A History Lesson

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Winston Churchill

The Roman Catholic bishops of German have a history lesson for their American counterparts. 

Between 1939 and 1945, German priests went to the battlefields of Europe, administering the sacraments and consoling their war-broken soldier countrymen. German Sisters and nuns served as nurses in field hospitals, tending to the wounded.

In Faith and Charity, that was their God-given role.

On April 29, 2020 the German bishops commemorated the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II - issuing a blanket criticism of and apology for the failures of their predecessors. 

Bishop Georg Batzing, president of the bishops’ conference, accused his predecessors of failing to remember their own role and that of their church and failing to accept responsibility for the consequences.

Batzing called on the Church of 2020 to recognize today’s incarnation of “the old demon of division, nationalism, ‘ethnic’ thinking and authoritarian rule… Terrifying anti-Semitism is widespread….”  In releasing their mea culpa and J’accuse, the German bishops acknowledged that anyone who has learned the lessons of history must oppose those tendencies. “This applies without ifs and buts to the church, which is committed to the Gospel of peace and justice… We must not sit back but carry the legacy into the future. This is all the more true given that Europe [and the world] does not seem to be in a good state at the moment.”

In that context, it’s difficult to believe but it appears that one of the highest-ranking prelates of the American Church (who will remain nameless) has never heard the old maxim “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” 

Now, he and his American confreres in Church leadership have been schooled by the bishops of Germany: “Inasmuch as the bishops did not oppose the war with a clear ‘no,’ and most of them bolstered the [German nation’s] will to endure, they made themselves complicit in the war.”

“Now, those who come later must confront history in order to learn from it,” Batzing said. 

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” the maxim goes.

Fool me once: 

Days before the German bishops’ statement, the “pastor of America’s parish” and two other American churchmen took part in a teleconference with the man who calls himself “the best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church.” [Who knew! The Catholic Church has a president?!?!] The reported purpose of the call with Jewish, Islamic and Christian faith leaders – including two of the most important representatives of the Roman Church - was to discuss reopening religious centers to large scale public services. The secondary purpose, at least for the man from 1600, was to solicit support for his reelection – seeking praise, especially from evangelical representatives. 

Perhaps deliberately – conning a conman – they offered praise and he warned that issues like religious liberty and the pro-life cause would be in jeopardy if he lost his bid.

Perhaps these same “religious leaders” forgot “the Muslim ban” or that “some very fine people” shouted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville And they can be pardoned for not anticipating that men and women brandishing rifles and ammo belts would twice invade the Michigan capitol building demanding the governor abandon her COVID-19 statewide lockdown – against the best medical advice and the man calling for the bishops’ support would call them “very good people” and tweet  “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” 

Fool me twice.

A week later, those same Catholic leaders and at least one other man in “amaranth red” joined more than 600 others to discuss pandemic-related issues and the future of religious schools. 

In his 15 minutes of opening comments and playing to his audience, the candidate declared his commitment to pro-life causes “has been at a level that no other president has seen before, according to everybody. I’m just saying what everybody is saying.”

In that call, the same man proclaimed himself responsible for the greatest economy in the nation’s history, with the “best numbers” for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and women until his economy was “unfairly hit” by corona virus and insisted that Catholic institutions would benefit from the COVID-19 paycheck protection program. 

In a cable network gabfest days later, the cleric from 460 Madison Avenue praised the man from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, calling him “particularly sensitive to the religious community… I’m in admiration of his leadership.” 

“Particularly sensitive” to children in cages, the destruction of families, the rollback of clean air and water measures, depriving Native American communities of their ancestral lands and undermining our National Parks system. And let us not forget Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico.

Fool me three times?!?!

By mid-May, less than a month after the first teleconference, more than 100 Catholic schools serving more than 50,000 students – in Houston, and Red Bluff, California and the oldest Catholic girls’ school in Maryland and five in the Diocese of Camden -  had announced their permanent closure, according to the National Catholic Education Association. That is only the first wave. The tsunami is yet to come.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, former president of the German Catholic Bishops Conference, and Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, president of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) Council, marked the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (January 27, 2020) with a joint statement on the behavior of Christians and churches during the Nazi era and the persecution of Jews: “Occasionally, as in other parts of the German population, there was real heroism. We respect those who stand up against the racial madness and the system or misanthropy – sometimes even at the price of martyrdom. However, we must not overlook the fact that many Christians collaborated with the National Socialist regime, kept silent about the persecution of the Jews, or even encouraged it. Church leaders and representatives also often stood with their backs to the victims. There is no doubt: The churches in Germany must acknowledge this history of guilt.”

America’s Roman Catholic hierarchs have accomplished the goal of their silence: The federal court system is packed with justices who will continue to vote against a woman’s right to choose for decades to come.

But those same bishops must be aware of the judgment of history on their continued silence. Their German counterparts have much to teach them about the consequences of standing “with their backs to the victims” – Muslims and Jews, the hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, the environment, those being systematically deprived of their voting rights, the poorest of the poor.

Today, the hierarchs of Germany looks back at the silence of their predecessors – a silence meant to safeguard the Church against the horrors of National Socialism. Today’s Church hears the silence of its predecessors – silence about the murders of Roma, homosexuals, the cognitively and physically challenged, Catholic priests and nuns, and Jews all killed by brownshirts – and prays “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

America’s Catholic hierarchy focuses entirely on “right to life” at the expense of their voices speaking out on the denial of Science and the destruction of the environment; increasing,  sometimes murderous, attacks on Islamic, Jewish and Afro-American houses of worship; the destruction of the Centers for Disease Control and the figurative firing-squading of dedicated inspectors generals and committed career national security officers. If the American dream continues to devolve into the final American nightmare and the sclerotic deaths of Mother Earth and Sister Water, seventy-five years from now, America’s Catholic bishops will issue their mea culpas to a generation and world too close to death to whisper J’accuse.