Fintan O'Toole and the Two Archbishops

Fintan O'Toole

Archbishop Eamon Martin (Catholic) and Richard Clarke (Anglican)

Fintan O'Toole "columnist, literary editor and drama critic for the Irish Times" is described by Wikipedia as having "generally left-wing views" which is a curious way of putting it and might suggest that he occasionally expresses viewpoints that stray from the strictly orthodox. This is not correct!

The following is from a discussion on the politics.ie website regarding George Hook Note that the two Archbishops I refer to in the title, are John Charles McQuaid who died in 1973 and the current Church of Ireland Primate Richard Clarke. (For obvious reasons, there is no photo of those two  standing side by side but I'm sure that, given the opportunity, Fintan O'Toole would write a kindly review of a book that slandered Archbishop Eamon Martin!)

In his article of 12 September entitled "Why I will Not Appear on Newstalk Again" (subtitle "George Hook’s Rape Comments are the Result of the Station’s Flagrantly Sexist Strategy")
Fintan O'Toole begins as follows:
What I have to say is of no consequence. The organisation against which it is aimed will be no more conscious of it than a speeding car is of a fly mashed into the corner of its windscreen. But here it is anyway: from now on I won’t be appearing on any Newstalk programmes

O'Toole presents himself as a lone individual who is "speaking truth to power" and bravely taking a stance against "the powers that be". The opposite would be closer to the truth!


Fintan O'Toole and Believing Lies

Original Post by Surkov
There is a piece on this by Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times where he lambasts Newstalk. In his mind, he seems to imagine that the entire organisation is corrupt, hateful, etc. As though some cancer of hate had metasticised to an horrific extent.

Admittedly I don't listen to it all that much, but Newstalk seems pretty standard fare to me. Why does FOT hate it so much? Did they do something to him in the past that made it personal for him

Reply by Kilbarry1
I don't know the specifics of why Fintan O'Toole hates Newstalk. I have his article in front of me now and it is indeed grossly over the top.  One clue as to his attitude. In 1999 John Cooney former Religious Affairs correspondent for the IT (and future one for the Indo) published a biography of John Charles McQuaid that depicted him as a homosexual paedophile. The allegations were panned by every historian who reviewed the book and by ALMOST every journalist. (Guess who was the exception.) Reviewers who praised the remainder of the book said that Cooney should have omitted the Paedo claims. Most anti-clerics were annoyed and embarrassed; I recall one guy who REGRETTED that the accusation might create sympathy for the late Archbishop!

The exception was of course Fintan O'Toole. Not that he exactly believed the claims but he WANTED to believe them. The article entitled "Cooney Has At Least Posed Right Question" was published in the Irish Times on 26 November 1999.
"...   In the midst of the recent controversy over the allegations in John Cooney's new book that John Charles McQuaid had an unhealthy sexual interest in young boys, I began to interrogate that old memory. Was it just an innocent encounter with a nice old man who was privately more at ease with children than his stern public demeanour would suggest? Or must all such memories now be lit with the sinister glow of corruption?

The answer, tentative and paradoxical though it must be, is probably "yes" in both cases. Certainly, John Cooney's suggestions are not backed by anything approaching an acceptable level of historical evidence. But at the same time anyone reading another book published this week has to acknowledge that everything we know about the history of the State has to be re-examined from the bleak perspective of its most vulnerable children." [The book was "Suffer the Little Children" by Mary Raftery]   .........

"Speculating about the nature of John Charles McQuaid's sexuality, as John Cooney does, may not be the right answer. But John Cooney at least managed, as no historian has done, to pose the right question. ....."

O'Toole's thuggish desire to believe lies because those lies would depict his enemies in a bad light, may throw some light on his  rant in today's IT!

Interesting Article by Church of Ireland Archbishop Richard Clarke

Interesting Article by Church of Ireland Archbishop (and Primate) Richard Clarke in Irish Times on 12 September. In the PRINT version it is headed "Defensive Rage of Social Media is Horrifying" with sub-heading "Reasoned persuasion has been replaced by the hasty production of battle-lines"

It is a truism that we are living in a culture of adversarial anger. We most readily discover our identity not by establishing what we are, but in finding and vilifying those who are against us. A cursory engagement with social media will horrify most of us. It reveals a pervasive if anonymised defensive rage. It is an inchoate anger that can also present itself – even more dangerously – in the casual savage violence visible throughout our island.

