Did Hitler Act Upon Catholic Convictions?

Each week Medford’s local newspaper publishes letters in which people voice their opinions. Over the past few years I have watched carefully as there are those who frequently launch attacks against Christians making assertions that are not true. One writer has published multiple opinions in which she attempts to equate Hitler’s actions with Christianity and, in particular, place blame on the Catholics. Clearly Hitler was not acting upon Catholic doctrine. For this I found it necessary to respond. Again, the critic launched another attack maintaining that Hitler belongs to the Christian world. Since this subject matter is so closely related to my previous blog post, I have decided to republish it here. First, I will publish an excerpt of the critic’s letter and follow with my response which address these allegations.

Writer responds to writer’s Vox Pop challenge
“…Oh, and to set the record straight: “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” (Hitler to General Gerhard Engel in 1941)

Hitler was a baptized Roman Catholic who was never excommunicated by the church.“I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator by fighting the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.” (Mein Kampf)

And he hated the Atheists: “We were convinced that the people need and require faith, We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations We have stamped it out.” (Hitler, 1933)

If I have to get my facts right then so do you…”
Linda O_________

Nazism was viewed as heretical by the Catholic church
Last week Linda O________ continued her argument that Adolf Hitler was a Christian and that he acted upon his Catholic convictions. Any serious researcher of the Third Reich would dismiss this as irrational so let’s relegate him back to where he belongs. First, an elementary review of the Nazi belief system: Nazi’s believed themselves to be an advanced race—the Aryans; Nazis believed the Aryans originated from the lost continent of Atlantis; the Nazis looked upon Hitler as their messiah; the Nazis promised a vision of transcendence where the collective would become divine and usher in a 1000 year Reich. One need not be Catholic to comprehend the church considers this heretical. Pope Pius X confronted these very doctrines in his September 8, 1907 Pascendi Domminci Gregis, Encyclical on the Doctrines of the Modernists.

Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, is a strong denunciation of the Nazi regime and doctrine. The encyclical was read to every Catholic congregation in 1937 during a period of intense persecution. Reinhard Heydrih had already classified the Jews and the Catholic Church as the two principal enemies of Nazism. Pope Pius XI writes “at a time when your faith, like gold, is being tested in the fire of tribulation and persecution, when your religious freedom is beset on all sides.” Preceding the encyclical in 1933 the Nazis seized the property of the Catholic lay organizations banning their activities and forcing their closure. In 1935 Hermann Goring declared Catholicism incompatible with the spirit of the age. In 1937 crucifixes were ordered removed from state AND parish buildings. Afterward in 1939 all religious instruction was replaced with Nazi ideological instruction.

The encyclical did not go unnoticed by the regime as it directly attacked the Nazi belief system: “None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race…” The contention that the Church had never excommunicated Hitler is irrelevant because he had already been done under Catholic canon law latae sententiae. The German bishops had also excommunicated all Nazi party officials which would have included Hitler.

The doctrine that the Nazis attempted to implement will be found in the writings of Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society. Former Theosophical president Annie Besant summarizes the root race doctrine in The Coming Race which is available online at www.theosophical.ca/ComingRaceAB.html. New Age Almanac presents Blavatsky’s and Alice Bailey’s doctrine as foundational of the modern New Age Movement. The doctrine may be found among the World Commission on Global Consciousness & Spirituality and Alliance of Civilizations personalities. They openly believe they are doing the Lord’s or Christ’s work. Their definition of the Lord is Sanat Kamura, Lord of the World and head of a spiritual hierarchy, and Christ as a spiritual consciousness that overshadows an “enlightened” individual.

Per Theosophist Foster Bailey in Running God’s Plan (1972), they had attempted to usher in a new age before but failed. Accordingly: “One attempt was to begin by uniting the peoples living in the Rhine river valley using that river as a binding factor. It was an attempt by a disciple but did not work. Now another attempt is in full swing...” With the Alliance of Civilizations now responsible for implementing a global consciousness and presiding over the UN-led global counter-terrorism strategy and compounded with its introduction of the new global Shared Security model, it appears they are once again ready “activate” the evolutionary process of the Aryan race. (Rich Peterson, Medford)