Nazism Still Exists - Part Three (3/3)

The Monsters May Return

From my friends, may God protect me,
For from my enemies, I guard myself

The most serious and insidious problem for the Church today is not that of open enemies—those who declare their hostility and persecute her with violence and slander—but that of hypocrites and Pharisees, false Christians, false Catholics, false progressives who are, in reality, modernists, false defenders of Tradition who are, in fact, reactionaries, false Christs, false prophets, and false visionaries.

Throughout history, the Church has always faced its main enemies from the outside—those who have physically persecuted her with open destructive actions, starting from declarations of illegality, prohibitions of religious practice, penal sanctions, enslavement, the suppression of religious institutions, and even culminating in killings and massacres.

The Church has also always had internal enemies and forgers—heretics—who, however, usually rejected the title of "Catholic," knowing full well that, despite pretending to be better Christians, they opposed Catholicism. Only in the 16th century did the Anglicans claim to be "Catholics," and in the 19th century, the sect of the "Old Catholics" was born. But the claim to be Catholic while opposing the Pope and the Church flourished on a large scale with the rise of modernism during the time of St. Pius X and was strengthened after the Second Vatican Council, when even Lefebvrist "Catholics" emerged, claiming to judge the Council as modernist in the name of Catholicism.

The publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has been little used. While modernists have adopted the Dutch Catechism since 1966, traditionalists remain stuck with the Catechism of St. Pius X.

Thus, under the guise of "Catholicism," the most diverse errors have been covered in the last few decades. Under the pretext of "pluralism," "diversity," "ecumenism," and "inclusivity," individuals who have nothing to do with Catholicism are considered Catholics. But the irony is that these individuals, either against the Pope or flattering him, claim to be the true Catholics—respectively, those most advanced or those most faithful to "tradition."

Many deserve to be excommunicated and are excommunicated, even if not through an official judicial decision. However, the absence of such measures against them and the ridicule of the few wise individuals who denounce their frauds have created the opinion among many faithful that these individuals are Catholics. Moreover, due to their success, they are considered by many to be great theologians, prophets, reformers, exemplary Catholics, geniuses, and pioneers of the Second Vatican Council.

Pastors and educators have lacked the diligence, prudence, and discernment that should be modeled after those responsible for food production, pharmaceutical industries, and monetary policy. Just as fraud in the food, pharmaceutical, and financial sectors is rightly prohibited or penalized, fraud against the faithful in spiritual matters is far more serious than in physical life.

A false Bible, a false tradition, a false mercy, a false divine justice, a false liberty, and a false charity are preached. The mysteries of the faith are falsified, beginning with the very notion of faith: the mystery of God, creation, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Redemption, original sin, Redemption again, human nature, the Mass, the priesthood, transubstantiation, the Assumption, and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

It is claimed that one can be Catholic while disobeying the Church and the Pope, denying the primacy of Christianity, the concept of truth, the immutability of dogmas, the necessity of merit and the Church for salvation, denying natural law, predestination, divine election, the existence of the damned, and the existence of the devil.

Too readily, some Catholics fall into the belief that the essence of Christian life is confined to external works, the routine of outward actions, or merely the avoidance of crimes and wrongdoing. In doing so, they overlook the profound significance of what occurs within hearts and minds—in the domains of thought, conscience, doctrine, and ideas (bold emphasis added by the translator).

It is easy today to hear some Catholics say things like: "If someone doesn’t believe in transubstantiation or Filioque, or divine immutability, or the distinction between soul and body, or between nature and person, or between being and thought, or in the dogma of creation ex nihilo, or the vicarious atonement of Christ, what does it matter when perhaps they welcome immigrants, respect nature, pay workers, respect others' opinions, and assist the poor and the sick? Isn’t that enough?" No, I reply, it is not enough, because sin can also be committed in the realm of thought, in the field of doctrine, and ideas, and in the innermost conscience. If the love of neighbor is not motivated by God's explicit or implicit love, it is only flattery or exploitation of others.

In the outwardly correct person, but an enemy of God in their heart, no one notices anything abnormal; everything seems to be in order; yet they may have hell in their heart, even if nothing appears on the outside. Then we should not be surprised if, at times, someone unexpectedly commits some reckless act.

For this reason, the Church has always been so concerned with condemning heresies and doctrinal errors. She insists on adhering to her teachings as the interpreter of God's Word and the teacher of truth. One may not be a Nazi in politics and external actions. But if someone is a Nazi in their ideas, they are not right before God.

Conclusion

In conclusion of my article, I wish to say that, beyond the deep contrast we have observed between Nazism and Christianity, nothing prevents us from asking: is it possible to compare Christian doctrine with Nazi doctrine? This is something akin to comparing realism with idealism, theism with pantheism, totalitarianism with democracy, egocentrism with theocentrism, the will to obey with the will to power, service to one master with service to two masters, those who seek a life free from death with those who seek it in death, those who seek only the truth with those who seek it alongside falsehood, and those who desire only good with those who seek it mixed with evil.

