and propaganda appealing to the traditional Christian anti-semitism.
  • Gio, true to yourself, you are again mixing up things: religion does not equal Christianity and Christianity in general does not equal Catholicism. References to the value of religious education are far from being endorsements of Christianity (except that it was the traditional religion of Germany - Hitler rather thought to subvert it, along the lines of "positive Christianity") but a rejection of atheism. And references to Christianity in general (albeit only a shell without the authentic core) is not an endorsement of Catholicism. AH's lauding words for Luther should already indicated that something is rotten in the state of his Catholicism - and you yourself even referred to deviation (though they were hardly the only ones) from Catholic doctrine. Someone who makes Jesus an Aryan, a non-Jew, is already denying His being the Messiah. Someone who carves up humanity into races eternally inimical to one another is not a Catholic. Someone who wants to transfer the papacy to Germany is not a Catholic. Also, as a German nationalist AH of course had a anti-Catholic leaning.
  • As a German, also, I must say that calling my country the "most devoutly Christian country in the world" is utter nonsense - it never was that. If my make a strong statement, Germany has been the origin of countless heresies, both Christian and non-Christian.
  • As for comparing AH to the religious right - nowhere to I see Jerry Falwell advocating aggressive war or genocide or whatever. Hitler has a parallel - his theological thinking (rather an euphemism) is clearly one of a theological liberal, pick and chose whatever you like - that might work in other sections of Christianity but it is not in line with the Catholic Church.
  • As for Hitler's "Catholic status" - you are begging the question. If AH was subject to latae segtentiae he certainly was no Catholic any more (in secular terms). The legal stamp in his papers is only relevant in regards to Church tax and the above remarks about him paying it until the end is sheer and utter nonsense: Hitler did not pay taxes in the Third Reich! If he had, he certainly wouldn't have paid to an institution whose head he considered his greatest enemy.

(self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 06:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonense, eh? You can deny and call names all you want but saying it doesnt make it so. I've given sources to support my statments of facts Toland's respected "Adolf Hitler : The Definitive Biography, ISBN 0385420536", and if you want to deny these things then you need to refute it. Contradiction is not refutation, esp. even without giving a source. Its just your POV and original research, both which doesn't count here.
You say he considered the Church his greatest enemy? With enemies like that, who needs friends? I wonder why after WWII the Catholic Church helped Nazis escape Europe to South America? Sounds like a good kind of enemy to have. Hitler agreed to collect a state a religious tax that remains today. This was a very lucrative deal the Pope entered into, whereby 8-10 per cent of the monthly income of all Christian workers in Germany was deducted at source and paid into the Papal treasury. In 1943 alone, 100 million dollars of this "Church Tax" was paid to the Vatican.
Reichmarshall Herman Goering proclaimed of Hitler: "Only a Catholic could unite Germany."

After conquering the low countries and France, Hitler returned to Berlin in the summer of 1940. All the church bells in Germany rang for one hour. I guess they were ringing because they thought him an enemy? During Hitler's fiftieth birthday celebration, special votive masses were held in every German church "to implore God's blessing upon Fuhrer and people," and the Bishop of Mainz called upon Catholics in his diocese to pray specifically for "the Fuhrer and Chancellor, the inspirer, enlarger and protector of the Reich." The Pope did not fail to send his congratulations. 17) Adolf Hitler, Toland, 528. Sounds like I want to be their enemy too based on this.

Yes, Hitler was a borrower, but liberal he was not, anything but! (and you call what I say nonsense?) Borrowing does not make one liberal; liberalism is not eclectism. For instance, it was not liberal for him to borrow, as he did, the idea of the reservations for Indians from the what he percieved as the "Christian nation" of the US.
And, the Pope's attitude was not at all vague. While taking no definite stand on the German invasion (of the Soviet Union) he made it clear that he backed the Nazi fight against Jewish Bolshevism, describing it as "high-minded gallantry in defense of Christian culture." 24) Adolf Hitler, Toland, 674-75 "Great Britain . . . which [Hitler told Field Marshall Rundstedt] must be looked on, together with the Catholic Church, as one of the cornerstones of Western civilization."
In his May 1923 speech at the Krone Circus in Munich, Hitler cried out: "The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being an image of God, the Eternal. The Jews are the image of the Devil." Again, this sounds like orthodox Christians (Catholics) who were fond to other religions as those of the devil.
Also, you clearly have it wrong about Jerry Fallwell. He is a big pusher of agressive war, of imperialism. A big Bush supporter. He even goes so far as to advocate for the assassination of democratically elected leaders. Indeed, Christian fascists such as himself and Hitler share similar language. Often today the word holocaust is used by those against abortion. Well, Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf, made plain his Catholic feelings on abortion. "I'll put an end to the idea that a women's body belongs to her . . . Nazi ideals demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand." Hitler sentenced so-called Aryan women who had abortions to hard labor after the first offense, to death after the second.
Reactionary clerics such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson are influencing political thought as their German counterparts did in the 1930s. They have succeeded in making their version of evangelical Christianity as the official religion of the Republican Party. They want a theocracy, one volk under one churchified state.
The Catholic Church even agreed to an oath of fealty to be taken by all bishops, agreeing “Before God and on the Holy Gospels I swear and promise—as becomes a bishop—loyalty to the German Reich and to the state ... and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honor it.”
Since you dont seem to know much about Farwell, he was asked about the terrorist attack in NY on 9/11, about why God would allow such an event to happen Falwell said: The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen." Robertson then responded: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system." Falwell has also stated: AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers . . . AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." (circa 1991) In a radio interview on March 4, 2002, Falwell said of former President Jimmy Carter: "His message of peace and reconciliation under almost all circumstances is simply incompatible with Christian teachings as I interpret them. This 'turn the other cheek' business is all well and good but it's not what Jesus fought and died for. What we need to do is take the battle to the Muslim heathens and do unto them before they do unto us."

