Arakelian, Hitler, and the Pope

October 14, 2003
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Arthur Arakelian slandered the Catholic Church in his People’s Forum letter, (Telegram & Gazette, Oct.13). His false memory syndrome contradicts historical fact; Hitler excommunicated himself by publicly embracing paganism. William Shirer documented this in, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” on pp.332-333. Hitler’s Reich Church “determined to exterminate irrevocably...the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in …800” and “will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of saints.”

At the end of WW2, all Jewish leaders thanked the Church for saving Jewish lives. The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, wrote his thanks in the Jewish Yearbook 1944-1945: "What the Vatican did will be indelibly and eternally engraved in our hearts. . . . Priests and even high prelates did things that will forever be an honor to Catholicism." Albert Einstein wrote in 1947, "Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty. Up till then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty." Even The New York Times of March 14, 1940 said the Pope defended the rights of Jews.

Whether Arakelian’s knowledge about abuse at the Cathedral in the 40s is true or not, I cannot say, but his credibility is severely damaged when he posts other obvious falsehoods that are contradicted by historical facts; facts which also diminish Arakelian’s reason for not practicing his faith. Arakelian has much to reconsider.

Jay G