In an apparent corollary, civic discourse (and not merely within political life) is likewise being steadily degraded as a stark binary pose on all issues becomes the predominant public mindset – no reasoned discussion, simply some new scheme presented with a minimum of nuance and a surfeit of self-righteous assertiveness.

The routes of reasoned persuasion have been replaced by the hasty production of battle-lines. In the midst of this is it not sensible to suggest that more wholesome conversations are needed in our public discourse? In particular, we surely need to consider together not simply the latest momentary squabble but far deeper matters. ......

It seems to me that the remainder of the article is a bit disconnected from this beginning. Did the Archbishop do a last minute revision in order to take on board the hysteria surrounding George Hook??

Also his article is on the same page as Fintan O'Toole's preposterous one "Why I Won't be Appearing on Newstalk any more." It functions as a kind of response to O'Toole's rant!
NOTE: See Post #1835 concerning Fintan O'Toole vs a different Archbishop!

Newstalk Managing Editor Patricia Monahan Replies to Fintan O’Toole

However I see that Newstalk managing editor Patricia Monahan replied to Fintan O’Toole on 16 September in an article entitled All who work in Newstalk subject of outrageously unfair attack

Among the points she makes are:

....... O’Toole chose to ignore several salient facts, most importantly the number of women employed by the station and their impact on the daily output. Would it not have been worth mentioning that I as a woman, am Newstalk’s managing editor, that the chairperson of our group is a woman, or that our head of news is a woman? At Newstalk, the majority of our production staff are women. As editor, I am the final decision-maker on all editorial matters and have responsibility for content produced by the station across all platforms. But my work apparently deserves no recognition because I am not a presenter. Do I not qualify as female representation because my voice is not heard on-air? ....

Does [Fintan O'Toole] conclude that we are all party to a concerted effort by the station to “keep women presenters off the airwaves” and that I as the principal editorial decision-maker proactively restructured the schedule to do just that in a “highly conscious” manner? .....

As a commercial station in Newstalk we fight for audience share in every quarter hour of every day, as if our lives depend on it. And the truth is, our livelihoods do. That is the commercial reality of our business. Almost €40 million has been invested in Newstalk in a media landscape where the State-owned broadcaster is given the lion’s share of the €330 million collected in television licence fees. We don’t have the luxury of hiring men or women because it is the politically correct thing to do. We make decisions that make sense for the business....

And Finally:
One is only left to wonder why he never bothered to tell anyone at Newstalk how “flagrantly . . . and systematically sexist” the station was on any of his visits to our studios. [My emphasis]

The last point is the key one. Fintan O'Toole joined a lynch mob BECAUSE it was a lynch mob.

Fiona Doyle and George Hook

Fiona Doyle

According to the Irish Independent on 8th September:

Victim blaming is all too familiar to women in Ireland. George [Hook] is giving the message that men can do what they want and it is the drunken woman who is to blame. "Women have the right to be drunk. They have the right to say no. They have the right to walk down the street naked if they wish. Men have no right to rape a women and people like George Hook need to stop circulating the message that women are to blame. [My Emphasis]

"What George said is that a man can't help himself if he comes across a drunk woman. It takes the responsibility off men. Men should know not to touch a woman."

Fiona said that the comments broadcast earlier today were "old fashioned" and that it brings women back centuries. "George Hook needs to get off his dinosaur backside and see the impact of what he is saying on young women."

She added that campaigners, gardai and the rape crisis centres have been working with women to get them to come forward after a rape. "We're working so hard to get women to stand up and come forward without thinking they are responsible.

"It's a big thing for women to blame themselves after a rape happens. It's very hard for women to get over something like that and to tell women that it's their fault is outrageous." Fiona said that George Hook's comments will "pull out that stigma that women are responsible".

