Catholic League: “Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue reacts to the way British atheists are handling Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to their homeland:
The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to “reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century.” Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of “a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.”
The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.
Donahue goes on to concede that his request is not quite sensical, but argues that it is only fair because it is analogous to asking the Pope to apologise for the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church (which the Protest the Pope campaign aren’t actually directly asking for directly, but which the Pope has done in a round-about way, anyway). That’s right: expecting the Catholic church to make some kind of amends for widespread sexual abuse in the Catholic church, or expecting the current Pope to make some kind of amends for the demonstrable coverup of the same during his own tenure in the upper echelons of Catholicism, is the same thing as expecting atheists to apologise for the actions of Nazis, Stalinists and Maoists. The amazing power of analogy!
Continues: http://catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1978
NB: The Catholic League is not a spoof.
Catholic League: “Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler.”,
Hitler was Catholic. He said so himself in his book Mein Kampf and at a speech he gave at the Reichstag – “… I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord’s work.” & “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.”
Stalin was raised in a strict religious household and spent 5 years in a Greek Orthodox Seminary. He renounced his religion, it is claimed, because he was “damaged” by violence while being raised in a priest-ridden household. In 1941, he again embraced Christianity.
Mao Zedong started life as a devout Buddhist and his mother wanted him to be a priest. Mao later renounced religion, not because he did not believe in god, but because he saw religion as the opiate of the people. He replaced religions with his own religion – the deification of himself and the Communist Party.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not murder people in the name of atheism. The Catholic League should ask itself how many wars have been waged specifically in the name of religion, and how many in the name of atheism. Every war in history can be traced back to religion, nationalism, or racism. None have been waged in the name of atheism.
If the Catholic League want to be taken seriously, then they should do their homework properly. Unfortunately, you cannot expect them and their supporters to view this issue rationally, given that they subscribe to blind faith.
“By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition”.
Yeah sure. And what about the many Crusades?
That low figure is one promoted by Catholic apologists. Jean Antoine Llorente*, secretary to the Spanish Inquisition from 1790-92, wrote: “The horrid conduct of this Holy Office weakened the power and diminished the population of Spain by arresting the progress of arts, sciences, industry, and commerce, and by compelling multitudes of families to abandon the kingdom; by instigating the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors, and by immolating on its flaming shambles more than 300,000 victims.” That was in Spain alone.
*Jean Antoine Llorentine, History of the Inquistion; as cited in R.W. Thompson, The Papacy and the Civil Power (New York, 1876); as cited in Dave Hunt, A Woman Rides the Beast
Hitler, a Catholic, hated atheists and secularists. They were his chief opponents and suffered immensely.
Born Catholic, Hitler never left the Church, and other Nazi leaders were at least nominally Christian though some dabbled in the occult or in a Germanic paganism. Hitler had an effective working relationship with Pope Pius XII and the German Protestant bishops. The churches in Germany pledged loyalty, none condemning Nazism in general. Few German priests opposed him – most priests who died already counted as opponents, by being Polish for example. The Witnesses suffered merely because they resist conscription. The attack on Jewry (deaths about 6 million) was a special case justified at least partly by the Christian accusation of deicide.
Some ‘proto-Green’ movements were proscribed as unsympathetic, and many liberals and artists were punished, silenced or driven abroad. But most of those who actively opposed Hitler’s rise to power were on the Left – socialists, communists and trade unionists – fighting both politically and on the streets. These groups were largely atheist or agnostic. The first concentration camp, at Dachau in 1933, was built specifically to destroy such opposition. Later, during WW II, Soviet deaths totalled about 25 million.
Hitler’s speeches included the following (1933) statements:
“The Government … regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality”
“Secular schools can never be tolerated …”
“We have therefore undertaken to fight against the atheistic movement … we have stamped it out”
And in 1941 he confirmed (quoted by Gen. Engel):
“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”
The Pope and Vatican are attempting to add yet another Big Lie to the nonsense of their Church and the harm it has done. Loud and clear, the truth is:
Nazism was a crusade lead by Christians.
The irreligious most strove to prevent Nazi power and were its first and chief victims.
yes hitler was a catholic but he also murdered catholics priests nuns,millions of catholics fought against him so you cant blame the catholic church for what hitler done , he was a disturb bas,, and Edwin Salter
you are a complete and utter idiot , if the catholic church was with hitler like you think it was then how come jews went to the pope after the war and thank him for his help, your propaganda is sickening, and because the trueth is coming out idiots like you will do their best to say its all lies, because you hate catholics , idiot
Hmm,
it seems the great uninformed have discovered (what I consider) our haven of freethinking.
It’s not often you see tired old arguments, basic spelling errors and the word ‘idiot’ splashed around so liberally in these comment boxes.
Perhaps someone on the Daily Mail site posted a link to us here?