Question to Catholics: Is Adolf Hitler a Christian?

[ecco]

the first one. That was the one I bolded,

Many Christians will proudly claim that Christianity is the world's largest religion


Since it is somewhat true, why wouldn't they?

Christian Population and Statistics | GRF

As of 2010, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world, or about one-in-three (31%) people worldwide. This makes Christianity the world's largest religion.
​

Are you suggesting that they are not proud?

I really don't understand the basis for your argument.

​

 

[thomas t]

Many Christians will proudly claim that Christianity is the world's largest religion


Since it is somewhat true, why wouldn't they?

Christian Population and Statistics | GRF

As of 2010, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world, or about one-in-three (31%) people worldwide. This makes Christianity the world's largest religion.
​

Are you suggesting that they are not proud?

I really don't understand the basis for your argument.

​

it's an unsupported allegation.
Without providing a sound source for it, it's guesswork presented as factual, I think.
There is zero evidence that you can show that any Christian is proud of these 2+ billion.

It was an argument made to the detriment of Christians.
If you post arguments to the detriment of others (or if you cheer for it) it's not fair if it's just an unsupported allegation, I think.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Many Christians will proudly claim that Christianity is the world's largest religion


Since it is somewhat true, why wouldn't they?

Christian Population and Statistics | GRF

As of 2010, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world, or about one-in-three (31%) people worldwide. This makes Christianity the world's largest religion.
​

Are you suggesting that they are not proud?

I really don't understand the basis for your argument.

​

I get it. He's uncomfortable with the implication that Christians are hypocrites.

The other part of this tangent was that, in other contexts, some Christians also like to dismiss other objectionable Christians as not "true" Christians.

Seems that @thomas t is in that latter category and is rejecting that there really are Christians in the first category.

I'm guessing that part of this comes down to not wanting his religion to be made out to be hypocritical, but I suspect that part of it is because it doesn't reflect his experience.

And since he's a Christian himself, I'm sure he hasn't been on the other end of the "majority rules, so deal with having a Christian government/society/whatnot"-type arguments that Christians often throw at the non-religious and people in minority religions, so maybe he really hasn't seen it.

 

[ecco]

it's an unsupported allegation.
Without providing a sound source for it, it's guesswork presented as factual, I think.
There is zero evidence that you can show that any Christian is proud of these 2+ billion.

It was an argument made to the detriment of Christians.
If you post arguments to the detriment of others (or if you cheer for it) it's not fair if it's just an unsupported allegation, I think.

Yes, I gave @Subduction Zone's comment a two thumbs up.

I guess I should have reworded my comments as follows:

Many research groups list Christianity as the largest religion in the world.

However, Christianity is far from a monolithic belief system. There are nine major branches, none with more than 1.5 billion adherents. Within Protestantism, there are dozens of separate branches.

More importantly, in my opinion, is that there are many Christians who do not consider Christians with different beliefs as being "real" Christians.

The same is essentially true with Islam also.

 

[Dogknox20]

Hello thomas t okay I found you..
I hope all is well..
The conversation has morphed from.. Question to Catholics: Is Adolf Hitler a Christian?
Scriptures tell all... Jesus promised to be ALWAYS WITH his Holy Church to the end of time! (the Great Commission) This means...Jesus did not leave his Church!
There are many ..Thousands and thousands of man made churches all claiming to be Christian BUT to make this claim they MUST reject the only Church Jesus established before he ascended! All must reject "The Body of Jesus" (The Catholic Church) to Re-FORM or Re-Make what Jesus lost!
Was Hitler a Christian this depends on how far alone he would be placed within all of these thousands of man made churches! If I remember a little about Hitler he and his cohort wanted to find the lost Ark thinking it would make him invincible! (something like that). He was a Christian in name only but he did the work of Satan!

 

[Subduction Zone]

If I remember a little about Hitler he and his cohort wanted to find the lost Ark thinking it would make him invincible! (something like that).

I do believe that that was just a major motion picture. Not to be confused with reality.

EDIT: After looking at various sources it appears that Himmler, not Hitler, was the one into artifacts. He may not have looked for the Ark of the Covenant, but it appears that he went after several other:

Hitler’s Hunt for the Holy Grail and the Ghent Altarpiece

Not the best of sources, but then none of the sources on these stories appear to be in the "very trustworthy" category.