"No man has a right to touch a women. It's that simple." [My Emphasis]

Again there was some disagreement on this issue during the course of a discussion on Politics.ie

"A Woman Has the Right to Walk Down the Street Drunk and Naked If She Wants" says Feminist [1]
........40 years ago, we had already reached the point where a male  doctor had to be very careful when informing a female patient that her STD problem had something to do with the number of her sexual partners. We are now reaching the stage where a male has to be cautious when he advises a woman to take care of her physical safety. Especially if he tells her that she has a responsibility to do so!

ON THE OTHER HAND feminists can say exactly what they like - no matter how preposterous, illegal or dangerous to other women. The following is also a repeat of a post from ages ago (well about a week)

Feminist heroine Fiona Doyle said something  a lot crazier and seems to have got away with it - as per the Irish Independent yesterday.
'Way too soon to tell' if George Hook will face formal internal investigation over rape comments

....Speaking to Independent.ie following the broadcast of the show on Friday, rape victim and campaigner Fiona Doyle said Mr Hook's comments were "outrageous and offensive". Her father Patrick O'Brien (79) was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2013 for raping and sexually abusing his daughter from 1973 to 1982.

Ms Doyle said: "Victim-blaming is all too familiar to women in Ireland. George is giving the message that men can do what they want and it is the drunken woman who is to blame. Women have the right to be drunk. They have the right to say no. They have the right to walk down the street naked if they wish. Men have no right to rape a woman and people like George Hook need to stop circulating the message that women are to blame."...

Of course a woman does NOT have the right to walk down the street naked if she wants; she would be arrested for public indecency. An additional reason for the arrest would be that a naked drunk woman is putting herself in danger of sexual assault but Fiona Doyle is either unaware or uninterested in some basic facts, so eager is she to denounce George Hook!

"A Woman Has the Right to Walk Down the Street Drunk and Naked If She Wants" says Feminist [2]

However let's take a charitable interpretation of Fiona Doyle's words. She doesn't LITERALLY mean that women should behave in a manner that is stupid, illegal and actually facilitates rapists. She WANTS to make the point that rapists are fully responsible for their own actions but has mis-spoke herself in the process. George Hook has specifically condemned rapists, wants to make the point that women should take precautions to protect themselves and MAY have strayed into "victim blaming" in the process.  Nevertheless it is obviously Fiona Doyle who has completely over-stepped the mark and made comments that could endanger women. There's no way she should be allowed to get away with it in view of what is happening to George Hook. This hysterical over-reaction by the media  has nothing to do with any desire to protect vulnerable women.

Reply by Jimmy Two Times
What a load of nonsense. Fiona Doyle wasn't chairing a national radio show.  The ott reaction to this Hook issue is from the Rightist snowflakes whingeing about him getting suspended for making an idiot of himself

"A Woman Has the Right to Walk Down the Street Drunk and Naked If She Wants" says Feminist [3]

I suspect that one reason Fiona Doyle made her ludicrous statement is that she knew that she could get away with anything. If she HAD been chairing a national radio show it wouldn't have made any difference. Do you suppose that Fintan O'Toole and our Minister for Justice would have been lining up to condemn her? The hysterical reaction against George Hook is based on the fact that he is supposed to be  a reactionary. John Cooney was a former religious affairs correspondent for the Irish Times when he made allegations of paedophilia against John Charles McQuaid that were so ludicrous that even anti-clerics were embarrassed and annoyed. I recall one reviewer who REGRETTED that the transparently false allegations might create sympathy for the late Archbishop. A few years later Cooney was appointed Religious Affairs correspondent for the Irish Independent. There was no campaign of denunciation directed against Cooney's appointment - precisely because he was a liberal. (OTOH suppose that  an  Irish Catholic journalist made similar false allegations against a former Church of Ireland Archbishop - how would HIS career have developed subsequently?)

Reply by PeaceGoalie
A related point is that many of these women are just as thick as bricks and logic and maturity are beyond them. Many men are the same, and even some transexual freaks

Why are Feminists and Liberals So Stupid?

