Pope Benedict at Auschwitz

[Ralph]

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
The Pope's silence is deafening
by Richard Cohen

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

ROME - I write with hesitation, with respect, with awe and with a profound, humbling and scary sense that I am about to go, as they say, above my pay grade. But what, I have to ask, did Pope Benedict mean by what he said at Auschwitz?

The pontiff went late last month to that place where 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered and this is what he said: "In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God. Why, Lord, did You remain silent? How could You tolerate all this?"

Others have asked how the Vatican under Pope Pius XII could have remained silent during the Holocaust. Some have asked how the Polish church could have remained silent even when Poles massacred around 40 Jewish Holocaust survivors. This was in July 1946, almost two years after the liberation of Poland. The police stood by. The army stood by. The church said nothing.

Now, though, Benedict has actually said something. He said more or less what I did after visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau. And, before that, Treblinka, and afterward, Buchenwald and Terezin: "Why, Lord, did You remain silent? How could You tolerate all this?" Only I put it differently. Where were You, God? I don't think You were silent. I don't even think You were there.

Religious people can wrestle with the Pope's remarks. What does it mean that God was silent? That He approved? That He liked what he saw? You tell me. And what does it mean that He could "tolerate all this"? That the Nazis were okay by Him? I am at a loss to explain this. I cannot believe in such a God.

This is a God who was away from His desk or something and did not notice the plumes of human ash reaching to the heavens themselves. Is that what the Pope wants us to believe? No, I think it is something even worse: If God was silent, who could blame the church for being silent, too? Is that what Benedict is saying? If so, he is continuing the tradition of saying nothing.

I know Holocaust survivors who are religious. I don't understand it. I know others who feel that Auschwitz is proof that there is no God. I understand that. I am sure there are people who feel that way about Biafra or Rwanda or even Hurricane Katrina. I can understand that, too.

I give Benedict some credit. Not from him do we get the inane God of American optimism, the Deity of American politics who will make everything just wonderful if only we put our faith in Him. This is the chamber of commerce God of George W. Bush, and, sometimes, when Bush talks that way, I want to scream "Auschwitz!" at him. Ausch.witz! Mr. President, have you ever heard of Auschwitz?

Rome is beautiful, as always. I want to go directly to the Vatican, bang on the Pope's door and demand he answer my questions. But I imagine he will look at my tormented soul with pity because I hear nothing but silence and he, buoyed by faith, just listens harder.

[RebLem]

I wonder if you have heard of or read a book called "The Search for Major Plagge" by Dr. Michael Good. I have not. But I did see a long talk Dr. Good gave on BookTV and became interested enough to look for documents and writings of various kinds on the internet in relation to this case.

Karl Plagge joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Eventually, he became a member of the SS, and was in charge of a forced labor camp near Vilna, Lithuania. He rescued Jews scheduled for extermination from the Vilna ghetto and brought them to his camp. Among those he rescued were Dr. Good's parents. Dr. Good mounted an eventually successful campaign (after 2 rejections) to get Major Karl Plagge recognized as one of the just gentiles in the Europe of the Holocaust. Here is a website which will tell you more about this case:

http://isurvived.org/Rightheous_Folder/ ... erman.html

One of the documents appended to the above website is a remarkable letter Karl Plagge wrote to his attorney on April 26, 1956 which bears on the subject of this thread. Its complete text can be found in a document called "Letters Written by Karl Plagge to Attorney Strauss" at

http://isurvived.org/Frameset_Rescuers/ ... n_Maj.html

But I just want to post here part of that letter:

I wasn’t able to recognize the boundaries where the limit of guilt began or ended and, in a broader sense, as a German, I myself bear this guilt. From this plague there was no refuge. One had to be a witness of this outrage, in the course of which the only choice that remained, was to hate or love the God who permitted all these things. This was the cause for me to revise my religious views and I resisted loving a creation that martyred people and would even gas children and would let people be guilty as happened here. If the order of the world was determined through death, then it was perhaps better for God not to believe in Him and, instead, to struggle against death with all one’s strength, without lifting one’s eyes to heaven, where God was silent. If on earth there should only be „Scourges and Victims“, then it is an obligation to stand, not on the side of the castigator, but to espouse the cause of the victim. I have spoken with many of these „Scourges“ who were responsible for the horror and have long reflected upon their words. I have perceived these men as blind tools of hallucination and I must tell you that these people have also moved me to pity, because I saw what a dreadful schism dwelt in their souls....