 

[VoidCat]

Hey! I understood some of this quote! Very little and still needed the translation you provided ...but I understood some of it so that makes me happy:

The article goes on:
Der Münsteraner Kirchenhistoriker Hubert Wolf vermutet hier den Hauptgrund für die zurückhaltende Behandlung Hitlers. In einem Interview mit der „Welt“ sagte er: „Vermutlich stand im Hintergrund der Zweifel, ob man ein legales Staatsoberhaupt einfach so exkommunizieren kann, wo es doch im Römerbrief heißt: Alle staatliche Obrigkeit kommt von Gott, wer sich gegen die staatliche Obrigkeit auflehnt, lehnt sich gegen Gott auf.“

Onto the topic at hand...thats crazy and somewhat interesting the Catholic church never excommunicated him...they shouldve in my opinion... I know it can be hard to get excommunicated but once you've killed 11 million people you'd think that'd do it. After all didn't Jesus teach something about loving thy neighbor? Highly hypocritical to be a church that claims to follow jesus and not love thy neighbor enough to excommunicate Hitler. It reminds me of those Christians at my old high school who convinced the school to take the Harry Potter series out of the school library cuz witchcraft but they said nothing about the fact the school had Mein Kampf sitting on one of the bookcases in said library..it took me a pagan and an athiest to start a petition to get the Harry Potter books back and Mein Kampf taken out.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Hello thomas t okay I found you..
I hope all is well..
The conversation has morphed from.. Question to Catholics: Is Adolf Hitler a Christian?
Scriptures tell all... Jesus promised to be ALWAYS WITH his Holy Church to the end of time! (the Great Commission) This means...Jesus did not leave his Church!
There are many ..Thousands and thousands of man made churches all claiming to be Christian BUT to make this claim they MUST reject the only Church Jesus established before he ascended! All must reject "The Body of Jesus" (The Catholic Church) to Re-FORM or Re-Make what Jesus lost!
Was Hitler a Christian this depends on how far alone he would be placed within all of these thousands of man made churches! If I remember a little about Hitler he and his cohort wanted to find the lost Ark thinking it would make him invincible! (something like that). He was a Christian in name only but he did the work of Satan!

I used to be a Catholic and that’s a no brainer. No he is not. To be a Christian is to embody all the virtues of Christ. Hitler was an embodiment of evil.

 

[thomas t]

"The Body of Jesus" (The Catholic Church) to Re-FORM or Re-Make what Jesus lost!
Was Hitler a Christian this depends on how far alone he would be placed within all of these thousands of man made churches!

Hitler placed himself within the Roman Catholic church and was never thrown out.
You call your church "body of Christ", that's your opinion. I disagree, but I won't discuss that with you again.

 

[pearl]

Since the Church's jurisdiction naturally only extends to the living, the excommunication of a person ends with his death. Judgement after is reserved to God alone.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hitler placed himself within the Roman Catholic church and was never thrown out.
You call your church "body of Christ", that's your opinion. I disagree, but I won't discuss that with you again.

The Catholic Church doesn't throw anybody out.

Excommunication is more of a "time out" than it is actually kicking someone out of the Church.

 

[exchemist]

Hitler placed himself within the Roman Catholic church and was never thrown out.
You call your church "body of Christ", that's your opinion. I disagree, but I won't discuss that with you again.

Hitler never "placed himself" within the Catholic church. He was brought up a Catholic by his parents, since he was Austrian and that's what everyone did and then he lapsed (ceased attending church).

The entire Nazi leadership was excommunicated in 1931. That includes Hitler. Why are you persisting in this falsehood, when it has been gone over in detail, earlier in this thread? Hitler had long since abandoned any sort of Catholic belief in any case, so it hardly matters. His excommunication would have made no impact on him of any kind.

What do you hope to gain by reiterating this smear? Are you trying to claim the Catholic church was responsible for the atrocities of the Nazis, or something? I think it's about time you came clean on what your agenda is here.

 

[Augustus]

Hitler never "placed himself" within the Catholic church. He was brought up a Catholic by his parents, since he was Austrian and that's what everyone did and then he lapsed (ceased attending church).

The entire Nazi leadership was excommunicated in 1931. That includes Hitler. Why are you persisting in this falsehood, when it has been gone over in detail, earlier in this thread? Hitler had long since abandoned any sort of Catholic belief in any case, so it hardly matters. His excommunication would have made no impact on him of any kind.

What do you hope to gain by reiterating this smear? Are you trying to claim the Catholic church was responsible for the atrocities of the Nazis, or something? I think it's about time you came clean on what your agenda is here.

The old alliance...

 

[metis]

Hitler placed himself within the Roman Catholic church and was never thrown out.

Actually he had long left the Church prior to becoming "the Fuhrer". And, after the "Final Solution" was finished, the next step by the NAZI's was to eliminate the Catholic Church from Europe. Himmler, a former Catholic himself, was to conduct this transition as they moved more into a Nordic belief with Hitler at the top.

 

[exchemist]

The old alliance...

View attachment 50015

Haha, yes, I must admit this is what I thought I might be smelling.

 

[thomas t]

The Catholic Church doesn't throw anybody out.

Excommunication is more of a "time out" than it is actually kicking someone out of the Church.

I meant excommunication.
This never happened.
The CC rather excommunicates for what they consider wrong teaching.

---------------

Actually he had long left the Church

Actually he never left your church.
Here is a source in German:
Hitlers Verhältnis zu den Kirchen - Christsein wie ein Chamäleon (it's a state run page).