In an interview given on September 30, 2002, for the October 6 edition of 60 Minutes, Falwell said: "I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to decide] that he was a violent man, a man of war."

Adolf Hitler, was the heir of an age-old tradition of Christian anti-Semitism which had become transmuted into biological racism, and yes, especially in the German-speaking world of Central Europe. It doesnt matter that you are Germany. Truth is truth. The political faith of National Socialism which he propagated borrowed its motifs freely from Christian liturgy, from the hierarchical structure of the Catholic church and the demonological view of Judaism as a satanic force which had its roots in the Middle Ages. In his early years as political agitator in Bavaria he frequently played on the deicidal myth and on his own messianic role as a militant Germanic saviour bearing a sword rather than a crown of thorns, who would drive the Jewish capitalists from the Temple of the Lord. "The task which Christ began but did not finish," he told a Munich audience in 1926 , "I will complete." In Mein Kampf he had written, two years earlier, "that in defending myself against the Jews I am acting for the Lord." Without the irrational beliefs inculcated by centuries of Christian dogma--reinforced by xenophobic, nationalist and Germanic racial mythology--Hitler's anti-Semitism and the echo which it found throughout Europe would have been inconceivable. Antisemitism, Wistrich, 66-67) i
With Hitler, Roman Catholicism ostensibly became the state religion. Although Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were of the Roman Catholic faith, Pope Pius XII refused to either condemn their atrocious actions or excommunicate any of them from the church.
I recommend the documentary, "Theologians Under Hitler," produced by Methodist Pastor Steven Martin aired on public television. The film is based on the 1985 book of the same name by Robert Ericksen. It looks at three prominent German Protestant theologians - Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emmanuel Hirsch - and how their writings were used to legitimize the Nazi Party during its rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. It talks about how German churches helped Adolf Hitler come to power, about how church and state became one in Germany.
In the aftermath of World War I, when Germany was a beaten, exhausted nation, a new vision of Christianity started to emerge. It was a vision that championed a nationalist agenda. The idea of the resurrection of Germany merged with the image of the resurrection of Christ. It was a seductive image, especially when one considers the depth of Christian faith in Germany and its attractiveness as a antidote to a chaotic modern world. The German Christian movement was the result. The Nazi swastika started to appear on church altars. The idea of volk espoused by Hirsch - a united, racially pure Germany - tapped into the long-simmering anti-semitism of Germans. It didn't take much of a leap to equate the elimination of Jews with the fulfillment of God's plan. And, as I quoted above, it took a Catholic to unite Germany aboard this ship sailing in exactly this direction.
What made it possible was theologians such as Kittel, who advocated for a Christianity divorced from its Jewish roots, or Althaus, who linked Hirsch's volk and Hitler's ideas together in his writings. Given the respect that people have for church leaders, having people like Kittel, Althaus and Hirsch supporting Hitler made Nazism respectable.
I suggest that you reevaulate your perception of the truth, because its the cold truth but liberating truth to come to terms with this ugly past, esp. for Germany, Christians, and Catholics. Also, if you are going to argue any of the points I made (most of which you did not address, I suggest you also cite sources. I already know your opinion. Giovanni33 10:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


