For Catholics: Transformation of the Heart

[JaneBond007]

Disclaimer: This thread is for edification of the faithful - catholic, non-catholic, orthodox etc. christians - ...by way of hermeneutics or exegesis, however one wishes to approach it. We've touched upon this a variety of times but I do not think so in this way, yet. Maybe we can learn more of our faith and more about each of us on this journey.


Valid questions were raised about the "real christian" but I think that there is a lack in understanding about redemption and justification. You know, we catholics come under the covenant at baptism as infants (or later when one is baptized at another time due to a variety of circumstances and/or conversion) and if at some point the person leaves the church, s/he is still catholic. Well, what does that mean? We call ourselves catholics first over christians but why? We are the universal church. When you are in, you are in. That means, you are a "christian" under the authority of the RCC for life. No, you don't have to stay and you can become a follower of any other religion, but essentially, you are held to the church in your spiritual life and whatever you do consciously, you are responsible for. Obviously, children aren't held to the decisions of their parents and even adults or consciously aware older children might be confused and see another faith in good conscience. Are they justified? They surely can be. Your heart is the key.

If you die in mortal sin as a conscious catholic - as a catholic christian - you have forfeited heaven. Were you a "real" christian? Yes, but a very bad one. Meaning, if you have had the sacraments of baptism, first reconciliation and first communion, you are always able to enter reconciliation at some later point and come back under salvific grace. This is why we catholics say that it's works + faith. You cannot live a horrible life and expect justification in the end. It's not about hoping we go to heaven (although, G-d is certainly sovereign and has the final say) by some magic, but we have faith to live a good life within the church which is based upon the 10 Commandments and the Apostolic Teachings, handed down from Jesus to the apostles and beyond.

Let's discuss, if you will. There's no need to be confused about this aspect of the christian life nor feel that you are rightfully picked apart from non-believers. All people sin.

Questions/Observations:

1. Was Adolph Hitler a christian? I say so. His unfortunate mother was devout catholic and father, a skeptic, perhaps agnostic, and Adolf was confirmed. He was catholic. So, what's it mean to be a christian, a follower of the Christ? Aren't we meant to live this life abundantly (spiritually and within the completion of the Promised One? What is the meaning of the term Christ? How does G-d show us how to be a good follower? In the same Judaic tradition as of old. We are brought into the covenant and taught throughout life the meaning.

Christ = ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthus) is an acronym/acrostic[4] for "Ίησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ", (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr), which translates into English as "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour".

We are taught to be the salt of the earth (salt preserves and flavours) and the light, which dispels the darkness. We are told unequivocally about hell and who will enter it based upon our continuous behavior. Obviously, the idfference between a repentant christian sinner and unrepentant one is reconciliation, which begins in the heart ever before the confessional...rather levels the ground for all. So, was Hitler a "christian" or was he not?

2. (got interrupted...will be back)




If you will, you can add to, correct, expound upon, question if you are protestants, meaning non-catholic/orthodox church.

 

[Galadriel]

1. Was Adolph Hitler a christian? I say so.

Thanks for sharing this interesting topic, JB. I would say that Hitler committed apostasy and thus was not a Christian. Not only did he depart from the Church and Christian beliefs/practice, he also actively persecuted Christianity. The Nazis forbade the reading and teaching of the Bible, made homeschooling illegal (even to this day in Germany, homeschooling is illegal), and he sent tons of priests, nuns, and Catholic laypeople to concentration camps.

It was a common pratice in the Dachau concentration camp that priests were among the first prisoners to be shot in the head or sent to the gas chambers.

Any spiritual beliefs Hitler might have had were were Occult, and tied into his racial superiority myth of being of Norse descent and inheritors of Norse god mythology, etc.

 

[JaneBond007]

I agree and the key word is "apostasy." Was he ex-communicated? And actually, I do get such questions lol. If he was, I wonder what became of the priest who initiated it.

 

[Galadriel]

I agree and the key word is "apostasy." Was he ex-communicated? And actually, I do get such questions lol. If he was, I wonder what became of the priest who initiated it.

If he apostasized, then a formal excommunication would be a moot point. Someone who has apostasized has already broken away from the Church and the Church's jurisdiction.

