14 Responses to “A controversial thread: not for the weak!”

1. 1 Clara Mar 1st, 2009 at 1:07 am

   Well, maybe we need to talk more about the Jews or the SSPX over here!

   For example: here’s an issue that got me a bit worked up earlier today, taken from one of the Ephemeris links to the side. Bishop Mixa compares abortion to the holocaust, and various people get mad. One of the arguments they make (specifically, that the local mayor makes) is that the holocaust is such a great injustice that it CAN NEVER BE COMPARED TO ANY OTHER INJUSTICE.

   My goodness! What a sanguine perspective such a person must have about the history of the world in general! I mean, to be sure, the holocaust was extremely horrible, and maybe you could combine some of the horrible characteristics of it to form a description by which no other event has been quite as bad. (Say, the number of deaths, plus the fact that it was intended as genocide, plus the relatively short time period in which it happened, plus the fact that the Jews never “provoked” it through any positive act of aggression on their side.) But, sadly, human brutality, even on that scale, is by no means an isolated incident. It was going on a long time before the Nazis, and I can’t think of any one “bad-making” characteristic by which the holocaust was superlatively, singularly horrible. To say that it “can never be compared” to any other atrocities is just stupid.

   Further, it bugs me when people say things like that, because what it really does is give WWII the status of a legend (or anti-legend, if you like), such that people don’t actually feel very worried that such a movement could ever rise again, certainly not involving them or anyone they know. Don’t get too sanguine, friends. The Nazis are just another in a long line of examples of the incredible depths of depravity to which we humans can fall.

2. 2 Bonifacius Mar 1st, 2009 at 2:36 am

   “plus the fact that the Jews never “provoked” it through any positive act of aggression on their side.

   Well, let’s be clear here. You say that “the Jews” never “provoked” anything by “any positive act of aggression on their side.” Do you think that it would even be possible for “the Jews” taken as a whole to provoke even a justified response? Things get slippery here. Some (ethnic) Jews certainly provoked some response — against themselves, personally, not a response of indiscriminate violence against innocent people. There were a number of quite villainous ethnic Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries, some of whom committed quite substantial “positive acts of aggression.”

   Founder of Communism: Karl Marx

   Bavarian Soviet Republic (a Communist regime briefly set up in Germany after the First World War) and the Spartacist (Communist) uprising in Germany: Kurt Eisner, Eugen Levine, Rosa Luxemburg, etc.

   Hungarian Soviet Republic and Spanish Revolution: Bela Kun

   Soviet Union: Vladimir Lenin (some Jewish ancestry), Leon Trotsky, Yakov Sverdlov (murderer of the Czar and his family), Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Lazar Kaganovich

   The Soviet Union killed millions of people prior to the Nazi Holocaust, including 6,000,000 Ukrainians (though some doubt the number . . . ) in 1933 alone.

   The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (a hodgepodge of Marx, Kant, and Freud): Theodor Adorno (some Jewish ancestry), Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Leo Loewenthal, etc. The Frankfurt School moved to the USA during the war, where they helped set up the OSS (predecessor to the CIA).

   Then there was the field of morality, where Sigmund Freud was making stuff up about the Oedipus Complex. Many of the first prominent psychoanalysts were also Jewish. The leading proponent of homosexuality in the Weimar Republic, Magnus Hirschfeld, was also Jewish.

   Now, NONE of this in ANY WAY legitimates ANY violence against millions of innocent Jews. However, in order to understand how Nazi propaganda worked, one must remember that the propagandist’s goal was to make the average German identify every Jew as a real or potential Trotsky, i.e. a real or potential mass murderer. And Trotsky really was a mass murderer deserving of death. Many of the people who fought in the war did indeed feel provoked by the Soviet Holocaust, in which millions had already died before Hitler came to power. Is this basic attitude so difficult to understand? You see how hysterical people are getting *today* about anyone with a “deviant” viewpoint. What I have written above is probably a hate crime in large sections of the Western world. So now people start scapegoating, of all people, traditional Catholics, on the assumption that we must prove that we aren’t Nazis. (Of course, for decades, every German has had to prove that he isn’t a Nazi.)