You can argue the subject to death and will get no further. Go and sort out the category if you dare to got through 20000 entries. He was brought up as Catholic and claiming he is not is only conjecture sofar. No-one as yet has brought any sources that state that Hitler was at some stage no longer a catholic. And if - it still would not change the category. The whole argument - as interresting as it might be - is a bit of a moot point because I don't think there is any intention of including large details of Catholic canon law into the article at hand. Agathoclea 07:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Now wait a minute. It was Gio who tried to argue this to death, while ignoring the objections to including AH in that category. These objections are substantial, while arguments in favour of his inclusion have not turned out to be conclusive. If in doubt, leave him out. Also, you cannot base including Hitler on the basis that there might be other incorrect entries into the category. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 07:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The other entries are correct as the category stands. If you wish to change the extend of the category you will need to do that before you argue about Hitler. There have been no quotes stating Hitler was not catholic despite your interpretation of church law. It is a known fact that he was babtised Catholic. It is believed that he used his catholic connection in his rise to power. Denying those things without authoritative sources is injecting a point of view (The POV being that the Catholic church is not responsible for Hitlers action because he wasn't Catholic) but a) that point of view is not the issue, and b) even if it was he would not be the only one. Agathoclea 08:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Agathoclea,
I was not suggesting that there were other incorrect entry in that category (there might, there mightn't) - you were suggesting that I should sort out the category first. Now, I understood that to refer to such possible inaccurate entries. It appears you are referring to a (re)definition of the category. However, the category is not defined as you suggest - it isn't politicians who were baptized into the RCC, it is RC politicians, which at least suggests that these were RCs and politicians at the same time, or that there is some other (positive) connection between the two.
That AH used his Catholic heritage as a political tool is a different matter alltogether - and he did use it only to portray himself as a more moderate specimen of Nazi, in contrast to the downright and unashamed anti-Christian Nazis like Rosenberg, Himmler etc. Also a "it is believed" (by whom? how universally is it accepted?) is no basis for an inclusion into a category, if it is controversial. A category is an inadequate tool to deal with such complex and controversial issues.
Also I want to reiterate Lac's remark about singling out one man and one religion.
As regards your statement that "POV being that the Catholic church is not responsible for Hitlers action because he wasn't Catholic" - absolutely not; the CC is not responsible for Hitler's actions regardless of whether Hitler was a Catholic or wasn't. I am a faithful son of my Church for some years but have "occasionally done things wrong" - the Church cannot be blamed for my actions - the Church can only be held responsible for what she does and for what she teaches - and she didn't teach Hitler to commit genocide or whatever. She however did teach him, to regularly receive the sacraments, to live in imitation of Christ, to love his neighbour (even if he were a Samaritan, which in Hitler's case would translate to Jew) - only Hitler did not only not act accordingly, he didn't even listen anymore for very many years (if he ever listened at all). The fact that Hitler came from a Catholic family casts light on the critical state of Catholic families and Catholic education and urges us to reconsider. However, in the end, Hitler was master of his own actions (especially after 1933).
Granted, these statements might be controversial or POV, but a category is not place to deal with this.
(self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 09:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
To me, this is decisive. The category was designed to include ALL famous people who have been baptized Catholic. Period. Hilter obviously falls into that category as it is defined and used. If there is a problem with the category, this is to be dealt with on the talk page of the category or by introding other categories (or hat have you). But to argue that he does not fall into that category as it is currently used can only be sophistry. Hitler should be included. Period. Take up the problem of Categories at the Category page or in some other manner.--Lacatosias 08:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Lac, I cannot see where the category "was designed to include ALL famous people who have been baptized Catholic" (and not all entries are actually famous, but that's only an aside). As you observed above, the only thing in that direction is a post on the talk page. That's not enough. The category is "RC politicians" and for the reasons given above this doesn't fit with Hitler. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 09:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Let's start from the top here in the spirit of the Socrtatic method. What is a Roman Catholic politician? We can leave out the question about politician as non-controverial. So, what is a Roman Catholic?--Lacatosias 09:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Being a Catholic is about being a Christian, but with the distinguising differiating aspects of this particular version of Christianity. But since its about being a Christian, its not as easy to clearly say who is not to be counted as one and who is in any definitive sense, but it would be easier given the structural heirchy of the Catholic Church. That is, simply for the Church authorities to say so, to excommunicate him. Or, it could be that Hitler was not baptised in the Catholic tradition. But, he was. Therefore, its largely based on what he believed and if he bellieved it sincerely. Throughout his's life, Hitler showed a remarkable tendency toward conservative Christian faith in God, and saw himself as a reformer and a savior of the German people, and he acted according to his beliefs. He called himself a Christian and Catholic, and spoke in admirable terms about Jesus. At no time did Hitler denounce his own Christianity or Catholicism, and in fact, appealed to Christ as a fighter, just as he saw himself as a fighter. He was baptized, he took the sacraments and received Communion. This makes him Catholic, Was he a devout church goer? No. But, many are not. Did he appeal to prayerful priests? No but again not necessary. See, Christianity does not exist "out there'. It only exists in the minds of certain people who profess a belief in God and Christ. That's why we can only appeal to the direct words from an individual to determine their belief (outside of some ritual that Hitler did follow for the most part), and Hitler expressed his belief with brutal honesty. Here is a Catholic article entilted, "What does it mean to be Catholic" [6] Giovanni33 11:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hitler's Apostacy in the Encyclical of Pope Pius XI

"ON THE CHURCH AND THE GERMAN REICH" MARCH 14, 1937

Quote:
21. In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity.