 

[JaneBond007]

Galadriel

I found one of the answers in the 1931 Council of German Bishops who excommunicated the N*zi parti itself. Many people think that catholics themselves were persecuted and therefore, that catholics supported the regime. Well, we know that some did whereas others didn't. Here's something from a Wiki article (I know...but) :
Link
-N*zi views on Catholicism


Alfred Rosenberg, official "cultural and educational leader" of the Reich. A neo-pagan, and anti-Catholic, he wanted the extermination of the Christian faiths imported into Germany. His influence on the Nazi party's course was limited.[35]


Main articles: Nazi views on Catholicism and Religious views of Adolf Hitler
The Nazis disliked universities, intellectuals and the Catholic and Protestant churches. Raised Catholic, Hitler retained some regard for the organisational power of the Catholic church, but had utter contempt for its central teachings which, he said, if taken to their conclusion "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure".[36] Many Nazis suspected Catholics of insufficient patriotism, or even of disloyalty to the Fatherland, and of serving the interests of "sinister alien forces".[37] Aggressive anti-church radicals such as Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann saw the conflict with the churches as a priority concern. Anti-church and anti-clerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.[38] Short term, and for political considerations, Hitler was prepared to restrain his anti-clericalism, seeing danger in strengthening the churches by persecution, but intended a show-down after the war.[39] He declared that science would destroy the last vestiges of superstition and that, in the long run, Nazism and religion could not co-exist. Germany couldn't tolerate intervention of foreign influences like the Vatican; and priests, he said, were "black bugs" and "abortions in black cassocks".[40]

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.

— Extract from Hitler: a Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock​

The attitude of Nazi party membership to German Catholics ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.[41][42] The 1920 Nazi Party Platform promised to support freedom of religions with the caveat: "insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the moral sentiments of the Germanic race". It further proposed a definition of a "Positive Christianity" which could combat the "Jewish-materialistic spirit".[20] Shirer wrote that "under the leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler—backed by Hitler—the Nazi regime intended to destroy Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism of the Nazi extremists."[43] The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements.[44]

The Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels led the regime's persecution of Catholic clergy; and wrote there was "an insoluble opposition between the Christian and a heroic-German world view".[38]



Martin Bormann, Hitler's "deputy" from 1941, saw Nazism and Christianity as "incompatible" with a particular loathing for the Semitic origins of Christianity.[45]


Hitler was aware Bismarck's kulturkampf of the 1870s was defeated by the unity of Catholics behind the Centre Party and was convinced Nazism could only succeed if Political Catholicism, and its democratic networks, were eliminated.[24][41][46] Important conservative elements, such as the officer corps, opposed Nazi persecution of the churches.[47][48] Because of such political considerations, Hitler occasionally spoke of wanting to delay the church struggle and was prepared to restrain his anticlericalism. But, his own inflammatory remarks to his inner circle encouraged underlings to continue their battle with the churches.[38]
In January 1934, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg the cultural and educational leader of the Reich. Rosenberg was a neo-pagan and notoriously anti-Catholic.[43][49] Rosenberg was initially the editor of the young Nazi Party's newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter.[50] In 1924, Hitler chose Rosenberg to oversee the Nazi movement while he was in prison (this may have been because he was unsuitable for the task and unlikely to emerge a rival).[51] In "Myth of the Twentieth Century" (1930), Rosenberg described the Catholic Church as one of the main enemies of Nazism.[52] Rosenberg proposed to replace traditional Christianity with the neo-pagan "myth of the blood":[53]

 

[JaneBond007]

What is the shame is that these particular bits of history are absolutely necessary to know about and yet, it's not taught, esp. in the secular school system. SMH. I'm limited to num. of words so here is the end of the above post:



I could never bring myself to study this, ever, and not sure I would ever have learned the absolute truth. We know about the attacks on Pope Pius XII and the truth on some of his involvement. But now as a catholic, I think I must bite the bullet to study this in order to appease both sides because, although we could appropriately say that most catholic individuals either turned their backs on humanity in the face of persecution and fear (in silence, refusal to help, actual persecution and turning them in), many others faced their persecution without fear of man and helped those most sought to escape and survive. Thanks to you, Galadriel , I can retire that sentence that h*tler was a christian. He was an apostate, as were all those of the SS and n*zi party (that's a lot of people who were apostates ) who were formally excommunicated by the German Bishops in 1931 and that his grave errors were in no way measurable with the grave errors of other simple christians who are in need of fine-tuning and repentance. That shoots down the common belief that all sins are equal. As catholics, we know this not to be true.

