Catholic Church Standing As One Essay

This happened because of the fact that many Catholic individuals could not resist the temptation of joining and supporting the Nazis as their power grew. Considering that doing otherwise would have had terrible consequences for them, it seems normal that they did not dare to rise against Nazism. With claims like "The Church must enter completely into the Third Reich, it must be co-ordinated into the rhythm of the National Revolution, it must be fashioned by the ideas of Nazism, lest it remain a foreign body in the unified German Nazi community" (Conway 46), it is obvious that most Christians that were at Hitler's mercy at the time struggled to avoid becoming victims of the Nazi regime and chose the only solution that they had. Pius himself was unable to prevent Hitler from appointing his own bishops, given that the German church had virtually merged with the Nazi party as a means of guaranteeing its well-being as with the purpose of removing any political threat that Hitler faced at the moment. By the time when the Nazi regime put across its true nature, it was too late for the Catholic Church to act, as Hitler's power had reached a phase when it was virtually impossible for someone within his own reach to challenge Nazi authority. The illusions that Catholics had in regard to Nazism were destroyed by the Holocaust. With Hitler being the most influential individual in Germany and Mussolini backing him up, it became almost impossible for the Catholic Church to hope that it could actually do something to prevent the Holocaust from happening. "Realization of the fate of the Jews at German hands has brought to the Church a sense of shame for its deeply-entrenched anti-semitism, and a new awareness of Christianity's indissoluble bond with the Chosen People of Israel" (Conway 337).

Even though it is clear that the Vatican's power in helping Jewish individuals from falling victim to the Nazi regime was undermined by Hitler's influence, the Catholic Church was nonetheless able to intervene and prevent numerous lives from being lost. Instead, Catholic leaders preferred to collaborate with the Nazi regime in its incipient years as a means to make certain that the church would experience as little harm as possible.

Works cited:

Conway, J.S. The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933-45 (New York: Basic Books, 1968)

Dalin, David G. The myth of Hitler's Pope: how Pope Pius XII rescued Jews from the Nazis, (Regnery Publishing, 2005)

Levy, Richard S. Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, 2005.

Phayer, Michael. The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965, (Indiana University Press,…