[pizza]

Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews.com

The Silence of God
by Jeff Jacoby
June 05, 2006

"Where was God in those days?" asked Pope Benedict XVI as he stood in Auschwitz last week. "Why was He silent? How could He permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?"

It is the inevitable question in Auschwitz, that vast factory of death where the Nazis tortured, starved, shot, and gassed to death as many as a million and a half innocent human beings, most of them Jews. "In a place like this, words fail," Benedict said. "In the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?"

News reports emphasized the Pope's question. Every story noted that the man who voiced it was, as he put it, "a son of the German people." No one missed the intense historical significance of a German Pope, on a pilgrimage to Poland, beseeching God for answers at the slaughterhouse where just 60 years ago Germans broke every record for shedding Jewish blood.

And yet, some commentators accused Benedict of skirting the issue of anti-Semitism. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League said that the Pope had "uttered not one word about anti-Semitism; not one explicit acknowledgment of Jewish lives vanquished simply because they were Jews." The National Catholic Register likewise reported that he "did not make any reference to modern anti-Semitism."

In truth, the Pope not only acknowledged the reality of Jew-hatred, he explained the pathology that underlies it. Anti-Semites are driven by hostility not just toward Jews, he said, but toward the message of God-based ethics they first brought to the world.

"Deep down, those vicious criminals" -- he was speaking of Hitler and his followers -- "by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to Himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone -- to those men, who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world."

The Nazis' ultimate goal, Benedict argued, was to rip out Christian morality by its Jewish roots, replacing it with "a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful." Hitler knew that his will to power could triumph only if he first destroyed Judeo-Christian values. In the Thousand-Year Reich, God and his moral code would be wiped out. Man, unencumbered by conscience, would reign in his place. It is the oldest of temptations, and Auschwitz is what it leads to.

"Where was God in those days?" asked the Pope. How could a just and loving Creator have allowed trainload after trainload of human beings to be murdered at Auschwitz? But why ask such a question only in Auschwitz? Where, after all, was God in the Gulag? Where was God when the Khmer Rouge slaughtered 1.7 million Cambodians? Where was God during the Armenian holocaust? Where was God in Rwanda? Where is God in Darfur?

For that matter, where is God when even one innocent victim is being murdered or raped or abused?

The answer, though the Pope didn't say so clearly, is that a world in which God always intervened to prevent cruelty and violence would be a world without freedom -- and life without freedom would be meaningless. God endows human beings with the power to choose between good and evil. Some choose to help their neighbor; others choose to hurt him. There were those in Nazi Europe who herded Jews into gas chambers. And there were those who risked their lives to hide Jews from the Gestapo.

The God "who spoke on Sinai" was not addressing himself to angels or robots who could do no wrong even if they wanted to. He was speaking to real people with real choices to make, and real consequences that flow from those choices. Auschwitz wasn't God's fault. He didn't build the place. And only by changing those who did build it from free moral agents into puppets could He have stopped them from committing their horrific crimes.

It was not God who failed during the Holocaust or in the Gulag, or on 9/11, or in Bosnia. It is not God who fails when human beings do barbaric things to other human beings. Auschwitz is not what happens when the God who says "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is silent. It is what happens when men and women refuse to listen.

This article originally appeared in the Boston Globe on Sunday, June 4, 2006.


http://www.arutzsheva.com/print.php3?wh ... le&id=6283

[Corlyss_D]

Mmmmmm. I need to read the Daily News more often . . .

Thanks for the link, Ralph.

[Corlyss_D]

what, I have to ask, did Pope Benedict mean by what he said at Auschwitz?

It was a predictable platitude on an event he had nothing to do with, Richard. Get over it. We might as well expect every President to make obsequies to extant native populations for how badly the settlers treated them. Enough already of this faux anguish and the demands for justice from the dead. Move on.

Edited to delete misattribution to Reb of something he didn't say. Apologies to all.

[jbuck919]

what, I have to ask, did Pope Benedict mean by what he said at Auschwitz?

It was a predictable platitude on an event he had nothing to do with, Richard. Get over it. We might as well expect every President to make obsequies to extant native populations for how badly the settlers treated them. Enough already of this faux anguish and the demands for justice from the dead. Move on.

Reb, so you believe in racial guilt, do you? Generations yet unborn must atone for the mistakes of their ancestors? Shame on ya.