Well, this has been something on my mind for a long time. We can throw out the apostates, totally. I'm going to print this thread and place it into my file for the next time that I need times and dates as well as other important information concerning that awful period of history that is trying to rear it's ugly head again.

 

[Galadriel]

You're right, the full story isn't taught.

Here's a great book for further research: The Pope's Jews--The Vatican's Secret Plan to Save Jews from the Nazis

An NCR article on how Pius XII transferred money and gold to the U.S. to help fight the Nazis: National Catholic Register

What is the shame is that these particular bits of history are absolutely necessary to know about and yet, it's not taught, esp. in the secular school system. SMH. I'm limited to num. of words so here is the end of the above post:



I could never bring myself to study this, ever, and not sure I would ever have learned the absolute truth. We know about the attacks on Pope Pius XII and the truth on some of his involvement. But now as a catholic, I think I must bite the bullet to study this in order to appease both sides because, although we could appropriately say that most catholic individuals either turned their backs on humanity in the face of persecution and fear (in silence, refusal to help, actual persecution and turning them in), many others faced their persecution without fear of man and helped those most sought to escape and survive. Thanks to you, @Galadriel , I can retire that sentence that h*tler was a christian. He was an apostate, as were all those of the SS and n*zi party (that's a lot of people who were apostates ) who were formally excommunicated by the German Bishops in 1931 and that his grave errors were in no way measurable with the grave errors of other simple christians who are in need of fine-tuning and repentance. That shoots down the common belief that all sins are equal. As catholics, we know this not to be true.

Well, this has been something on my mind for a long time. We can throw out the apostates, totally. I'm going to print this thread and place it into my file for the next time that I need times and dates as well as other important information concerning that awful period of history that is trying to rear it's ugly head again.

 

[JaneBond007]

So, H*tler aside, who is a real catholic/christian? When someone does something wrong and they are not apostates, are they truly christians in our faith? From the OP:

We call ourselves catholics first over christians but why? We are the universal church. When you are in, you are in. That means, you are a "christian" under the authority of the RCC for life. No, you don't have to stay and you can become a follower of any other religion, but essentially, you are held to the church in your spiritual life and whatever you do consciously, you are responsible for....

If you die in mortal sin as a conscious catholic - as a catholic christian - you have forfeited heaven. Were you a "real" christian? Yes, but a very bad one. Meaning, if you have had the sacraments of baptism, first reconciliation and first communion, you are always able to enter reconciliation at some later point and come back under salvific grace. This is why we catholics say that it's works + faith. You cannot live a horrible life and expect justification in the end. It's not about hoping we go to heaven (although, G-d is certainly sovereign and has the final say) by some magic, but we have faith to live a good life within the church which is based upon the 10 Commandments and the Apostolic Teachings, handed down from Jesus to the apostles and beyond.

Do we interchange "christian" for "catholic" and does it have the same effective meaning?

 

[Galadriel]

So, H*tler aside, who is a real catholic/christian? When someone does something wrong and they are not apostates, are they truly christians in our faith? From the OP:



Do we interchange "christian" for "catholic" and does it have the same effective meaning?

The "real" Catholic is she who believes and practices the faith in its entirety, and who acknowledges and repents of her sins.

Can a Christian sin, even mortally? Yes.

However there are certain sins which cuts you off from communion with the Church e.g. Apostasy, Heresy, etc. which MUST be confessed and turned away from.

In the case of Hitler, he did not repent, he adopted spiritual beliefs that are basically idolatry and occultism (which shows a wholesale rejection of the Christian faith), and instead of submitting to the bishops (when he was condemned for his various evil actions), his reaction was to murder Catholic clergy especially those of Jewish descent (think of martyrs like St. Edith Stein).