The Only Bad Nazi

I got no unseemly joy out of writing my last blog about the pope's complicity in child rape. I take no joy in attacking the Catholic Church. My mother is a Catholic, as are many of my acquaintances and most of my neighborhood. I'm no atheist. And as an historian I am in awe of the Church.

Since I know and love so many Catholics, and since the Catholic Church is the oldest institution of Western Civilization, I could hardly be "anti-Catholic". But that does not mean that one should indulge in a blind denial of the church's sins, just as criticizing the government of Israel does not make one a Jew-hater.

Speaking of Jew-Haters, the Catholic Church's leadership this last weekend somehow managed to show themselves to be even more vile and despicable than I had realized.

The Pope's personal minister (a rather odd station, since one would presume that an infallible man is hardly in need of being ministered to) spoke publicly about the "gossip" of last week. You know, the "gossip" about how Catholic priests raped thousands and thousands and thousands of children?

So first this man tells the world that raising an eyebrow at thousands of child rapes is nothing more than frivolous chatter, akin to teenage girls dishing about new outfits or cute guys. And then....he compared the "persecution" of the Church to the Holocaust.

And there, in an impossibly neat and concise little utterance was the starkest evidence imaginable that evil exists in this world and that it has a franchise in the One True Church.

There are two factors here: the first is the rationality of the metaphor. The second is the Church's conduct during the actual Holocaust, which makes one marvel at the audacity of the Church even bringing it up.

First, the metaphor. Priests rape children. When victims speak out against this most outrageous and debasing of crimes, their pain, their shattered lives, their wrecked identities, are all dismissed as "gossip". Gossip.

And we are supposed to feel sorry for the Church. But see, "gossip" implies hearsay. It implies the possibility, if not the probability, that the subject matter is without merit. It could be outright false, and even if it were true, there's no real evidence. That is precisely the opposite of what is happening here.

The accusations of child rape are no more "gossip" than the accusation that Mohammed Atta flew a plane into the World Trade Center is "gossip" or than the accusation that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 is "gossip". Or, for that matter, that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews is "gossip".

So the Church is not suffering from undue "gossip"; it is reaping a pitiful fraction of the bottomless well of righteous wrath that must obtain from such unpardonable sin. The Church suffers not from "gossip", but from truth. Yes, truth, that historical Joker to the Church's Batman.

The Pope's pastor tells us that the Church is suffering from the equivalent of the Holocaust. So, commit the worst of sins, and when people call you out on it, it's as if they're throwing you in the oven.

Firstly, no Catholic priests have been thrown in any ovens. (Which is not to say that Catholic priests have not thrown inumerable others into ovens) Secondly, no Jews, who literally were thrown into ovens, had committed the crimes of the priests.

So for the Vatican to claim that it is suffering such persecution is sort of like if a serial killer is given 2 months probation for him crimes and then claims that his punishment is "worse than 9/11".

And what of the Vatican's conduct during the actual Holocaust? I can claim no expertise in this field other than to acknowledge that the general historians' consensus is that the Church made an extremely disinterested effort to mitigate the crimes of the Nazis.

Now, I do not for a minute claim that the Vatican was in any position to stop the Nazi atrocities. One of Stalin's top 3 quotes has him rhetorically asking, when someone wonders how the Vatican might react to the destruction of churches in the USSR, "how many tanks does the Pope have"?

The Church did not commit the Holocaust, and it could not have stopped it. But it could have done way more than it did.

An example? Excommunication. A penalty that may not strike fear in the heart of most people, but the Church's ultimate punishment (now that they're no longer allowed to burn people alive). For someone who was baptized into the Church to be excommunicated is the ultimate rebuke the Church can give. And how many top Nazis do you suppose the Church has excommunicated?

One.

Joseph Goebells. Minister of Propaganda. A man who, were he not so evil, would be remembered as the father of modern print media and motion pictures. Perhaps the truest of the true believers. The man who committed suicide with Hitler, but only after his wife had killed their 6 children, lest they grow up in a world controlled by Jews.

Joseph Goebells was the only Nazi excommunicated by the Catholic Church. 6 million Jews murdered. 50 million dead worldwide. And the Church throws out 1 guy. And here's the best (or worst) part: the crime for which he was expelled.

What was his crime? Was it the extermination of the Jews, the gays, the Gypsies, the clergy? No. If those were sufficient crimes, many more Nazis would've been kicked out of the Church. No, Goebells' crime, his unpardonable sin, his one and only action which cost him salvation was....avert your eyes, children.....marrying a Protestant.

The only way that represents any sort of moral compass is if you're standing directly on the North Pole, in which case your needle is just spinning nonsensically.

One wonders what comparable sin a priest would have to commit to warrant excommunication from the Church today. Killing the Jews won't do it. Raping kids won't do it. No, it would take something much more profane. Like sex with a consenting adult, perhaps.