The images are unforgettable, from the faces of the victims to the face of the tyrant who ordered them dead, from the shocking death camps to the spectacular rites of hate that made them possible.<\/p>\n\n
The journalists who cover religion in the secular press have selected the Holocaust as the 20th century\u2019s most important religion event.<\/p>\n\n
While the Holocaust stands alone atop the poll, members of the Religion Newswriters Association of America chose as the third-ranked event another example of what happens when political regimes claim god-like powers. This was the Russian Revolution, which led to Joseph Stalin and the Gulag, to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution and on and on.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to compare anything to horror of the Holocaust. It is a unique event, in so many ways,\u201d said historian Martin Marty of the University of Chicago, America\u2019s best-known commentator on religious life. \u201cBut when we look at the whole century, we can see the Holocaust as the ultimate example of an even larger trend. It is the unforgettable event that helps us see the entire picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
When historians add up the statistics, 100 million or more were killed by what Marty called the \u201cquasi-religious tyrannies\u201d of the 20th century. These regimes were secular. But they had charismatic, almost messianic leaders supported by hierarchical structures built on their authority. They produced elaborate systems of myths, symbols, scriptures, metaphysics, rituals, art, history and law. When the faithful in other faiths refused to convert or compromise, these regimes responded with deadly force.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, many of this century\u2019s most horrific events shared cult-like characteristics \u2013 from Germany to Russia, from Tibet to Cambodia, from Rwanda to the Balkans. They were united by victims, tyrants, death camps and litanies of lies.<\/p>\n\n
Here are the century\u2019s top 10 religion news events, as selected by the 30 reporters and editors who responded to a questionnaire prepared by the Religion Newswriters Association.<\/p>\n\n
1. Six million Jews and millions of others die in Nazi camps, a Holocaust that leads to worldwide revulsion and the founding of the state of Israel.<\/p>\n\n
While it\u2019s easy to call the Holocaust as a \u201cJewish event,\u201d it is also important to recognize that this event \u201crepresented a total breakdown at the heart of what was supposed to be a Christian civilization in Europe,\u201d said historian Steven Katz of Boston University, author of the multi-volume \u201cThe Holocaust in Historical Context.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe murderers were supposed to be Christians, but all across Europe many people did not act as Christians. The church did not always act like the church. The Holocaust begins as a failure within Christendom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
2. The Second Vatican Council changes Catholicism\u2019s relationship with the world and other faiths. It\u2019s work in the early 1960s leads to ongoing efforts to reform the church\u2019s liturgies and teachings, sparking an era of creativity and tensions in the world\u2019s largest Christian body.<\/p>\n\n
3. The Russian Revolution of 1917 ushers in 70 years of communism. Millions of religious believers are slaughtered in China, the Soviet Union and other nations. Visits to his native Poland by Pope John Paul II lead to a collapse of communism in Poland and, eventually, in the rest of Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n\n