During his controversial visit to the United Kingdom, Liar in Chief, Pope Benedict XVI tried to lay many of the world's ills, both past and present, on unrestrained secularism and even atheists. Indeed, he even went so far in his speech at Holyrood Palace as to blame Hitler and NAZI fascism on atheist. Obviously, Benedict's claims are untrue and I suspect that if all the needless deaths throughout history were totalled up, RELIGION would be the number one cause of all. As for atheists being responsible for Hitler and the NAZI nightmare, Hitler was a CATHOLIC. And Hitler disliked atheism which he saw as synonymous with communism. Here's a portion of the bullshit Benedict XVI spun at Holyrood Palace:*
Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”
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Once again, Benedict demonstrates the perils of shooting off one's mouth before doing a simple Google search and a tad of research. Here's what Wikipedia has to provide about Hitler's views on and personal beliefs on religion:
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At the Benedictine monastery school which Hitler attended for one school year as a child (1897–98), Hitler became top of his class, receiving 12 1's, the highest grade, in the final quarter. He also sang in the choir at the monastery.
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In public statements, especially at the beginning of his rule, Hitler frequently spoke positively about the Christian heritage of German culture, and his belief in the "Aryan" Christ. In a proclamation to the German Nation February 1, 1933 Hitler stated, "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
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According to Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer, Hitler remained a formal member of the Catholic Church until his death, although it was Speer's opinion that "he had no real attachment to it." According to biographer John Toland, Hitler was still "a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of God. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of God—so long as it was done impersonally, without cruelty."
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According to Steigmann-Gall, Hitler's reference to God as the "Lord of Creation" and the necessity of obeying "His will" along with several references to Jesus, reveals the infusion of Christianity into his thinking. Other sources also show Hitler's Christian thinking, according to Steigmann-Gall. He notes an unpublished manuscript where Hitler sketched out his world-view with similar Christian references, and he gives as an example a speech on April 1922 where Hitler said that Jesus was "the true God." Finally, Steigmann-Gall gives another example where in a private Nazi meeting Hitler again stated the centrality of Jesus' teachings to the Nazi movement.
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Hitler often associated atheism with Germany's communist enemy. Hitler stated in a speech to the Stuttgart February 15, 1933: "Today they say that Christianity is in danger, that the Catholic faith is threatened. My reply to them is: for the time being, Christians and not international atheists are now standing at Germany’s fore. I am not merely talking about Christianity; I confess that I will never ally myself with the parties which aim to destroy Christianity. Fourteen years they have gone arm in arm with atheism. At no time was greater damage ever done to Christianity than in those years when the Christian parties ruled side by side with those who denied the very existence of God. Germany's entire cultural life was shattered and contaminated in this period. It shall be our task to burn out these manifestations of degeneracy in literature, theater, schools, and the press—that is, in our entire culture—and to eliminate the poison which has been permeating every facet of our lives for these past fourteen years."
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In his childhood, Hitler had admired the pomp of Catholic ritual and the hierarchical organisation of the clergy. Later, he drew on these elements, organizing his party along hierarchical lines and including liturgical forms into events or using phraseology taken from hymns. Because of these liturgical elements, Hitler's Messiah-like status and the ideology's all-encompassing nature, the Nazi movement is sometimes termed a "political religion"
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Nice try Benedict, but except for simpletons, outside uneducated areas of the developing world, don't expect people to buy your bullshit.
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