   So, lest Jews have to prove they aren’t sexually deviant Communists, Catholics have to prove that they aren’t anti-Semites (and, probably, child-molesters)? Which isn’t to say that some Catholics aren’t anti-Semites. But for that matter, are we not to admit that every group, including Jews, has members they’re not proud of? Seeing as there are no perfect people in the world, the only way to completely exonerate an ethnic group of any and all faults would be to deny their humanity!

3. 3 Bonifacius Mar 1st, 2009 at 2:48 am

   Incidentally, while we’re on the subject, recently Senn Penn won an Oscar for portraying Harvey Milk, the homosexual mayor of a certain city named after a chaste Catholic celibate. Penn referred to the American movie academy that voted him the Oscar in the following manner: “You Commie homo-loving sons of guns! I did not expect this, but I — and I want to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me. Often. But I — I am touched by the appreciation and I hoped for it enough that I scribbled down — so I have the names in case you were Commie homo-loving sons of guns.”

   Now, when Penn praises Hollywood for being what it obviously is, the Academy laughs and congratulates itself. If a Catholic bishop were to criticize the movie “Milk” as the work of Commie homo-loving sons of guns, he would immediately be denounced for his blind prejudice, then out of the blue they’d probably insinuate that the bishop’s an anti-Semite because Mayor Harvey Milk was Jewish. If you criticize someone as a cultural revolutionary, and that person happens to be Jewish, your criticism can be written off — only a Nazi could possibly launch the vile anti-Semitic charge that Jews poison culture! And so “anti-fascism” becomes an ideal way to beat someone up. And isn’t it funny that the tactics of McCarthyism are most frequently used by leftists accusing someone of being a McCarthyite?

4. 4 Clara Mar 1st, 2009 at 3:48 pm

   I don’t really disagree with you, Bonifaci. Obviously the animosity against Jews was not without origin, nor was it unreasonable for Europeans to feel some alarm/resentment towards certain Jews (which is certainly not, as you observe, to say that the horrific violence committed against innocent Jews was even remotely justified.) I was mainly trying to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt as much as possible, just by way of illustrating how utterly ridiculous his larger claim really was. My main point was that, even if we could tailor a description of the holocaust that would put it in a class of one, the depravity witnessed in that event was by no means unique if you examine it in the wider context of the history of mankind. To say that it is wrong even to draw any comparisons between that and other atrocities is just ludicrous.

   Anyway, I wholeheartedly endorse your larger point, that the left can be positively fascist these days in their efforts to stamp out any whisper of anti-Semitism, or “homophobia”, or any of the other particular forms of intolerance that they’ve decided are intolerable.

5. 5 Clara Mar 1st, 2009 at 3:57 pm

   As a side note, if we wanted to spark spirited discussion, it was kind of foolish of us to open this controversial topic on a thread that looks so innocuous from the main page. Mea culpa. But maybe you should add something to your original post, advising people that there is controversial material in the comments, and they shouldn’t read them if they’re easily offended. That should draw some people in. :)

6. 6 Discipulus Mar 1st, 2009 at 8:36 pm

   Joe Sobran is a balanced journalist and good Catholic and yet it is said that he is anti-Semitic. So please excuse me if I quote him, “It used to be if you hate Jews, you are anti-Semitic; now, if the Jews hate you, your anti-Semitic.” How true. What has Pope Benedict done to deserve the bashing he is now getting by the media? Why does he—and from the very beginning of his pontificate did he—have to prove that he is really not anti-Semitic? What will he have to do before he is considered Kosher?

   What was it that made Mel Gibson anti-Semitic while making the Passion of the Christ? That label was thrown on him because he dared to make an epic movie of Our Lord on his own with no Hollywood influence to ruin it.

   In Boston, Cardinal O’Malley is a great friend of the Jews of Boston. He refused to see the Passion of the Christ because he did not want to offend his Jewish friends. Is that what it takes? Just last week he apologized for Bishop Williamson and tried to defend the Pope for lifting the excommunications. He stated, “The greatest crime in the history of the world is the Holocaust.” Next he will move a holocaust memorial to the new chancery which will be dedicated in a ceremony of prayer and worship with our elder brothers in the Faith.

   We might get away with discussing these issues on this blog but what will Bishop Mixa have to do to make amends for calling abortion a holocaust? How much incense will he have to shake? Rome will be pressured and Bishop Mixa will be pressured. Will he take a lesson from O’Malley?