Ironically you and Ralph and others are perfectly ready to remember and encourage the observance of D-Day with the greatest sentimentality and even platitudes. I guess it has something to do with whose ox is gored, or whose relatives survived or didn't survive whatever occasion we are talking about. Personally, I'd rather fight the current war than the last one or seven. For God's sake, we're still observing Veteran's Day (Armistice Day) which honors guys who fought almost 100 years ago almost all of whom are dead. In England where the losses were far more extreme they moved that to a weekend ab origine, and in Germany it is not observed at all, but the VFW and American Legion would not let them even move it to make a three-day weekend in the US. Yes indeed, let's move on.

[Corlyss_D]

Ironically you and Ralph and others are perfectly ready to remember and encourage the observance of D-Day with the greatest sentimentality and even platitudes.

If D-Day rememberances were about guilt-tripping, I'd leave it in the dust. Cohen's self-indulgent piece was about larding guilt on living Catholics.

For God's sake, we're still observing Veteran's Day (Armistice Day) which honors guys who fought almost 100 years ago almost all of whom are dead.

It's for all veterans, living and dead. I personally want the living to know I am grateful for their sacrifices. We'll never reach a time when there will not be living veterans who need to hear it from those of us who stayed comfortably behind for whatever reason.

[RebLem]

what, I have to ask, did Pope Benedict mean by what he said at Auschwitz?

Reb, so you believe in racial guilt, do you? Generations yet unborn must atone for the mistakes of their ancestors? Shame on ya.

No, but apprently Karl Plagge did to some extent, and I do not think such an eloquent voice should be silenced because I have some reservations about what he said. Do you? Furthermore, he was talking about the generation of Germans who actually committed these atrocities and felt guilt for having participated in it, in some sense or other. To me, the core of what he said, the most interesting part, was this:

If the order of the world was determined through death, then it was perhaps better for God not to believe in Him and, instead, to struggle against death with all one’s strength, without lifting one’s eyes to heaven, where God was silent.

But one needed some of what went before and after to understand the context of the above statement. That's why I included it.

I agree with the general notion that the demonization of the Catholic Church on this and other matters has a poisonous effect on contemporary public life. It is not a healthy polity which places a nation's largest single religious denomination--and a growing segment at that, due to Hispanic migration here--beyond the pale of political respectability for many.

Oh, and a couple of things about Pope Pius XII. While much of his behavor in WWII and before is, indeed, troubling, and certainly shows him not to have been made of the same stuff as the early Christian martyrs, he did do two things for which he is seldom given credit--he hid 3,000 Italian Jews at the summer Papal home at Castelgondolfo, and for the first time since the establishment of the Swiss Guards in 1506, Pius XII sent them home to Switzerland and replaced them with Italian Jews to give them protection.

[Lilith]

"The answer, though the Pope didn't say so clearly, is that a world in which God always intervened to prevent cruelty and violence would be a world without freedom -- and life without freedom would be meaningless. God endows human beings with the power to choose between good and evil. Some choose to help their neighbor; others choose to hurt him. There were those in Nazi Europe who herded Jews into gas chambers. And there were those who risked their lives to hide Jews from the Gestapo.

------------------------------------------------
bull crap. If you believe in a personal God that answers prayers - WHERE WAS HE/SHE/IT?
If you believe in Grace (Catholics do)- WHERE WAS IT?

[Corlyss_D]

No, but Karl Plagge apparently did,

Sorry for the misattribution.

[RebLem]

Lilith & Corlyss,

I made a few fairly significant modifications in my post since you posted. You might want to take a look at them.

[Corlyss_D]

I do not think such an eloquent voice should be silenced because I have some reservations about what he said. Do you?

Depends on the silliness/gravitas ratio. I made up my mind about God a long time ago and I'm not much intersted in how others solve the problem for themselves as long as they don't make me watch while they do it. Most people don't realize the answer is totally within their control. It's tedious watching them struggle so with something completely in their control. I always want to holler, "Decide already and get on with it!"

Oh, and a couple of things about Pope Pius XII. While much of his behavor in WWII and before is, indeed, troubling, and certainly shows him not to have been made of the same stuff as the early Christian martyrs, he did do two things for which he is seldom given credit--he hid 3,000 Italian Jews at the summer Papal home at Castelgondolfo, and for the first time since the establishment of the Swiss Guards in 1506, Pius XII sent them home to Switzerland and replaced them with Italian Jews to give them protection.

I had heard some of that on Batchelor from an author who was defending Pius against the charges that he was Hiltler's favorite clergyman. The author (sorry I can't recall who or recover it easily from Batchelor's site) made the arresting statement that Hitler did have a favorite clergyman: he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Arafat's uncle and political mentor.