The problem is not low IQ or similar but the fact that they can say ANYTHING and expect to get away with it. I have written here and elsewhere about a certain type of anti-clerical allegation that I call "Murder of the Undead" or "Victimless Murders" [try googling the terms]  i.e. journalists and/or leaders of "Victim" groups claim that children were murdered by brothers or nuns - at times when no child died of ANY cause. Why couldn't the journalists do a bit of research, find the name of a child who actually died and accuse the Church of murdering THAT child? Well they sometimes do that also BUT they know they don't need to; because they know there will be no consequences of their lies. So they become lazy and stupid and sometimes they do get themselves into serious trouble (Like the RTE clowns who accused a priest of rape and fathering a child - they actually ignored his offer to take a DNA test before they broadcast the libel!)

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [3]

Minister for Justice and Equality (!)  Charlie Flanagan

Further comments by me on the antics of Charlie Flanagan - on the Politics.ie discussion about George Hook

(A)

Comment by an innocent abroad; Clayton Hotels announces termination of Newstalk sponsorship over George Hook's rape comments           Oh dear..

Comment by Toland; Not that surprising!

Incredible. We have a Justice Minister who - as a TD - publicised an obscene libel about a woman. The woman had previously received libel damages from the Sunday World over a similar allegation. Did the then Charlie Flanagan TD not know this in 2009 - or did he just go ahead anyway in the knowledge that he could not be sued for comments he made in the Dail??

Previous comment by Kilbarry1     When our Minister for Justice could - as a TD - repeat obscene lies against a woman, lies for which the woman had already received damages from a newspaper then this present controversy is a storm in a teacup. What right has Charlie Flanagan to denounce George Hook? Were Hook's comments more serious than his own? Were they more disrespectful to women than Flanagan's own false allegations against Nora Wall?

I know that no company can withdraw sponsorship from the Department of Justice. However surely Charlie Flanagan should be asked either to apologise or justify his allegations?

(B)

Comment by DaveM; And if you're his boss (and remember this is commercial radio) this sure as hell isn't welcome news... Hotel group cancels Newstalk sponsorship over Hook rape comments  Not so easy to find a new sponsor on the same kind of terms when the first reporting of the news sponsorship deal is bound to include reference to Hook's comments on rape.

Look a TD can repeat** obscene lies about a woman in the Dail in 2009 and successively become Minister for Children, Minister for Foreign Affairs and NOW Minister for Justice.  So what's the big problem here?
** I say "repeat" because the Sunday World had been obliged to apologise and pay damages to Nora Wall several years previously!

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [2]

Minister for Justice and Equality (!) Charlie Flanagan

A few more extracts from the discussion on Politics.ie. I am replying to two  comments by "ShoutingIsLeadership" and "StopDoingStuff"

(A) Original comment by  ShoutingIsLeadership;
It seems that George Hook made some comments on air, which have resulted in him being accused of blaming a rape victim.  It seems that he said that the person who raped her is a scumbag , but he also discussed "responsibility of women".

Fellow Newstalker, Chris Donoghue, has tweeted that "someone needs to go to town on hook. It's disgusting." Donoghue recently got removed from his radio show and replaced by Ivan Yates, and now has a different role at Newstalk.
Who is right? Is either?

Update - audio available, below. About 8 or so minutes in...


Reply by Kilbarry1
See my previous two posts
When our Minister for Justice could - as a TD - repeat obscene lies against a woman, lies for which the woman had already received damages from a newspaper then this present controversy is a storm in a teacup. What right has Charlie Flanagan to denounce George Hook? Were Hook's comments more serious than his own? Were they more disrespectful to women than Flanagan's own false allegations against Nora Wall?

Of course then Deputy Flanagan made his claims in Dail Eireann so that he could not be sued. Is this supposed to be a mitigating factor?  

(B) Original comment by stopdoingstuff;
Anyway, apologize for what? George Hook should basically tell people to shut the fk up and stop pretending to be offended in order to get some attention. If a woman gets raped and she is in that position due to being stupid, then she is responsible in the same was as I would be responsible if I kept 50 grand is cash in my house and went around telling everyone about it. It doesn't absolve the thief or legitimatize robbery, it does not promote robbery-culture, and no one would be helped by saying "Teach thieves not to rob". One can be responsible for something in more than one sense of the word, but of course the feminist and manginas know this but would prefer to go for a few headlines. Fk them- they are spastics. No one should put up with these attention whores or their Ronaldo-style debating tactics.

