Question to Catholics: Is Adolf Hitler a Christian?

[ChristineM]

I highly doubt it.

My error, it should have been a 9 year old girl
2009 Brazilian girl abortion case - Wikipedia

 

[exchemist]

Recently I ran into a statement insinuating that Adolf Hitler was a Christian... quoted by my discussion partner.

As a Catholic, do you see him as a Christian?

Here on RF, one of your brothers once said, the Catholic Church was blameless.

Before you say it's obvious that he wasn't a Christian, consider that he was baptized into the Catholic Church and never was excummunicated. He never left the Catholic Church.
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While the Catholic Church does excommunicate people, for instance for what they call false teaching, they did not excommunicate Hitler and his servants.

As blameless as the Catholic church portrays itself to be, they did not find a reason to regret not having kicked him out. Until today. This is at least to the best of my knowledge.

The pope knew what was going on, that there was a holocaust. https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/29/vatican-pope-pius-records-holocaust/

edited for clarity

No, Hitler is not a Christian, because he is DEAD.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm not angry. You just don't know what you're talking about. I mentioned official excommunications, and that they're rare. However, you are considered to have excommunicated yourself from communion with the Church when you commit a major sin, such as apostacy. That's why you have to repent and do penance before you can have access to the sacraments again. You can come to Mass, but shouldn't be taking communion.

Then you did make an equivocation fallacy. Thanks for clearing that up. By context the meaning was clear. The discussion was about the fact that the Catholic church never formally excommunicated Hitler. At best you might now try to claim that your post was a red herring, but that would still be a logical fallacy.

 

[Cooky]

Canon 1398 - Wikipedia

Canon 1398 is a rule of canon law of the Catholic Church which declares that "a person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication."[1]​

Well, the simple solution to that is to get un-excommunicated, or "absolved".

...But as @Saint Frankenstein pointed out, there's a difference between an automatic-excommunication and a formal excommunication.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Then you did make an equivocation fallacy. Thanks for clearing that up. By context the meaning was clear. The discussion was about the fact that the Catholic church never formally excommunicated Hitler. At best you might now try to claim that your post was a red herring, but that would still be a logical fallacy.

And I explained why they didn't issue a formal excommunication. It's rare and normally reserved for clerics found to be teaching error and heresy. Those forms of excommunication are censures. But technically he still is excommunicated. There's just no reason for the Vatican to make a formal ruling on it, just like they won't for me or pretty much any other lapsed lay Catholic. Now get over yourself.

 

[Altfish]

Conservative Christians will vote Republican regardless.

The Lincoln Project has more morals than Christians

 

[Cooky]

My error, it should have been a 9 year old girl
2009 Brazilian girl abortion case - Wikipedia

All her mother has to do is go to confession (it was the mother who faced automatic-excommunication for arranging the abortion).

 

[exchemist]

You appear to be using an equivocation fallacy here because there is a clear process of excommunication from the Catholic church where a member is in effect banned until he makes amends. That was never done to Hitler. Amazingly even if excommunicated that person is still considered to be a Christian:

Excommunication (Catholic Church) - Wikipedia

Yes, there is no way anyone can pronounce someone not a Christian, because that is matter of personal belief. Excommunication is the most any authority can do.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And I explained why they didn't issue a formal excommunication. It's rare and normally reserved for clerics found to be teaching error and heresy. Those forms of excommunication are censures. But technically he still is excommunicated. There's just no reason for the Vatican to make a formal ruling on it, just like they won't for me or pretty much any other lapsed lay Catholic. Now get over yourself.

No, that was an excuse. Not an explanation. The Holocaust was not a very common event.

 

[exchemist]

Recently I ran into a statement insinuating that Adolf Hitler was a Christian... quoted by my discussion partner.

As a Catholic, do you see him as a Christian?

Here on RF, one of your brothers once said, the Catholic Church was blameless.

Before you say it's obvious that he wasn't a Christian, consider that he was baptized into the Catholic Church and never was excummunicated. He never left the Catholic Church.
---------------------
While the Catholic Church does excommunicate people, for instance for what they call false teaching, they did not excommunicate Hitler and his servants.

As blameless as the Catholic church portrays itself to be, they did not find a reason to regret not having kicked him out. Until today. This is at least to the best of my knowledge.