In such an atmosphere, where, as always, one must take advantage of every slightest good while rejecting evil, in 1933 Pope Pius XI signed a Concordat with the newly inaugurated Nazi regime, and in fact, it was Hitler himself who requested it.

However, just a few years later, in the 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, he had to bitterly lament its systematic violation and denounce the theological and philosophical errors of Nazism, which is the application in political and state order of Hegelian idealism, with the branches of Nietzsche's superhumanism and Heidegger's anthropocentrism that were popular at the time, which conceived man as the temporalization of being.

It is interesting that in 1937, in Salzburg, Rahner delivered a series of lectures later published in 1941 under the title Uditori della parola [Listeners of the Word], where, under the guise of discussing the "philosophy of religion," he presented the metaphysical foundations of his theology, drawn from Hegel, asserting that "the first proposition of general metaphysics" is that "the essence of being is to know and be known in an original unity, which we wish to call consciousness or transparency (‘subjectivity,’ ‘knowledge’) of the being of every being" (p. 66). In 1939, Rahner published another book, Geist im Welt [Spirit in the World][2], where he reiterated his idealistic interpretation of the epistemology of St. Thomas.

Now, it was precisely this idealistic pantheism that Pius XI condemned as the Nazi doctrine in his encyclical with the following words: "deifying, with pantheistic indeterminacy, identifies God with the universe, materializing God in the world and the world in God."

In the horizon of this pantheistic vision, Hitler, in a 1941 text, justified suicide as an expression of the individual’s rooting in the totality, with elements that resemble a crude vulgarization of the pantheistic vision of cosmic nature personalized by Schelling or Hegel's concept of the concrete universal. Hitler says:

"Even if you take your life, you still return to nature, both in substance and in spirit and soul." And on another occasion: "Spirit and soul certainly return to a collective reservoir, just like the body."[3]

It is evident how from idealism one can derive materialism, and how pantheism goes hand in hand with atheism. Indeed, if being is distinguished into spiritual being and material being, and if thought coincides with being, we will have not only the reduction of matter to thought (Berkeley), but also the reduction of thought to matter (Locke). And if God is the world (Hegel), and thus everything is God, it will also be true that the world is God (Spinoza), and therefore no creator of the world is needed (bold added by the translator).

The condemnation of Nazi pantheism was reiterated in a 1938 Declaration from the Congregation of Seminaries and Universities, in the context of Hitler’s visit to Rome, referencing the following statement: "Only the cosmos or the universe as a living being exists: all things, including man, are nothing but different forms that develop over the epochs of the living universe."[4]

Few have noticed the role played by figures such as Luther, Fichte, Hegel, and Nietzsche in the formation of Nazi doctrine. Heidegger was convinced that the German people are the spiritual and philosophical guide of humanity (bold added by the translator).

When the Nazi Party, founded by Hitler, rose to power, Heidegger expressed total trust in Hitler as the guarantor of Germany's greatness and saw in Nazism the realization and historicization of his metaphysical vision of being [5](Sein), which he had derived from Parmenides and synthesized with Heraclitus, much as Hegel had done. This synthesis led to an anthropological outcome similar to Hegel's, though distinct in terminology: whereas Hegel spoke of the absolute Idea, Heidegger referred to it as Dasein ('Being-there'). The term, already used by Hegel to designate the human concrete as both individual and community, became central to Heidegger's philosophy, where it signifies human existence as a mode of being characterized by self-awareness and engagement with the world (Translator's note: Heidegger's concept of Dasein, central to his philosophy, refers to human existence as a mode of being characterized by self-awareness and engagement with the world.) Heidegger’s vision of being is not dialectical, as in Hegel, but phenomenological, following the lines of Husserl. Yet for Heidegger, being is intrinsically temporal and stands on the brink of nothingness

But Heidegger also adopts from Greek paganism the concept of Destiny (Geschick), which is the "project" (Entwurf), through which the individual and the community decide to be an authentic whole based on the pre-understanding (Vorverständnis) of being in the Whole (sein im Ganzen).

Heidegger expresses these ideas in Being and Time, published in 1927. The work contains the speculative framework that forms the doctrinal basis for the Nazi conception of man, God, morality, and society. The Nazi Party would come to power with Hitler in 1933, but it had already been in formation since the early 1920s.