Reply by Kilbarry1
That should be self-evident but it's a good idea to make the point using an example that has nothing at all to do with sex. Otherwise the feminazis are liable to call you a Rape Apologist!

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [1]

Minister for Justice and Equality (!) Charlie Flanagan

I posted a number of times on this issue on the Politics.ie website. These are my first  two posts.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has condemned George Hook, called his comments "dangerous and disrespectful and said they should be withdrawn.  This is what Charlie Flanagan had to say in 2009 about a former nun Nora Wall who was falsely accused of raping a child. In 2016 when I quoted his words, Flanagan was Minister for Foreign Affairs and had previously been Minister for Children! I am quoting from a thread on Nora Wall

QUOTE
The SECOND politician who slandered Nora Wall is Charles Flanagan, also Fine Gael, also a man who has held ministerial posts (currently Minister for Foreign Affairs and previously Minister for Children)! This is part of what he said on 8 July 2009 during the debate on the Institutional Abuse Bill

While I do not have time to speak in detail about the Louise O’Keeffe case, I wish to speak about another woman, namely, Nora Wall. Nora Wall has hardly been mentioned in the debate on the Ryan report. She became something of a heroine for those who mistrust the Irish courts when her conviction for rape was overturned in 1999. Since her conviction was overturned, she has been portrayed as an heroic martyr in many quarters with references to witch hunts and witch trials abounding. Six weeks ago, the columnist Kevin Myers wrote in a national newspaper:

"The liberal-left lynch mob that went after poor Nora Wall a decade ago was prepared to destroy her life on the basis of lies."

Mr. Myers would do well to read the description of “poor Nora Wall” in the Ryan report. Nora Wall does not deserve the plaudits that have been directed her way since her conviction for rape was overturned. While her case may have collapsed, the Ryan report reveals graphically that Nora Wall was no saint. She exposed the children in her care to unacceptable risks by allowing male outsiders to stay overnight at the Cappoquin care centre which was in her charge. She entertained past pupils and student priests in the home and allowed them to stay overnight. A witness stated that much drinking took place at these gatherings.

There is more to this than meets the eye in respect of these social events. It has been suggested that there were frequent visits to the Cappoquin home by some clergy from Mount Melleray Abbey. Access to children may have been a key motivation for these visits. One must bear in mind that Mount Melleray was selected by the notorious paedophile, Fr. Brendan Smith, as a holiday destination or as a haven to which to escape when he was on the run from the authorities in Northern Ireland. This issue must be revisited.
ENDOFQUOTE

NOTE today 10/09/17
Do you think that Justice Minister Flanagan should be asked to withdraw his comments or else resign? Do you think a man like that has any right to condemn George Hook?

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall (b)

The media don't seem to have done much to follow up on the then Deputy Flanagan's sensational allegations in 2009. They just reported them (I don't think you can be sued for libel for just reporting what was said in the Dail.) The reason our journalists did not ELABORATE on Flanagan's obscene claims is that Nora Wall had already successfully sued the Sunday World for publishing similar claims. This is another extract from the thread on Nora Wall  

Updated Link to Politics.ie thread: Nora Wall Claims Damages against State for False Rape Conviction [page 4] 

QUOTE
In other words Flanagan repeated the libel published by the Sunday World in 1999 for what they had to apologise and pay damages to Nora Wall in 2002. Details of the libel and the Sunday Wurst apology (reported in Phoenix Magazine) are here  

and to give an example of the nature of the article

Rape Nun's Abuse Pact with Smyth

Exclusive by PAUL WILLIAMS

EVIL NUN Nora Wall, convicted for helping to rape a ten-year-old child, also secretly provided children for sick paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth.

The Sunday World has learned that depraved cleric regularly visited St. Michael's Childcare Centre in County Waterford where Wall, then known as Sister Dominic, was working.  Last month Wall was the first woman to be convicted of rape in Ireland .......

