As usual, when an argument goes against Jose Colaco's fondly-held beliefs, he shifts into polarising views into a them-versus-us position. So, if it's not non-Goans-versus-Goans or Hindus-versus-Catholics and post-1961-rulers-versus-those-very-uncolonial-Portuguese (even is stated subtly), it's a those-ungodly-Marxists-versus-us-holy-Catholics here.
Of course, every ideology, religion (and even non-religious worldviews) have their own dark corners and aspects to be ashamed of. It would be disingenuous to argue that the human right atrocities of the USSR or the mass famines of China had nothing to do with Marxism/Communism as it was implemented in a real world. Or even that Pol Pot had nothing to do with Maoisim (though there were externalities like the realities of French colonialism and the US-Sino axis, or the Cold War politics which might help us understand the context but not whitewash the damage caused). Likewise, to argue that Hitler had not truck with Catholicism is a poor case of disingenuity. For instance:http://mail.google.com/mail/ * In 1936, Bishop Berning of Osnabruch had talked with the Fuhrer for over an hour. Hitler assured his lordship there was no fundamental difference between National Socialism and the Catholic Church. Had not the church, he argued, looked on Jews as parasites and shut them in ghettos? "I am only doing," he boasted, "what the church has done for fifteen hundred years, only more effectively." Being a Catholic himself, he told Berning, he 'admired and wanted to promote Christianity'. * Catholics like Hitler and Gobbels would not have been worried of excommunication. * It never occurred to Hitler, it seems, that Jesus, whom he referred to in *Mein Kampf* as 'the Great Founder of this new creed' and the scourge of Jews, was himself a Jew. [above references from Peter de Rosa's Vicars of Christ]. * With the Church's strong view against Communism and their support for Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, the Church looked at the Nazi party as an ally at first. The Church encouraged worshippers to support a state of fascism rather then Communism. By doing this the Church gave a boost to the National Socialist party in Germany. Ties between the Church and the Nazi party later declined when Hitler later on viewed the Catholic backed Centre Party as a threat. The Centre Party was one of the few parties to support the Weimar Republic. Hitler calculated that knocking out the Centre Party would destabilize the government. Therefore Hitler took many steps to restrict Christianity and remove it as a political influence in Germany. Chief among these were the Reichskonkordat with the Catholic Church. The Reichskonkordat preserved funding for the Catholic Church but at the cost of making the Catholic Church subservient to the Nazi Party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_and_the_Church * Hitler said: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." Cited by John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, New York: Anchor Publishing, 1992, p. 507 ISBN 0385420536. * In his childhood, Hitler admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organisation of the clergy. In Mein Kampf he argued that the "dogmatic system" of the Catholic Church could be a model for the Nazis. Later, he drew on these elements, organizing his party along hierarchical lines and including liturgical forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns. * Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the Catholic ex-seminarian, historian, and journalist John Cornwell. It examines the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Pope * Cornwell, like other scholars, made use of the Vatican archives to research the conduct of Eugenio Pacelli, both as Nuncio to Germany and as Pope. He explains how he began his book as a defense of Pius XII from claims that he could have done more to prevent or mitigate the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews under Adolf Hitler, but that something unexpected happened along the way. "By the middle of 1997," he wrote, "nearing the end of my research, I found myself in a state I can only describe as moral shock. The material I had gathered, taking the more extensive view of Pacelli's life, amounted not to an exoneration but to a wider indictment."[3] Cornwell, relying on exclusive access to Vatican and Jesuit archives, argues that through a 1933 Concordat with Hitler, his anti-Semitic tendencies early on, and his drive to promote papal absolutism inexorably led him to collaboration with fascist leaders. Thus, according to Cornwell, Pope Pius XII facilitated the dictator's rise and, ultimately, the Holocaust.... * The nature of the Nazi Party's relations with the Catholic Church is also complicated. Before Hitler rose to power, many Catholic priests and leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. Nazi Party membership was forbidden until the takeover and a policy reversal. At his trial Franz von Papen said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after Pope Pius XII ended Von Papen's appointment as Papal chamberlain and ambassador to the Holy See, but before his restoration under Pope John XXIII.) In 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge condemning Nazi ideology. The Catholic opposition to the euthanasia programs led them to be quietly ended in August 28, 1941, (according to Spielvogel pp. 257-258,) but the German Catholics never protested Nazi anti-Semitism in any comparable way. In Nazi Germany, all known political dissenters were imprisoned, and many priests were sent to the concentration camps for their opposition, including the parson of the Berlin Cathedral Bernhard Lichtenberg. Among the punished priests were Poles persecuted primarily for their nationality. However, Hitler was never directly excommunicated by the Catholic Church and several Catholic bishops in Germany or Austria are recorded as encouraging prayers of support for "The Führer;" this despite the fact the original Reichsconcordate of Germany with the Holy See proscribed any active political participation by the priesthood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_religion Am just sending this to show it's a complex reality out there. We can't be cafetariat pop-historians and pick and chose those facts of history which are conveient to us! -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org