One More Refresher Course In History For The Pope

Here’s a follow-up to my post about Hitler and the Catholic Church. I wrote about it in response to the pope’s unfounded claim last week that “militant atheism” was the root cause of World War II and the atrocities of Nazi Germany. In fact, as I have pointed out, it was the Vatican that entered into advantageous agreements with Hitler. Atheists and freethinkers, on the other hand, were persecuted.

Hitler and the Nazi Party explicitly exploited the positive relationship with the Vatican expressed in the Concordat (Treaty) of 1933 in order to leverage Catholic votes. This is documented in a Nazi campaign poster displayed at a British site that promotes secularism in the UK. Here is the translation:

Why is a Catholic obliged to vote for the parliamentary list of Adolf Hitler? Because in the National Socialist state intrinsically and through the Reichskonkordat (Concordat):

1. the Faith is protected,

2. peace with the Church is assured,

3. public morality is preserved,

4. Sunday is hallowed,

5. Catholic schools are maintained,

6. the Catholic conscience is no longer burdened,

7. a Catholic has equal rights before the law and in the life of the nation,

8. Catholic organizations and associations, insofar as they exclusively serve religious, charitable and cultural purposes, can operate freely.

Therefore a Catholic is obliged on 12 November [1933] to vote thus:

Referendum: [Vote] yes

Parliamentary election: [Vote] Adolf Hitler

The pope who signed this unholy alliance was Pius XII.

If the current pope has his way, he will be canonized as Saint Pius XII. Let’s hear no more lectures from Pope Benedict about how militant atheism led to the tragedies of World War II. That technique of lying enough times that the lie becomes the truth was a particular favorite of Hitler’s, too.