Clearly, this shows that the public Apostasy of the Reich could no longer be ignored, and in couched terms (Vatican-speak)the Pope refers to Hitler indirectly. It would be obvious that the 1919 date was his first public act of denying his Catholic upbringing. It has become fashionable to invoke Godwins law in discussing the Church. Wikipedia should not use the Hitler article and almost universal Catholic baptism in his region of Germany to link Hilterism and Catholicism. Dominick (TALK) 20:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That link does not mention Hitler - Strangly the question of Hilterism and Catholicism was not an issue until the Catholic POV made a meal of it. Agathoclea 22:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, Hitler may well be considered a Catholic (by baptism), but I think it is quite clear that the reference above speaks directly, and I would say, courageously, out against Hitler, and makes it quite clear, even in 1937, that the church thought of Hitler as no "believer in God", as a "blasphemer", an "idolator", and as a "prophet of nothingness", and his "religion" as "aggressive paganism" (13) (my emphasis added): Seriously, Agathoclea, who else is being referred to in passages such as:

7. ....Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.

Who else is been referred to here - clearly, directed squarely at Hitler.

8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community--however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things--whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).

16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the world: he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human nature from a people that was to crucify Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son of God who to His torturer's sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and made the new alliance the goal of the old alliance, its realization and its crown.

17. The peak of the revelation as reached in the Gospel of Christ is final and permanent. It knows no retouches by human hand; it admits no substitutes or arbitrary alternatives such as certain leaders pretend to draw from the so-called myth of race and blood. ....Should any man dare, in sacrilegious disregard of the essential differences between God and His creature, between the God-man and the children of man, to place a mortal, were he the greatest of all times, by the side of, or over, or against, Christ, he would deserve to be called prophet of nothingness, to whom the terrifying words of Scripture would be applicable: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them" (Psalms ii. 3).

18. ... The Church founded by the Redeemer is one, the same for all races and all nations.....She rejoices at the spiritual superiorities among individuals and nations.'

How enraged Hitler must have been by this "heresy"!

39. .... The Church cannot wait to deplore the devastation of its altars, the destruction of its temples, if an education, hostile to Christ, is to profane the temple of the child's soul consecrated by baptism, and extinguish the eternal light of the faith in Christ for the sake of counterfeit light alien to the Cross. Then the violation of temples is nigh, and it will be every one's duty to sever his responsibility from the opposite camp, and free his conscience from guilty cooperation with such corruption.

Read for yourself - a host of daggers straight to the heart of Hitler himself, the "prophet of nothingness", and his "aggressive paganism". And remember the year - 1937, when the likes of Duke of Windsor and Lloyd George were worshipping at the altar of the "Bulwark against Bolshevism" (Churchill), the Church was condemning him for ever. Camillus (talk) 00:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This encyclical is evidence against the argument that Pope Pius XI did never acted to do something to try to prevent the Holocaust, and to the extent that it was written by Eugenio Pacelli, (he attributed it to the Vatican Secratary of State), it is also evidence against the argument that Pope Pius XII did too little to prevent the atrocities of the Holocaust, athough he could have done a lot more and the role of the Church was instrumental in both legitizing and putting Hitler into power in the first place. Still, while this is an admirable encyclical, it does not repudiate Hitler himself, his categorization as a member and his status still as a Catholic, albeit a fascist one whose Nazi polticies were coming in conflict with various groups and people among them those within the Church as well. But, this is not unique in history and the verdict afterwards had to so with the historical outcome. Had Hitler won or not carried out the holocaust but remained a successful politicitian, I highy doubt that Christians would deny claiming him as their own today.Giovanni33 05:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
And if Hitler had not been carried out the holocaust, would you be so eager to insert him into that category? AnnH ♫ 08:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
But, ofcourse. I strive for accuracy and NPOV. Oh, and even if Hitler's crazed Christianity didnt lead him to be one of the most hated mass murderer in history, I'd not dislike him any less (like a Jerry Fallwell or other Chiristian fascist). But the Christians would probably embrace him (the conservative ones, at least) as they virtually they all did in during his monsterous rule. Giovanni33 09:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

New section

Too much noise and nonsense has filled up all the pervious sections. One comment caught my attention:

Actually even excommunication may not be an issue. According to the 'catholic encyclopedia', it seems AH would count as a catholic just by the fact of his baptism - it doesn't seem to recognise the idea of a 'lapsed catholic' being no longer a catholic. In fact (in the entry on excommunication) it says: "The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced". (Noting that for the purposes of that encyclopedia christian = catholic: "the Christianity of which we speak is that which we find realized in the Catholic Church alone; hence, we are not concerned here with those forms which are embodied in the various non-Catholic Christian sects, whether schismatical or heretical."