[miranda]

Auschwitz is one of the many, many reasons why I don't believe in god. I suppose I am a hypocrite because I enjoy a great deal of sacred music and love going to visit old churches and cathedrals, particularly European cathedrals. I know there has been an amazing amount of art, architecture, and literature created in god's name. But I do think god is an illusion, and I do not believe in an afterlife.

And I agree with you, Corlyss, that is one good-lookin' fireman!

Sorry, I know this is off-topic.......

[Werner]

You know, Miranda, that's not so strange, after all - as I see it.

The wonderful art you see created with religious connections strikes me as the expression of exalted ideals, which many of us feel without codifying them into specific rituals or beliefs. Isn't that a meeting ground?

[Corlyss_D]

I suppose I am a hypocrite because I enjoy a great deal of sacred music and love going to visit old churches and cathedrals, particularly European cathedrals.

I understand completely and don't think it's hypocritical to enjoy religious music and religious works. One can enjoy them as Werner says, products of the best attributes of man.

And I agree with you, Corlyss, that is one good-lookin' fireman!

Was it you or Cosima that I was drooling with over Israel Finkelstein, archeologist with Tel Aviv University, a while back?

[Agnes Selby]

Without trying to be facetious, the souls inhabiting Auschwitz must have seen in the German Pope the ultimate ruler of the world or perhaps God's reward for the atrocities committed there with the full knowledge
of the Catholic Church.

Agnes.
----------------

[pizza]

I find it absurd that otherwise intelligent people, many of whom assert with pride that they have no knowledge of nor interest in any religion, nor have they engaged in any meaningful studies addressing the nature of God -- ideas that have been grappled with for millenia by sages and philosophers of all religions and beliefs -- presume to answer the dilemma of Auschwitz based upon nothing more than a fleeting perception of what a deity of their own construction should have done under similar circumstances.

The Pope is no fool. He undoubtedly knows there are times where silence is golden.

[Corlyss_D]

I find it absurd that otherwise intelligent people, many of whom assert with pride that they have no knowledge of nor interest in any religion, nor have they engaged in any meaningful studies addressing the nature of God -- ideas that have been grappled with for millenia by sages and philosophers of all religions and beliefs -- presume to answer the dilemma of Auschwitz based upon nothing more than a fleeting perception of what a deity of their own construction should have done under similar circumstances.

Zzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggggg!

If only they would keep their philosophical musings to themselves. They all seem so sophomoric.

[Ralph]

I find it absurd that otherwise intelligent people, many of whom assert with pride that they have no knowledge of nor interest in any religion, nor have they engaged in any meaningful studies addressing the nature of God -- ideas that have been grappled with for millenia by sages and philosophers of all religions and beliefs -- presume to answer the dilemma of Auschwitz based upon nothing more than a fleeting perception of what a deity of their own construction should have done under similar circumstances.

Zzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggggg!

If only they would keep their philosophical musings to themselves. They all seem so sophomoric.

*****

Then we'd have 48% fewer posts by my reckoning.

[Corlyss_D]

Then we'd have 48% fewer posts by my reckoning.

I'd like to examine your data. I don't think we talk about peoples' search for God or the player to be named later very much at all.

[Barry]

Depends on the silliness/gravitas ratio. I made up my mind about God a long time ago and I'm not much intersted in how others solve the problem for themselves as long as they don't make me watch while they do it. Most people don't realize the answer is totally within their control. It's tedious watching them struggle so with something completely in their control. I always want to holler, "Decide already and get on with it!"

And I feel just the opposite. I simply don't think there is any need to make a decision. It's not going to impact how I live my life. I'm more likely to say to people, "Why bother? You can live a good life regardless." Although my inclination at this point is to just say nothing and go about my business, unless they pester me about what I should believe on the street. Then I let them have it; in the verbal sense.

[Corlyss_D]

And I feel just the opposite. I simply don't think there is any need to make a decision. It's not going to impact how I live my life.

Well, you've made the decision then.

I'm more likely to say to people, "Why bother? You can live a good life regardless."

Sounds like you agree that the decision is completely within the control of the individual. My attitude toward it is that each person has to answer for himself the questions, Does it bother me more not to believe in God? Does it bother me more to believe in God? If the answer to the first is yes, then you have to decide what you are going to do about living with that belief. If the answer to the second is yes, then forget about it and have a nice life.

[Lilith]

“I find it absurd that otherwise intelligent people, many of whom assert with pride that they have no knowledge of nor interest in any religion, nor have they engaged in any meaningful studies addressing the nature of God -- ideas that have been grappled with for millenia by sages and philosophers of all religions and beliefs -- presume to answer the dilemma of Auschwitz based upon nothing more than a fleeting perception of what a deity of their own construction should have done under similar circumstances.

