"...Why should I bother..."
Oh, I dunno... in order to demonstrate that such a source-gathering and communicating task is (1) within your range of abilities and (2) decisively supportive of your earlier stated position. Thus far, you have failed to demonstrate either, but, of course, counterpointing with "Why should I?" is far easier than actually rising-to and mastering the challenge. Noted.
"...Frankly, you sound one of these hard-core Catholic Apologists..."
That's a pretty outlandish conclusion to conjure-up for someone who's only exchanged two or three posts or notes with another, and under circumstances in which the 'other' has served-up no such indications.
"...who tries to pretend all those altar boys that got boned up the ass were totally asking for it..."
Rather graphic and entirely uncouth - a bit too juvenile in intent and execution for my taste, and laying-out colleague-thumping trump-cards far too early in the game - kinda reminds me of somebody suffering from a case of premature ejaculation but that's just the mean-streak coming out in me after being assaulted with that kind of trash-talk.
In truth, and as an aside, I know of no 'Catholic Apologist' who holds to such beliefs. If you can serve-up credible online citations that this is not the case - again - you have the floor.
"...The Concordate WAS a big deal. The Catholic Church made an agreement with the most evil person who ever lived..."
Nazis: Keep your friggin' mouth shut, Church, and we'll let you stay open and continue to minister to your flocks. Break the bargain and we'll close you down and kill your clergy.
Some choice.
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The Church found itself backed into a corner and obliged to remain officially neutral, although working hard for the oppressed in Occupied Europe behind the scenes as best as could be managed. Even the web-page that you cited (above) contains a very great deal of commentary in just that vein, from contemporaries who ought to know.
Your apparent dislike (hatred?) for religion in general for for Christianity in particular seems to have clouded your judgment a bit when it comes to finding the truth that lies in the middle ground rather than in your little hate-filled backwater perception pool.
Was there a seeming cowardly aspect to the Vatican not speaking-out and condemning the Italian Fascists and Nazis when it became clear that they were deporting (and probably killing) Jews by the trainload? Absolutely. Nolo contendere. No contest.
But what would have happened if they'd spoken-out about their suspicions and the rumors and underground reports of slaughter of Jews and Roma and undesirables et al?
Hitler and his boys would have closed them down, shot the leadership and most of the middle-management and parish priests and nuns all across Occupied Europe, and a 2,000 -year-old historical institution and treasure would have perished, along with the good works and safe-havens and ministering to the needful and the needy at a time of their greatest need and for generations to come afterwards - if not forever - and the slaughter would still have continued unabated until the bitter end, just as it did in actual fact.
So they played dead-possum and waited until the hunter-hawk had flown past them and they survived as best they could while doing as much good as they could manage under the circumstances. Not one of their shining moments but entirely understandable and the only solution that ensured their survival beyond the life-span of the Fascist regimes.
Add to that, that, philosophically, they were obliged to remain neutral and not to take sides - much akin to the Swiss or the Geneva-based International Red Cross - and you've got a formula for passive resistance in Scary Survival Mode that does not shine like Heroism but which resonates well within the domains of common sense and organizational survival under extreme duress.
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I was not sitting in the Vatican in the 1930s and 1940s in a position to make decisions and I do not have the experience and intelligence-gathering results in front of me with which to judge ol' Pius XII overly harshly. It would have been better all around if he HAD opened his mouth and taken sides, but then the Church, all across Occupied Europe, would have lost its last vestigial traces of immunity, based upon that (now spent) neutrality.
Oh, and, by the way, the Reichskonkordat was signed in mid-1933, while the Nazis only had an elective majority, and while Hitler's power as Chancellor was still fairly limited, and during the Presidency of old Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, who was still being used at that time by the Weimar Republic's governing bureaucracy as a brake on the consolidation of power into Nazi hands.
Again: the Reichskonkordat was signed while the Weimar Republic was still on its feet and more than a year before Hitler (although already Reichskanzler) was installed as a dictator, and much of Hitler's plan and much of his evil had not yet unfolded at the time of the signing.
The Reichskonkordat was as much a Preemptive Strike to ensure the survival of the Church when the Church got its first peek at what might be coming later down the pipe - with respect to suppression of religion and the churches, most specifically - and the Church made that preemptive strike while Hindenburg was still President and while the Weimar Republic was still on its feet.
Again: the deal was, basically, we'll keep our mouths shut, and you don't close us down (or worse). Once the Nazis had shoved the remains of the Weimar Republic out of the way, the Reichskonkordat was all that stood between Closure and a Continued Ministry.
At first glance, I don't fault 'em much for playing possum, but you seem to think that the Reichskonkordat was some kind of get-in-bed-with-the-Nazis protocol. Wrong. Epic fail.
Take a little time to read-up on it from a somewhat more objective source. The obligatory Wiki article summary ought to get you started...
Reichskonkordat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...and I'm sure you can find your way from there.
I see nothing in that list of Articles from the Reichskonkordat that even metaphorically qualifies in support of your earlier contention that the Konkordat was tantamount to the Church climbing into bed with the Nazis - not even when stretching the very limits of logic and partisan reinterpretation.
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"...And they kept up with that agreement all the way until the end of the war..."
And here I thought it was only until the Nazis occupied Rome (in 1943) according to your earlier pronouncement and not the end of the war in 1945. Maybe I misunderstood you.
"...When mass killings began... the Vatican was extremely well informed... despite numerous appeals... the Pope refused to issue explicit denunciations of the murder of Jews or call upon the Nazis directly to stop the killing. Pius determinedly maintained his posture of neutrality..."
All true. They were dealt a shitty hand and played it out the best the could under very trying circumstances. Charged with the same responsibility, and knowing that it meant the shutdown of one of the few moral restraints still operative across Occupied Europe, I'm not sure how I would have played it. I can see both sides.
Then again, some of the more negative portrayals found on that webpage that you cited were penned by resentful Holocaust or Labor Camp survivors with strong academic credentials, so I question their 'spin' more than I question their imperfect collection of fact.
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"...The most evil act in the history of humanity was going on... and the "moral" Catholic Church did... Nothing."
In fact, they did one helluva lot behind the backs of the Fascists and Nazis, at the parish and bishopric levels, from what I remember of my own reading of the history of those times, and the involvement of the Church therein.
They just didn't do as much - or didn't do as much on the larger stage - as you and others would have wanted them to.
It's easy to armchair-quarterback at a distance of 60-70 years and the luxury of never having to personally deal with such things.
You spend several years heading-up a nonprofit nonviolent spiritual organization in the midst of a brutal multinational empire - with the life of the organization and dozens of thousands of nonviolent operatives and millions of needful adherents at stake - and see how easy such a decision might be.
As I said... I find myself wondering whether ol' Pius XII was just playing it (neutrality) by the book or whether he was simply playing-out the shitty cards he'd been dealt, as best he could.
I don't have that answer.
But apparently you believe that you've had that answer for years, and you seem entirely confident of its merits.
I do not share your confidence in the matter.