First of all, the link needs to be provided to this article obviously. This is obviously an authoritative source on the definition of what it means to be Catholic. Second, somone responded that one can still be an "apostasy" and that this is "worse than non-Christian". Can I have references for the assertion that apostasy cancels one's Catholicism and renders one worse than non-Christian. The Catholic Encylopedia seems to be saying exactly the contrary. It seems that this is the nub of the question right here.--Lacatosias 09:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Lac, the CE doesn't contradict what I wrote. CE says that one cannot be unbaptized or unchristened. That is true when speaking on the basis of Catholic theology but not on a secular basis (see my reply further down, section "what does this mean"). The CE doesn't contradict my "worse than non-Christian", it just doesn't comment on this. My comment has its basis in Scripture, I think letter to the Hebrews. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 22:49, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it seems pretty clear. We have only one definition of 'catholic' so far - someone who has been baptised in the faith. This definition is accepted by Str1977, but then dismissed as a merely 'canonical' or technical definition - but it's the only sourced definition we've got. If there is another more relevant 'secular' definition of catholic someone needs to provide it, with references. And/or if, as some seem to claim, he stopped being a catholic through apostasy or other means, they need to provide references for this. (References that actually name Hitler and state in so many words, without the need for original research by editors, that he stopped being a catholic.) But so far Hitler is a catholic by the only sourced definition we've got, and the category should stay unless/until that changes.Bengalski 09:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
As I said, I will not object to Hitler being described as a catholic, but I have to laugh at "References that actually name Hitler and state in so many words, without the need for original research by editors" - Mit Brennenger Sorge, cited above, is absolutely, clearly, 100% directed straight at Hitler, as anyone with a shred of knowledge of Hitler's ideology can see, and condemns him as "no believer in God", a "blasphemer", a "prophet of nothingness", his ideology as "aggressive paganism". Who else exalted "race and blood" etc. etc. Camillus (talk) 10:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
But here we need a number of leaps of original research, some bigger than others. 1. - the encyclical is specifically referring to Hitler. 2 - the encyclical is stating that H is auto-excommunicated. 3 - that means that he was no longer a catholic. If these points are so obvious, it really shouldn't be this hard to find a published scholar making them.Bengalski 11:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I started typing this in another section, but I agree with Lacatosias that the other section is overloaded at this point, so I'm pasting it here before saving. The expression "once a Catholic, always a Catholic", which is being used to justify adding Hitler to a category which is utterly meaningly in his case, or rather, which promotes a POV designed to show Catholicism in a bad light, is a peculiarly Catholic expression, and focuses on a particular understanding of the indelible mark that baptism places on the soul. You can never undo your baptism. A Catholic in hell will still have that indelible mark on his soul for all eternity. Since baptism can't be undone, in can also not be repeated. If a Catholic converts to another Church which rejects infant baptism, and goes through a second "baptism" ceremony, nothing actually happens when the water is poured on his head, according to Catholic teaching. So, if Hitler had repented, he would not have been baptized again — but he would certainly have had to come back to the Church.

So the expression itself is simply a cliché that grew out of an official teaching that baptism can't be undone. That teaching is official; the expression is not. And it is quite common for people to say that they are not Catholics any more, probably more common than to say that they are, because of "once a Catholic, always a Catholic".

Giovanni, I am sure that you already know that whether or not your friend is a Catholic is completely irrelevant to whether or not she should have crosses and other Catholic paintings and talk about Catholicism. There is no rule saying that only Catholics can have crosses and Catholic paintings, so I think your sarcasm was a little misplaced. I'm sure if you think about it you'll also see that it's possible to be inaccurate without lying, so there is really no need to tell her that she is lying.

There are serious questions about how meaningful it is to call someone a Catholic who never attends Mass, and who rejects Catholic teaching. Quotations have been made about Hitler referring to God. I've got news for you: non-Catholics and even non-Christians can believe in God. Was Hitler married in the Church? Even non-practising Catholics ask for a Church wedding if they still consider themselves Catholic in any way. Where are the specifically Catholic teachings that Hitler adhered to? Transubstantion? Papal infallibility? The Assumption of Mary? Her Immaculate Conception? The power of a validly-ordained priest to absolve from sins? Purgatory? Euthanasia? The obligation to attend Mass every Sunday and holy day? The obligation to confess grave sins once a year? Note that many of those beliefs are held by other Christians, but holding several of them would give a better indication that one was Catholic than a few references to the "Almighty" do.