The conviction of Nora Wall (and Pablo McCabe) in 1999 quickly collapsed when their two accusers gave an interview to the Daily Star who published their names for the first time and it quickly became apparent that the two accusers were serial rape liars. (One of their previous victims read the Star article and contacted Nora Wall's family.) HOWEVER the allegation made by the Sunday World - about her supplying children to Fr Brendan Smyth did NOT figure in her trial i.e. the Sunday World just invented it on the basis that a person convicted of rape could not sue for libel. (They were then caught out when the conviction collapsed.)

So where did our current Minister for Foreign Affairs (and past Minister for Children) get his information? "It has been suggested" he said in the Dail. WHO suggested it apart from the Sunday World? Did Charlie Flanagan repeat this claim outside of the Dail? Did he go to the Gardai and demand an investigation? If not why not?
ENDOFQUOTE

CURRENT COMMENT: As Flanagan is now Minister for Justice  the above question is even more relevant than when he was a mere TD or even Minister for Foreign Affairs!

Concordat between Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, 1933 and Attempted Concordat with Soviet Union (1920s)

According to the summary in Wikipedia - "The Reichskonkordat  ("Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich") is a treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent Nazi Germany. It was signed on 20 July 1933 by Cardinal Secretary of State (and later Pope Pius XII) Eugenio Pacelli on behalf of Pope Pius XI and Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen on behalf of President Paul von Hindenburg and the German government. It was ratified September 10, 1933 and it has been in force from that date right up until the current day.  [My emphasis].The treaty guarantees the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. When bishops take office Article 16 states they're required to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor or President of the German Reich established according to the constitution. The treaty also requires all clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties. Nazi breaches of the agreement began almost as soon as it had been signed and intensified afterwards leading to protest from the Church including in the 1937 Mit brennender Sorge encyclical of Pope Pius XI. The Nazis planned to eliminate the Church's influence by restricting its organizations to purely religious activities." [end of Wikipedia quote]

The 1933 Concordat has always been controversial among historians - for  obvious and perfectly respectable reasons - but has also been used by anti-clerics to suggest that the future Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Pacelli who signed in his capacity as  Secretary of State to Pius XI, was some kind of Nazi supporter (or "Hitler's Pope" as John Cornwell put it). What is almost invariably ignored in these discussions  is that Achille Ratti (who became Pius XI in 1922) and Eugenio Pacelli who would succeed him as Pius XII in 1939, had been heavily involved in trying to negotiate a Concordat with the Soviet Union in the 1920s! In fact it was Pius XI's predecessor Pope Benedict XV, who employed  Achille Ratti (then Papal Nuncio to Poland) to contact Lenin on behalf of persecuted Catholic and Orthodox clergy. ***

Like the Nazis in 1933, the newly created Soviet Union in the 1920s was trying to make itself respectable in the international community while at the same time, the Catholic Church was trying to protect the rights of Catholics in these newly minted totalitarian states. The Vatican's attempt to come to terms with the Soviet Union should be open to the same objections as its negotiations with the Nazi regime but in practice the former negotiations are almost invariably ignored. No doubt this is partly due to the failure of the negotiations with the Soviets, but is this really the main reason? Surely historians who express very negative views of the Reichskonkordat and impugn the motives of Pope Pius XI and his Secretary of State, should at least refer to their previous behaviour in relation to the Soviet Union; was THAT motivated by sympathy with Communist dictatorship.??

Again to quote Wikipedia (this time on the subject of Holy See - Soviet Union Relations )

"Worried by the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, Pius XI mandated Berlin nuncio Eugenio Pacelli to work secretly on diplomatic arrangements between the Vatican and the Soviet Union. Pacelli negotiated food shipments for Russia, and met with Soviet representatives including Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, who rejected any kind of religious education, the ordination of priests and bishops, but offered agreements without the points vital to the Vatican. Despite Vatican pessimism and a lack of visible progress, Pacelli continued the secret negotiations, until Pius XI ordered them to be discontinued in 1927, because they generated no results and were dangerous to the Church, if made public." ........

The article continues:
"Pius XI described the lack of reaction to the persecution of Christians in such countries as the Soviet Union, Mexico, Germany and Spain as a "conspiracy of silence". In, 1937 the Pope issued the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, which was a condemnation of Communism and the Soviet regime." He did name a French Jesuit to go to the USSR and consecrate in secret Roman Catholic bishops. It was a failure, as most of them ended up in gulags or were otherwise killed by the communist regime."