7. 7 JSP Mar 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am

   Theological questions:

   Were all the good Jews converted to the Faith?

   Our Lord established the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church on Pentecost Sunday. There were undoubtedly good and righteous Jews living before and during Our Lord’s time on Earth, clearly right up to Pentecost Sunday (Acts 2:5); but were all the good Jews provided for with the True Saving Faith at Pentecost or shortly thereafter?

   Or, were there good, righteous, God-fearing Jews who did not receive the Faith?

8. 8 Bonifacius Mar 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 am

   All of the good, righteous, God-fearing Jews converted. Otherwise nothing makes any sense.

   Also, a number of mediocre and positively bad Jews converted. Our Lord came to save sinners, not the righteous.

9. 9 Bonifacius Mar 2nd, 2009 at 11:04 am

   Among the righteous Jews, the famous rabbi Gamaliel converted and is a saint. His feastday is August 3.

10. 10 Maureen Mar 2nd, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Sorry, I’m new here but I could help putting in my two-cents when I read Cardinal O’Malley’s remarks.

    I think that the appropriate response to Cardinal O’Malley is “No, rhe greatest crime in the history of the world is not the Holocaust. It is deicide and, unlike the Holocaust, it’s a crime for which we all are in some way responsible. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy”

11. 11 Bonifacius Mar 2nd, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    Welcome, Maureen! You make an excellent point, which reminds me of something I read somewhere on the internet. Actually, if we are to use the word Holocaust in the truest sense, then the greatest crime in the world is indeed the Holocaust, but the Holocaust (complete sacrificial offering) of Christ on the Cross. That means that Jews are, by definition, the biggest Holocaust-deniers of them all. Their religion is premised on it.

12. 12 Brian T. Mar 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    What I can’t get over is the fact that Jewish leaders, such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany, behave in such a contemptuous way towards Catholics the moment the Catholics seem to “slip up”. All that “Catholic-Jewish dialogue” the liberal Catholics are getting so worked up about doesn’t seem to have borne much fruit. A couple of weeks ago, Michael Friedmann, former Vice-President of the Central Council of Jews, who resigned from the post after he was caught snorting cocaine and abusing prostitutes, loftily pronounced the Pope “a liar and a hypocrite” in the German press. The gleeful way in which the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Central Council have rejected Bishop Williamson’s latest apology (Charlotte Knobloch even called the apology an insult to the victims of the Holocaust – really, there’s just no pleasing some people) – was astonishing in its mean-spiritedness, its blatant ill-will towards Catholicism, its total refusal to try to see the situation from the Catholic point of view. And all this while, liberal Catholics wring their hands and whine about that wonderful “Catholic-Jewish dialogue”, which had brought us so close together – and now look, SSPX, you’ve gone and ruined it! Well, that much-vaunted dialogue certainly doesn’t seem to have made Jewish leaders any better disposed towards Catholicism. But its ghost is being invoked in order to hinder the reconciliation of traditionalists with the rest of the Church. What a sorry state of affairs.

13. 13 Discipulus Mar 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 pm

    Bonifaci, Great! I like that twist.

14. 14 Bonifacius Aug 19th, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    To the sedevacantist who posted here: thank you very much for being explicit in advocating sedevacantism. That spared me the anguish of debating whether to post your criticism of the Pope. But since you’re in schism, I don’t have to debate with myself at all — I can just delete your post. However weak or confused or bad or even sinful the present successor to Peter may be (has he ever publicly denied knowing Our Lord three times, which Peter himself did *after* beind declared the Rock?), he is still the Pope. If there is no Pope or, in the case of legitimate “sede vacante,” a clear way of electing a new one, then there is no Church. Sedevacantism says that there is no Pope and cannot explain how the next one will be elected or how the apostasy went unnoticed for so long. Sedevacantism is evil and schismatic and verges quickly into heresy. In order to be saved, it is necessary for every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. Faults and all, the Roman Pontiff right now is Benedict XVI. Please leave your errors behind and accept reality. And until then, do not bother posting here in order to advocate sedevacantism. I’ll simply delete your posts until you’ve changed your position, or at least your tone. But feel free to email us.

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