Adding Hitler to that category is definitely misleading, and POV. I agree with those who point out that Catholics have done terrible things in the course of human history (though they usually forget that Catholics have also done wonderful things). By all means, call Pope Alexander VI a Catholic. He may have been a wicked man, but it would be idiotic to say that he wasn't a Catholic. However, Hitler gave up his Catholicism. He did not practise Catholicsim as an adult. He made some references to God, but not to peculiarly Catholic theological concepts. His practice was anti-Catholic. So what sense does it make to put him in that category, except that it might show the Church in a bad light? Why not do some research to find out the religions that Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy, Roy Whiting, Jesse Timmendequas, Fred West, etc., were baptized into (regardless of whether or not they practiced) and then add them to categories of "famous Presbyterians", "famous Baptists", etc?

By a "generally-accepted encyclopaedic fact", I mean something that is verifiable and can be empirically shown. That the Catholic Church refuses to ordain women is an enyclopaedic fact. That an ordination carried out on a woman would be invalid is not an encyclopaedic fact, although I believe it to be true, and although it would certainly be found in an orthodox Catholic encyclopaedia. So baptism placing an indelible mark on the soul is not something that an encyclopaedia could assert, and that is the basis for the expression "once a Catholic, always a Catholic". If I'm not mistaken — Str1977 would probably know this — Henry VIII continued to think of himself as a Catholic. He was certainly baptized as a Catholic, and was never excommunicated. Should he be added to the category of Roman Catholic monarch?

And could I stress once again that the Church does not excommunicate dead people. Not Judas, not Hitler, not anybody. Not being excommunicated doesn't mean that you haven't turned your back on Catholicism. The Church doesn't excommunicate everyone who is excommunicable, although some crimes can lead to an automatic excommunication, regardless of whether or not it's formally stated. The excommunication of Elizabeth I did no good, and led to an increase in the persecution of English Catholics. The statement that the Dutch Bishops made against Nazi-ism did no good (as far as I know), and led to increase in persecution against Catholics of Jewish origin. AnnH ♫ 10:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

We could do with more editors pointing to references that back up their claims - as I did with the catholic encyclopedia article above - and rather less unsourced venting of personal views. Can none of our catholic editors point us to a sourced definition of 'catholic'? Bengalski 10:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, now I'm just confused. Did someone actually insert the comment "Once a Catholic always a Catholic" into the article? If so, I agree that this is definitely misleading and inappropriate POV. What I was talking about was that it is not unencyclopedic to insert something like "It is a theological precept of the Catholic Church that baptism leaves an undelible mark on the soul". That would be a simple statement of a fact. However, I am not suggesting, in the context of an Adolf Hitler article, that the following argument now follows: "It is a theologival precept of the Chirch that baptism leaves an indelible mark on the soul. Hilter was baptized. Therefore Hitler was a Catholic." That argument is not valid. I might be helpful if I actually took a look at the context of this thing.--Lacatosias 11:07, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Why not do some research to find out the religions that Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy, Roy Whiting, Jesse Timmendequas, Fred West, etc., were baptized into (regardless of whether or not they practiced) and then add them to categories of "famous Presbyterians", "famous Baptists", etc? Hmm... good point actually. I stated ealier that I think categories are ridiculous for precisely this reason. Responses?--Lacatosias 11:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
No, no one inserted "once a Catholic, always...", in the article. About these other characters, I'd have no problem categorizing their religion, even if it did not have a promient role in their thinking, unlike how his religion deeply affected Hitler's thinking and actions. But, if Ted Bundy ever ruled absolute power over a land and professed his Christianity as a major motivational factor in all his writings, and speeches, and had the support of the religious institutions who helped him into power, then it would be very POV to refuse to categorize him as a Christian polititian. The object here is not to make the Chruch look bad, or good, just to report the historical facts in a NPOV way. This means, in practical puproses, despite its limitations, not taking away the category of Catholic for Hitler, given that the objective and well supported facts support this identification for good or bad. Giovanni33 11:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Being a Catholic is about being a Christian, but with the distinguising differiating aspects of this particular version of Christianity. But since its about being a Christian, its not as easy to clearly say who is not to be counted as one and who is in any definitive sense, but it would be easier given the structural heirchy of the Catholic Church. That is, simply for the Church authorities to say so, to excommunicate him. Or, it could be that Hitler was not baptised in the Catholic tradition. But, he was. Therefore, its largely based on what he believed and if he bellieved it sincerely. Throughout his's life, Hitler showed a remarkable tendency toward conservative Christian faith in God, and saw himself as a reformer and a savior of the German people, and he acted according to his beliefs. He called himself a Christian and Catholic, and spoke in admirable terms about Jesus. At no time did Hitler denounce his own Christianity or Catholicism, and in fact, appealed to Christ as a fighter, just as he saw himself as a fighter. He was baptized, he took the sacraments and received Communion. This makes him Catholic, Was he a devout church goer? No. But, many are not. Did he appeal to prayerful priests? No but again not necessary. See, Christianity does not exist "out there'. It only exists in the minds of certain people who profess a belief in God and Christ. That's why we can only appeal to the direct words from an individual to determine their belief (outside of some ritual that Hitler did follow for the most part), and Hitler expressed his belief with brutal honesty. Here is a Catholic article entilted, "What does it mean to be Catholic" [7]Giovanni33 11:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean???