Note that 1937 was also the year in which Pius XI published his condemnation of Nazi ideology and practice in Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Sorrow.) [A five-member commission drafted the latter encyclical. According to Paul O'Shea the carefully worded denunciation of aspects of Nazism was formulated between January 16–21, 1937, by Pius XI, Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) and German cardinals Bertram, Faulhaber and Schulte, and Bishops von Preysing and von Galen.]

One of the few  who does deal with the attempted Concordat with the Soviet Union is the British historian Michael Burleigh in his 2006 book Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda. (see Chapter 3: "The Churches in the Age of Dictators.)  Again I quoted from Burleigh's book in a discussion on the Politics.ie website in January 2012 (see under). In contrast to some of the other points I made, there was little or no reaction to this one; presumably this is because most people have no idea that the Vatican engaged in these negotiations!

Rory Connor
Updated 11 August 2016

*** As per the Wikipedia article Pope Benedict XV and Russia   "During the winter of 1918–1919, some "twenty [Orthodox] bishops were murdered together with thousands of priests and religious". ... Several Orthodox bishops from Omsk and Simbirsk wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XV, as the Father of all Christianity, describing the murder of priests, the destruction of their churches and other persecutions in their areas."

Politics.ie History Forum "Nazis, The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse"

8th January 2012, 03:47 PM#78

Kilbarry1 

Vatican Concordats

While I'm at it, the following quotation from Burleigh's book concerns the attempts of two future popes - Pius XI (Achille Ratti) and Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) to negotiate a Concordat with the Soviet Union in the 1920s. It throws an interesting light on the frequent denunciations of the Vatican concordat with Nazi Germany in 1933.

Vatican concordats with governments do not imply approval of the governments. Of course there is a danger that a vicious dictatorship will use the agreement in order to boost its international standing - and that is precisely what the Soviet government was trying to do in the early 1920s. Indeed negotiations with the Vatican broke down because several governments - including both Britain and fascist Italy(!) - recognised the Soviet Union in 1924 and the Soviets no longer needed an agreement with the Vatican. However the future Pope Pius XII continued to negotiate even "when the execution in Leningrad of a Polish Catholic priest complicated matters" !!

.... Both nuncios, Ratti in Warsaw and the younger Pacelli in Munich (until 1925, when he moved to Berlin as nuncio to the German Reich), were closely involved in Rome's diplomatic initiatives with the Soviets. The Vatican initially welcomed the fall of the Romanovs, believing that this would herald a new era of freedom and opportunity for the Roman Catholic Church in the debris of the Tsarist Empire. Benedict XV employed Ratti to contact Lenin on behalf of persecuted Catholic and Orthodox clergy.

In late 1921, the Vatican offered the Soviet Union humanitarian assistance hurriedly incorporating a broader secret agreement which, capitalising on the disarray of the Orthodox Church would - they imagined - have enhanced Roman Catholic activities in Russia. The aid was provided but the wider agreement remained a dead letter. Assisted by the German Government which saw relations with Russia as a means of terminating Germany's pariah status, the archbishop of Genoa held talks with the Soviet foreign affairs commisar Chicherin on board an Italian cruiser with a view to negotiating a concordat. A further series of meetings took place at Rapallo, based on Vatican calls for freedom of conscience and Soviet demands for diplomatic recognition. Effortlessly overcoming the extreme distaste for German (Jewish) Bolsheviks that he is alleged to have expressed in 1919, Pacelli met Maxim Litvinov, the Soviet Union's (Jewish) foreign minister, at the Berlin villa of the brother of the German ambassador to Moscow. 

When Mussolini recognised the Soviet Union on 8 February 1924, and was quickly followed by, among others, Britain, Norway, Austria, Greece and Sweden, the Soviets ceased to regard negotiations with the Vatican as important except for the question of aid. Pacelli continued to negotiate with the Soviets in Berlin until mid-August 1925 when the execution in Leningrad of a Polish Catholic priest complicated matters. However he met Chicherin twice in 1925 and 1927, discovering that his Soviet interlocutors were prepared to concede less and less, and such talks abruptly stalled under Stalin, to whom the Vatican was an irrelevance.