German intellectuals and the academic world did not fail to trace the philosophical foundations of Nazism in this book, and for this reason, the work was hugely successful, so much so that in 1933 it earned Heidegger the position of Rector of the University of Freiburg, where in his inaugural speech, he expressed unreserved admiration for Hitler [6]. In this speech, one can easily find connections to Being and Time. There, we find some principles that outline Heidegger's vision of the individual and the people, clearly the German people, as the concrete and historical determination of Destiny:

"By the term ‘Destiny’ we designate the original historicization of Dasein, which occurs in the authentic decision"—the will of the Führer—"a historicization in which Dasein, free for its death, is transmitted through an inherited possibility that is nevertheless chosen. Dasein is exposed to the blows of Destiny only because, at the core of its being, it is Destiny... If Dasein, anticipating death, makes it the master of itself, then, free for it, it understands itself in the superpower of its finite freedom, and in this, it can take upon itself the impotence of abandonment to itself and come to clarity about the circumstances of the open situation. But since Dasein, burdened with Destiny by being in the world, always exists and by essence exists as being with others, its historicization is a co-historicization that constitutes itself as common Destiny. With this term, we mean the historicization of the community, of the people... In being together in the same world and in the decision for certain possibilities, the destinies are preemptively marked.” [7]

It is noteworthy that here Destiny is understood as the totality of both the individual and the community, where the death of the individual produces—“the overpowering force of finite freedom”—as already seen in Hegel, the life of the community. The community, in turn, constitutes the totality of the individual, who, as the force of Destiny and the leader of the community, determines both the fate of the community and the individual.

Pope Pius XI delineated, with a few incisive phrases, the errors of Nazi ideology. These phrases reveal a pantheistic-idealistic ancestry:

"Whoever, with pantheistic indeterminacy, identifies God with the universe, materializing God in the world and the world in God, does not belong to the true believers.

Nor does he belong to this group who, following a so-called pre-Christian conception of ancient Germanic tradition, replaces the personal God with a gloomy and impersonal fate, thereby rejecting divine wisdom and its providence, which ‘with force and sweetness rules from one end of the world to the other’ and directs everything to a good end. Such a man cannot claim to be counted among the true believers.

If race or people, if the State or any of its specific forms, if representatives of state power or other fundamental elements of human society hold an essential and respectful place in the natural order, anyone who detaches them from this scale of earthly values, elevating them to the supreme norm of everything, including religious values, and idolizing them through idolatrous worship, perverts and falsifies the order created and imposed by God, and is far from true faith in God and a life in conformity with it.

Venerable Brothers, pay attention to the growing abuse, which manifests itself in speech and writing, of using the thrice-holy name of God as a senseless label for an arbitrary product of human search or aspiration, and strive to ensure that such aberration meets, among your faithful, the vigilant rejection it deserves. Our God is the personal, transcendent, omnipotent, infinitely perfect God, one in the Trinity of Persons and three in the unity of the divine essence, creator of the universe, Lord, King, and ultimate end of the history of the world, who admits and can admit no other gods beside Himself.

This God has sovereignly given His commandments: commandments independent of time and space, of region and race. Just as God's sun shines indiscriminately on all of mankind, so too does His law know no privileges or exceptions. Rulers and ruled, crowned and uncrowned, great and small, rich and poor depend equally on His word. From the totality of His rights as Creator arises essentially His demand for absolute obedience from both individuals and any society. This demand for obedience extends to all spheres of life, in which moral issues require agreement with divine law, thereby harmonizing mutable human ordinances with the immutable divine ordinances."

These words of the great Pontiff remain profoundly relevant today. While the Germans once failed to assert dominance through arms, they now succeed in captivating consciences through their relentless industriousness, dialectical acumen, vast financial resources, formidable university system, and highly effective publishing enterprises.

We owe much to German culture for its example of discipline and diligence, its contributions across diverse fields, and the inspiration it provides for research and cultural advancement. Yet, we must remain vigilant and not be swayed by the allure of false freedom or illusory wisdom. Let us be cautious of false Christ and deceitful prophets.

Rather, let us seek to understand the true qualities of the German people, remind them of their best traditions, and highlight, as I have done above, the gifts God has bestowed upon them, so that together with us, in fraternal collaboration, without complexes of superiority, and above all, without placing themselves above the teachings of Christ and the Church, we may work fraternally together, in mutual collaboration, for the progress of philosophy and theology, for the increase in the holiness of the Church, and the advent of the Kingdom of God.

P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, December 18, 2024

source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/il-nazismo-esiste-ancora-terza-parte-33.html

Notes:

[1] Edizioni Borla, Rome 1977.

[2] Translated into Italian with the title Spirito nel mondo and published in 1989 by Editrice Vita e Pensiero, Milan.

[3] Cited by Agnoli, pp. 277-278.

[4] Cited by Agnoli, p. 209.

[5] See below, p. 23.

[6] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger_e_il_nazionalsocialismo

[7] Essere e tempo, Edizioni Longanesi & C., Milan 1976, pp. 460-461.