"Once a Catholic, always a Catholic" is a Catholic theological concept to do with an indelible mark that baptism places on the soul. It is not a generally-accepted encyclopaedic fact.)

This seems to me a very clever sophistry indeed. But there are several weak points: What is a generally-accepted encyclopedic fact? Indeed, what is an encylcopedic fact? Are they different from regular facts, such as 2+2=4, E=mc^2 and the earth rotates arounnd the sun in an elliptical orbit. If so, in what way? If you mean that a Catholic theological concept is not an ordinary empirically verifiable or logical "fact", then what exactly is the ontological status of a Catholic theological concept? Is it something subjetive that exists only in the minds of Catholics? Only on the mind? I any case, there is a confusion. There is the beleif/assertion of a Catholic theological concept, e.g. "an indelible mark that bapism places on the soul" and there is the the reconition on the part of the general community of the fact of the existnce of such as concept, e.g. "The Protestant Fred is familiar with the fact that the Church asserts that "an indelible mark on the soul...". --Lacatosias 09:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Lac, let me explain the sophistry by an analogy. According to the Muslim faith, a) every human being is born a Muslim and only separated from Islam by his upbringing, b) Islam did not start with the prophet Mohammed but millenia earlier with the first revelations to the first prophet (presumably Adam). Now, these two statements are distinctly Muslim concepts and Muslim wordings (involving the ambiguity of the words in Arabic). We wouldn't include them in this form in WP as they constitute a peculiar type of POV. The same goes here for "once a Catholic" - you become a Christian/Catholic by baptism and this sacrament cannot be undone - however, you can renounce the Church which, by normal usage, means to cease to be a Catholic. (self-professed) Str1977 (smile back) 22:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Huhh...Well, I think I pointed out below (or above or whatever) that I agree that such a statement could not be included in that form. But that you could, for example (I'm not suggesting this be actually done), include a stement which indicates that the Church belives this particualr assertion. In philosophy, it's called the use-mention distinction. If I write, "We are all born Muslims" that would be introdicng an assertion of religious beleif. But if I write: "Muslims generally believe that we are all born Muslims" that is a neutral statemnets assreting the fact , etc.. I think that's clear enough. I don't even remember what the point was now though. Ahhh, it turned out that I though someone was trying to introduce the stament the "Catholics are always Catholics" in the article, and I was suggestig that it could be introduced if it were placed in the context of a factual assetion about the Church's beleieve. But no one was trying was trying to insert that stament into the article in any case. So the point was moot.--Lacatosias 10:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, I would point out that this discussion, while it may seem technical to some, is not nearly so techical as the dispute that is taking place on the page Relativity priority disputes. In any case, I donìt approve of this anti-elitist idea that eveything needs to be dumbed down for the Populo-pedia. I support the position of one of the founders who has left over this issue: Larry Sanger. --Lacatosias 10:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there a consensus here that Hitler was not a professing Catholic as an adult and that he did hold the Catholic Church and Christianity in contempt? (Or is that under dispute as well?) patsw 15:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The only consensus is that Hitler was Catholic "in name only" in later years. Agathoclea 21:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I am under the assumption that we all could agree Hitler held Nazism is the highest esteem. We can also agree that that it's principles are in direct contradiction with Catholicism. I do not get the idea that everyone agrees that he held the Catholic Church and Christianity in contempt. Dominick (TALK) 21:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Agathoclea and dominick, are you writing that you didn't know that as an adult, Hitler held the Catholic Church and Christianity in contempt, or that you know and disagree, i.e. that as an adult, Hitler not hold the Catholic Church and Christianity in contempt. patsw 22:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
We mean that there is some dispute on the subject. Agathoclea 23:13, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Can some who dispute that Hitler did not hold the Catholic Church and Christianity in contempt be identified, summarized, and cited?
The first or second sentence on any work specifically covering religion and Hitler such as
  • Steigmann-Gall, Richard (2003). The Holy Reich (Nazi Conceptions of Christianity 1919-1945). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521603528.
will mention that for political and propaganda purposes Hitler remained a Catholic in name only, while seeking to suppress or coopt the Church in his actions, and expressed contempt privately. patsw 05:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Meta-observation

