Hitler's Pederasts and Roman Catholic Infighting
April 7, 2018
by William P. Meyers

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Doomed to Repeat History Department?

While browsing in Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington yesterday evening I spotted a new, 2017 book on the Third Reich, also known as Adolf Hitler's Germany. I am well-read on the subject, so I used the index to find and read some passages on Hitler's religion. These passages turned out to be propaganda, aimed to make any uninformed reader believe that the Roman Catholic Church and Hitler's Nazis were deadly enemies. The bookstore also carried the classic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, which is more honest about that subject. Unfortunately the better book was selling for $60, which I think means it will be passed up in favor of the cheaper propaganda.

Then I came home and watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, which I can't recommend because it glorifies violence. However, there was a scene I liked. The main character is visited by a Catholic priest, there to pressure her to take down her billboards. She compares the Catholic Church to a gang, and says that the priests who don't engage in pederasty are like the gang members who should be prosecuted when the gang they are in commits a crime, even when they did not participate in that particular crime.

Forgive me if I appear to be a bit obsessed with getting the facts and analysis of Hitler, National Socialism, and Fascism correctly on the record. It would not be a problem if historians would just tell the truth, but history often is a propaganda project. Just be leaving out a few details, you can alter the perception of historical events. Since events tend to be complicated, and we all have limited time, compression is necessary.

Adolf Hitler was raised Roman Catholic in an almost-exclusively Roman Catholic area of Austria (a mainly German-speaking country bordering Germany). The Catholic Church is very authoritarian. During Hitler's youth it was making a historic shift from backing traditional monarchies to backing more modern dictatorships, as long as they were right-wing, pro-Catholic, and against socialism, protestantism, and women's rights. Hitler was serving in the German Army in World War I when the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia and instantly became the number one enemy of the Pope.

As an adult, and as he became more prominent and eventually powerful, Hitler had a complex relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. However, he never renounced Catholicism, and neither was he ever excommunicated by the Church. When he died his death certificate listed him as Roman Catholic, just as his birth certificate had.

I have written extensively about Hitler, including his relationship to Fascism in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular. See Hitler for more of my articles and source materials. Here I want to focus on Hitler's campaign against pederasty.

I have met a few people who think there is nothing wrong with pederasty (mostly pederasts), but here I will go with the common assumption that pederasty is bad.

First, let me state that I know of no instance in the now nearly two-thousand years of the history of the Roman church where pederasty has been officially condoned. [Since I have a deep knowledge of Church history, I can also point to many good things members of the Church have done. I certainly don't believe every Catholic, or every priest, is a pederast.]

It is well-documented that Catholics helped bring Hitler to power. Ordinary Catholics joined the Nazi Party, or voted for it in elections, and the Pope insisted that Hitler be appointed Chancellor of Germany, which allowed him to become its dictator, or as he would have been styled until about 1800, Holy Roman Emperor.

While there was a bit of friction between Mussolini and the Pope, there was more friction between Hitler and the Pope. The Pope, in both cases, was mad he did not have complete control over the man he had elevated to power.

When he assumed power and spoke to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, Hitler praised Christianity and said "we hope to improve our friendly relations with the Holy See." [Holy See = Vatican][Shirer, page 234].

But the Nazi government did things the Church did not agree with, notably passing a sterilization law (enabling the Nazi's to start their eugenics program). They also tried to bring church institutions and programs more into line with German nationalism.

On March 14, 1937 Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical, "With Burning Sorrow" which is generally represented as attacking the Nazis. I read it. It is critical in a mild manner and like most Papal writing, long and poorly written, and so seldom read. The most important sentence shows it is about a power struggle: "Faith in the Church cannot stand pure and true without the support of faith in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome." Did the Pope excommunicate Hitler? No. Did the Catholics rebel? No. Everyone kissed and made up. Catholic Youth became Hitler Youth with barely a wimper, just a change in uniform.

The Nazis responded with a campaign exposing the internal problems of the Catholic institutions in Germany, particularly pederasty.

Catholic defenders act like this was a totally trumped up campaign. Well, let's examine that.

Are they claiming that Germany in the 1930s was free from pederast priests? They are claiming that. It just does not pass any reasonable test. Some time between the birth of Jesus and the 1930s, pederasts figured out that a religion that demonized women and supplied a steady stream of altar boys, while teaching people to obey authority, even Latin mumbo-jumbo, was an ideal home. A regular greenhouse for the fragile perverts who taxed the flock 10% and popped the cherries of the little rams.

So, sure, the Nazis would have left the priests alone if the whole Church had gotten behind Hitler's program.

Not that Catholics were the only problem. Here's a parting shot at Lutherans: "It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther. The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority." [Shirer, page 236]

While the Catholic Church seems to be withering in America, it is closely associated with the recent rise of right-wing nationalism in Eastern Europe, notably in Poland. Even in America the Church continues to oppress not just Catholic women, but all women by it stances that women are inferior (not allowed to be priests) and denied reproductive rights.

Plus: Hitler's First Cabinet