It says in the subtitle : "Warum er dann aber bis zum Ende nicht aus der katholischen Kirche austrat, schon weniger."

In English "why he did not leave the Catholic Church until the end, is less [clear]."

 

[thomas t]

The entire Nazi leadership was excommunicated in 1931. That includes Hitler. Why are you persisting in this falsehood, when it has been gone over in detail, earlier in this thread?

I debunked that myth of the purported excommunication of the Nazi leadership here: Question to Catholics: Is Adolf Hitler a Christian?
I could cite real historians that refute your claim.

Hitler was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Have a look at how your church understands the Catholic baptism....
"This bath is called enlightenment, because those who receive this [catechetical] instruction are enlightened in their understanding . . . ."8 Having received in Baptism the Word, "the true light that enlightens every man," the person baptized has been "enlightened," he becomes a "son of light," indeed, he becomes "light" himself:9

cited from the Catholic Catechism.

I do not and did not reiterate any smear.

I think it's about time you came clean on what your agenda is here.

an "agenda" as I understand it has negative connotiations. So I don't have an agenda here - I simply replied to @Dogknox20 . That's all.

 

[Dogknox20]

I used to be a Catholic and that’s a no brainer. No he is not. To be a Christian is to embody all the virtues of Christ. Hitler was an embodiment of evil.

Hello loverofhumanity so now you are a in Baha'i Faith?! I must assume you did not understand your Catholic faith to be swayed as you were!
I have a very personal relationship with Jesus/God! I consume his living flesh, I drink Jesus' life giving blood! Can't get anymore personal then that! I am in him he is in me!

 

[metis]

Actually he never left your church.
Here is a source in German:
Hitlers Verhältnis zu den Kirchen - Christsein wie ein Chamäleon (it's a state run page).

It says in the subtitle : "Warum er dann aber bis zum Ende nicht aus der katholischen Kirche austrat, schon weniger."

In English "why he did not leave the Catholic Church until the end, is less [clear]."

False:
Hitler retained some regard for the church's organisational power but was contemptuous of its central teachings, which "would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure".[61] Aware that Bismarck's 1870s kulturkampf was defeated by the Centre Party, he believed that Nazism could only succeed if political Catholicism and its democratic networks were eliminated.[43][62][63] Conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi persecution of the churches.[61][64]

Although Hitler occasionally said that he wanted to delay the church struggle and was prepared to restrain his anti-clericalism, his inflammatory remarks to his inner circle encouraged them to continue their battle with the churches.[54] He said that science would destroy the last vestiges of superstition, and Nazism and religion could not co-exist in the long run. Germany could not tolerate foreign influences such as the Vatican, and priests were "black bugs" and "abortions in black cassocks".[65]

In Hitler's eyes, Christianity was a religion fit only for slaves; he detested its ethics in particular. Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.

— Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock[page needed] --https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany#Hitler

What Hitler was doing was "playing" the Church, which to a degree worked.

 

[metis]

BTW, as a follow-up to my last post:
Clergy, members of male and female religious orders and lay leaders began to be targeted. Thousands were arrested, often on trumped-up charges of currency smuggling or "immorality".[20] Priests were watched closely and denounced, arrested and sent to concentration camps.[136] In 1940, a clergy barracks was established at Dachau.[137] Clergy intimidation was widespread; Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber was shot at, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer had his Vienna residence ransacked in October 1938, and Bishop Joannes Baptista Sproll of Rottenburg was assaulted and his home vandalised. Propaganda satirizing the clergy included Anderl Kern's play, The Last Peasant.[138] Under Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler, the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst suppressed internal and external enemies of the state; among them were the "political churches" (such as Lutheranism and Catholicism) who opposed Hitler. Dissidents were arrested and sent to concentration camps.[139] In the 1936 campaign against monasteries and convents, the authorities charged 276 members of religious orders with "homosexuality";[140] trials of priests, monks, lay brothers and nuns for "immorality" peaked in 1935–36. Protests of the show trials were organised in the United States, including a June 1936 petition signed by 48 clergymen (including rabbis and Protestant pastors).[141] Winston Churchill wrote disapprovingly in the British press of Germany's treatment of "the Jews, Protestants and Catholics of Germany".[142]

Since senior clerics could rely on popular support, the government had to consider the possibility of nationwide protests.[143] Although hundreds of priests and members of monastic orders were sent to concentration camps during the Nazi era, only one bishop was briefly interned; another was expelled from his diocese.[144] In 1940, the Gestapo launched an intense persecution of the monasteries. Dominican Province of Teutonia provincial and German resistance spiritual leader Laurentius Siemer was influential in the Committee for Matters Relating to the Orders, which formed in response to Nazi attacks on Catholic monasteries to encourage the bishops to oppose the regime more effectively.[145][146] Clemens August Graf von Galen and Konrad von Preysing attempted to protect priests from arrest.[147][148][149] -- [same source as above]