Stop it, please!! This whole hullaballoo about a single category is an extraodinary amateurish embarassment to Wikipedia. Categories, as I understand it, were designed to make it easier for people to find things on an almost unlimited encyclopedia like this one. That is all they were designed for. They were not designed to make a religious or political point by radically simplifying complex questions. They do not exist in other encyclopedias. That's my last word on all this nonsense. --Lacatosias 12:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why some folks are afraid to attempt gaining consensus. Clearly, the "RC politicians" category is controversial and disputed. Please gain a consensus for inclusion before simply adding it again. What on earth is there to fear? Why ignore WP policy and practice? KHM03 (talk) 12:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
There was no consensus to begin with, and the claim that there is a Catholic conspiricy to remove information from wikipedia is offensive. This was an embarassing issue for wikipedia, because people would like to build a case for things like "Pius XII didn't stop the Holocaust" even though Pius XII helped establish sanctuaries for Jews in Italy and even though a number of victims were also Priests, Nuns and Catholics of all types. One way to promote this is by promoting the veiw that Hitler was a Catholic "in good standing". Some editors take glee in taking stabs at the Church, and any item they can use to stab with is a good one. Nothing about Hitlers outlook was Catholic. Wouldn't that be trivia? Is not Hitler's membership in the secret cults of the 1920's be more important? Why didnt his paganism get more play? Dominick (TALK) 13:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, however that may be, my own vote is to include Hitler is the category of memebrs of the human species and then include the human species as a failed sort of being, citing Hilter and all those who aide him in any way as some of the infinite number of examples. Have a lovely afternoon!!--Lacatosias 13:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Hilter? Monty Python episode 12?AvB ÷ talk 15:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't the answer be apparent from what we already know about Hitler?

  • When tabulating simple stats and the like, Wikipedia's NPOV policy allows us to quote self-reported info on things that can't be measured, such as religion, political ideas and the like. See the Beatles example. Based on this criterion, Hitler should be in the category.
  • However, as soon as we can report on general views on a specific person, that will take precedence. So if we have reputable sources saying that Hitler is and was seen by a majority as a Catholic, he's in the category. If we have reputable sources saying that Hitler is and was seen by a majority as a non-Catholic, he should not be in the category. If we can't document such general views, he's in the category on his own say-so.

But even incorrect inclusion would not be too bad: readers are always directed to the article where the relevant in-depth info is (or should be) provided. Simply click on Hitler in the category overview and presto! there's the story for all to see and make up their own mind about whether Hitler saw himself as a Catholic and what it may have meant; whether his or our contemporaries see/saw him as a Catholic; and the views of the Church, including its political reasons not to excommunicate him. AvB ÷ talk 15:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

People are asserting the Church did not publically name him, as in "Mr. Hitler", and denounce him, so therefore he was a Catholic in good standing. The encyclical went as far as any Church document of the time, in denouncing any Layman. If there is no official status, an excommunication is carried out as far as the nature of the act, Latae Sentencae. If the person is ordained or took public vow, the Church will publish that so and so is no longer to carry out their office. Obviously, the Church also had theological reasons to not excommunicate Hitler publically, as no public ministry was entrusted to Mr. Hitler. Dominick (TALK) 17:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Anyway - I have inserted some text into the categorypage based on what I found on its talkpage. I feel that should take the whole POV out of any inclusion. Being a Catholic at any stage in life has a lasting effect even on people who no longer want to be associated with that church so there is some reason to have this category. OTOH I would not mind to have all people-by-religion categories deleted in one big swoop so save all the bickering. Agathoclea 17:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Neat. I hadn't realized that was a possibility. AvB ÷ talk 17:41, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
"Being a Catholic ...has a lasting effect" ... Really? How do you reach that conclusion? And the category page in question refers to people who are "born Catholic": how does that work? I am a humble, clueless shtove 00:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
we are now moving away more an more from Hitler ... "lasting effect" it will shape their actions on a subconcious level and they will either hold certain traits associated with Catholics or deliberately go the opposite way. Analogue to the Muslim who converts to Christianity and still will not eat pork (others might over compensate). "born Catholic" expression used by the populus due to the fact that children of Catholic parents are genearally babtised within days dispite their trying to indicate their dislike of the fact by heavy screaming. Agathoclea 06:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
However much modern day Catholics might not like it, Hitler was a Catholic and its clear to most thta his religious views shaped his thinking deeply. He might have been a bad Catholic, and maybe this can be shown to be more than simply a POV (according to Catholic doctrine), however, there is nothing in either Catholic doctrine, or more importantly, the standards we use as a society for refering to who is Catholic, that can deny Hitler being a Catholic dictator (there have been many very bloody dictators who killed others, including other Catholics, and yet their status is not disputed). Finally, the way the category has been defined in the category board clearly says that even if it could be shown Hitler was a "lapsed Catholic" his inclusion in this category should still stand. MikaM 06:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
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