The Pope is no fool. He undoubtedly knows there are times where silence is golden.” Pizza
-----------------------------------

I find it absurd that a lawyer, posing as intelligent, would post that piece by Jeff Jacoby that adds absolutely nothing but confusion to the discussion. Statements such as “The answer, though the Pope didn't say so clearly, is that a world in which God always intervened to prevent cruelty and violence would be a world without freedom -- and life without freedom would be meaningless.”
are ludicrous beyond description. Check out the word ‘always’ …..that word implies God DOES intervene when he/she/it wants to, doesn’t it. So where’s the freedom? The person can’t even present a cogent argument.
Not to mention other significant issues such as ‘grace’ and the belief of many that God does actively work in their lives.

I would think you would read this rubbish before you post it.

[pizza]

“I find it absurd that otherwise intelligent people, many of whom assert with pride that they have no knowledge of nor interest in any religion, nor have they engaged in any meaningful studies addressing the nature of God -- ideas that have been grappled with for millenia by sages and philosophers of all religions and beliefs -- presume to answer the dilemma of Auschwitz based upon nothing more than a fleeting perception of what a deity of their own construction should have done under similar circumstances.

The Pope is no fool. He undoubtedly knows there are times where silence is golden.” Pizza
-----------------------------------

I find it absurd that a lawyer, posing as intelligent, would post that piece by Jeff Jacoby that adds absolutely nothing but confusion to the discussion. Statements such as “The answer, though the Pope didn't say so clearly, is that a world in which God always intervened to prevent cruelty and violence would be a world without freedom -- and life without freedom would be meaningless.”
are ludicrous beyond description. Check out the word ‘always’ …..that word implies God DOES intervene when he/she/it wants to, doesn’t it. So where’s the freedom? The person can’t even present a cogent argument.
Not to mention other significant issues such as ‘grace’ and the belief of many that God does actively work in their lives.

I would think you would read this rubbish before you post it.

I'm mildly amused at your inability to understand Jeff Jacobi's point. It's probably your devout atheism that prevents you from following it. There is absolutely no contradiction at all between human beings exercising their free choice, and God intervening in human affairs when He chooses to do so.

His argument is completely cogent. Your brain needs a little exercise. You can get it by reading on the subject. There is a vast literature that awaits people who are genuinely interested.

[Lilith]

"There is absolutely no contradiction at all between human beings exercising their free choice, and God intervening in human affairs when He chooses to do so. " ... Pizza
--------------------------------------

I'm glad you are not my lawyer! I will not even waste space arguing this point.

[pizza]

"There is absolutely no contradiction at all between human beings exercising their free choice, and God intervening in human affairs when He chooses to do so. " ... Pizza
--------------------------------------

I'm glad you are not my lawyer!

Not as glad as I am!

[Ralph]

And if Pizza would ever be your lawyer, Lilith, I have no doubt he'd represent you with 100% commitment to your issue(s).

[Lilith]

"And if Pizza would ever be your lawyer, Lilith, I have no doubt he'd represent you with 100% commitment to your issue(s). "

Believe me, we'll never have to test this thesis.

[pizza]

"And if Pizza would ever be your lawyer, Lilith, I have no doubt he'd represent you with 100% commitment to your issue(s). "

Believe me, we'll never have to test this thesis.

My deepest sympathy to whomever it is that has to.

[dulcinea]

I had not yet been born, so WWII is of no concern to me. I don't have an HG Wells machine, so there is no question of me being able to do anything to alter the events of that long-gone period. My responsibility is instead for the events of my lifetime, such as the extermination of 20% of the population of Cambodia in 1975-79, and for the widespread starvation in North Korea, where desperate people, like the Morlocks, are sinking into the depravity of cannibalism. God is not silent; He speaks through the actions of people. The USA and the UNO did nothing in the case of Cambodia; will they do nothing again in the matter of North Korea, and blame God for their own unforgivable negligence? And let me express my total incredulity regarding the sincerity of those who so ostentatiously join in the mantra NEVER AGAIN! NEVER AGAIN! Chanting that meaningless ballyhoo doesn't compensate for the fact that many are at present very hostile to Israel and to Jewry, and would not care a damn if Israel's many enemies finally succeeded in erasing it from the map.

[miranda]

edited: I was going to type a long post involving Rwanda and Darfur, but never mind.

[dulcinea]

edited: I was going to type a long post involving Rwanda and Darfur, but never mind.

Why not? It would be very appropriate for this discussion.