The pope knew what was going on, that there was a holocaust. https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/29/vatican-pope-pius-records-holocaust/

edited for clarity

Wiki has this to say:
"In early 1931, the German bishops excommunicated the Nazi leadership and banned Catholics from the party. Although the ban was modified in the spring of 1933 due to a law requiring all civil servants and union members to be party members, the condemnation of core Nazi ideology continued.[7"

From: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

So it looks as if your assertion that Hitler was never excommunicated is wrong.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes, there is no way anyone can pronounce someone not a Christian, because that is matter of personal belief. Excommunication is the most any authority can do.

And yet they did not even take that step. As @ChristineM pointed out a Catholic archbishop declared a nine year old excommunicated, he was overturned, why didn't any Catholic authority excommunicate Hitler?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

No, that was an excuse. Not an explanation. The Holocaust was not a very common event.

And it still doesn't warrant a formal excommunication as he was not teaching heresy or error as a representive of the Church. Hitler doesn't get special treatment just because he's Hitler and the West is still obsessed over him.

 

[Cooky]

And I explained why they didn't issue a formal excommunication. It's rare and normally reserved for clerics found to be teaching error and heresy. Those forms of excommunication are censures. But technically he still is excommunicated. There's just no reason for the Vatican to make a formal ruling on it, just like they won't for me or pretty much any other lapsed lay Catholic. Now get over yourself.

It might be better just to ignore him. It's an ego thing I guess.

 

[Cooky]

And yet they did not even take that step. As @ChristineM pointed out a Catholic archbishop declared a nine year old excommunicated, he was overturned, why didn't any Catholic authority excommunicate Hitler?

The Catholic Church declared a 9 year old excommunicated? Or the mother of the 9 year old who arranged the abortion faced "automatic-excommunication" by her own doing?

...Clearly it's the latter.

 

[exchemist]

And yet they did not even take that step. As @ChristineM pointed out a Catholic archbishop declared a nine year old excommunicated, he was overturned, why didn't any Catholic authority excommunicate Hitler?

See post 30. It seems the whole lot got excommunicated in 1931, if Wiki is correct.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Wiki has this to say:
"In early 1931, the German bishops excommunicated the Nazi leadership and banned Catholics from the party. Although the ban was modified in the spring of 1933 due to a law requiring all civil servants and union members to be party members, the condemnation of core Nazi ideology continued.[7"

From: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

So it looks as if your assertion that Hitler was never excommunicated is wrong.

Thanks for adding that. Some people have an agenda to blame all the horrible things in the world on religion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hitler obviously rejected Christianity per his own personal statements.

Which personal statements suggest to you that he rejected Christianity?

A lot of his anti-semitic ideas were taken straight from Martin Luther.

 

[PureX]

That's kind of the point. There was no pastoral guidance from the Vatican against killing 6,000,000 humans.

The first rule of any institution is to protect and maintain the existence of the institution, itself. Given that at that time the institution was (and is) based in Italy, and therefor surrounded by and at the mercy of the fascist axis, it's not surprising that it did not speak out against them, publicly. Or that it accommodated them as it felt it must, at the time.

We can call this a moral weakness. And it is. But the Catholic Church as an institution is a man-made phenomenon, and is bound to and by the limitations of the men that run it. So let those who are without sin begin casting the stones.

 

[thomas t]

Wiki has this to say:
"In early 1931, the German bishops excommunicated the Nazi leadership and banned Catholics from the party. Although the ban was modified in the spring of 1933 due to a law requiring all civil servants and union members to be party members, the condemnation of core Nazi ideology continued.[7"

From: Catholic Church and Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

So it looks as if your assertion that Hitler was never excommunicated is wrong.

Normally Wikipedia is your friend.
I like citing it, too.
But this time I think Wikipedia has it wrong for the bolded part.
Can you cite a "real" source?

I tried to find anything in this sense and I found a source in German language claiming that bishops from the region of Bavaria issued warnings against the Nazis in 1931, that were rescinded in 1933 Pastorale Anweisung "Nationalsozialismus und Seelsorge", 10. Februar 1931 – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Which personal statements suggest to you that he rejected Christianity?

A lot of his anti-semitic ideas were taken straight from Martin Luther.

Religious views of Adolf Hitler - Wikipedia

The current scholarly consensus is that he was not a believing Christian, was hostile towards it and only used religion for practical purposes earlier on.