From Sacred Causes by Michael Burleigh - Chapter 3 "The Churches in the Age of Dictators", section II - "The Vatican, Communism and Fascism" page 164

"Hitler's Table Talk", Christianity and the Catholic Church

Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944 
introduced by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Hitler's Table Talk is the title given to a series of World War II private monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler -at the dinner table - to his closest associates, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944. Hitler's remarks were recorded by Heinrich Heim, Henry Picker, and Martin Bormann, and later published by different editors in different languages the most well known version being that by the English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper first published in 1953. The monologues clearly reveal Hitler's hatred and contempt for Christianity and the Catholic Church - not that this has prevented generations of anti-clerics from claiming that Adolf Hitler lived and died a faithful Catholic! 

The following are some extracts from "Hitler's Table Talk" as utilized by myself in a 2012 discussion with a rather typical Irish "liberal" who uses the pen-name LongLiberal. The discussion was on the Politics.ie website and my own pen-name is Kilbarry1. Basically I am quoting from Hitler's comments made privately to his closest associates while LongLiberal depends on his public observations in Mein Kamph and in his speeches. I point out that Hitler had a lot to say in public about his desire for peace and I wonder if LongLiberal takes THOSE comments seriously!

I summarise my own view as follows:

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)

Rory Connor
updated 7 August 2016

Politics.ie History Forum "Nazis, The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse"

8th January 2012, 06:24 PM

Kilbarry1 

 Originally Posted by LongLiberal 

Simply, no. 
There are no parallels in this country. One aspect is talking about 1930's Germany and the other is 21st century Ireland. You seem to be trying to push some sort of idea that the Catholic Church were in opposition to Hitlers Nazi regime, which is simply laughable. 
Firstly, the Vatican kept very very quiet during the Holocaust, why is that? 

Hitler himself was a Roman Catholic and often throughout Mein Kampf spoke about "doing god's work". He was baptised and never renounced his baptism. All soldiers in the SS would place three fingers in their belt to signify the Holy Trinity. 
Also, and most significantly the Cardinal Arch-Bishop of Munich, Adolf Bertram, held a special mass in 1939, when Hitler escaped assassination, to celebrate "the fortunate release of the Fuhrer". ........

.

I'm not sure why it is necessary to keep on refuting this nonsense. It has been done before - by myself and others - on the Politics.ie website and the book "Hitler's Table Talk" was first published in 1953. However here it is again.

Extracts from "Hitler's Secret Conversations" (aka "Hitler's Table Talk") regarding Christianity

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc.first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944", which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)

8th January 2012, 08:33 PM

LongLiberal 

 Originally Posted by Kilbarry1 

I'm not sure why it is necessary to keep on refuting this nonsense. It has been done before - by myself and others - on the Politics.ie website and the book "Hitler's Table Talk" was first published in 1953. However here it is again.

Extracts from "Hitler's Secret Conversations" (aka "Hitler's Table Talk") regarding Christianity

The book Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc.first edition, 1953, contains definitive proof of Hitler's real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, "Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944", which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:

Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)

14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

Hitler was in fact, a Social Darwinist who believed in an impersonal Providence which gives victory to the strong by using a process of natural selection to ensure the survival of the fittest. (He objected to Christianity because he saw it as "a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature ..... the systematic cultivation of the human failure".)

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1



Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1


Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5


What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8



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 Vol. 2 Chapter 1



In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap. The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged. 

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11




In a public address in Munich - 

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."



Stuttgart address February 15th 1933 - 

"Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity"

8th January 2012, 10:39 PM

Kilbarry1 

LongLiberal

Regarding your quotations from "Mein Kamph" and Hitler's public speeches, do you understand that the book "Hitler's Table Talk" consists of officially recorded notes of his private conversations with his confidantes at the dinner table during the years 1941 - 44. (Martin Bormann was one of the note-takers.) These represent proof of Hitler's REAL views. Regarding his PUBLIC statements - he made an awful lot about his desire for peace; do you believe those?