"Priests Were Not Welcomed by the Nazis"

In yesterday's Chicago Tribune, accompanying a story about Derrick Rose being named the NBA's MVP at age 22 is a feature titled, "Where were you at 22?" that looks at what Some Famous People were doing at that age.

Notice in particular the caption next to Pope John Paul II:



I guess you could say that "priests were not welcomed by the Nazis," but that's a bit of an understatement, don't you think?

Slandering Pope Pius XII

There is perhaps no historical canard for which I have less patience than the charge that Pope Pius XII was a feckless coward who "didn't do enough" to help Jews during the Holocaust.

There is no shortage of well-documented defenses of Pius, and if you've never read anything on this subject before, this article by Professor Ronald Rychlak is surely a good start.

Heh

From Stuff White People Like:

Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.

Comparing people to Hitler is an easy way for white people to get a strong point across to the less enlightened, or the insufficiently white...

This time-tested white-person maneuver may seem so awesomely useful to you that you are tempted to go out and try it right now. Not so fast. White people have spent the last 30 years perfecting this technique. There are cultural guidelines.

It’s also critical that you avoid the fatal mistake of getting creative and comparing people you don’t like to other evil dictators, such as Joseph Stalin or Fidel Castro. With few exceptions, white people are actually fond of almost any dictator not named Hitler, and your remark that “this is just like something Mao Zedong would do” will be met with blank stares and possible social alienation. This is because, with the exception of Hitler, oppressive dictators share a passion for many of the things white people love- such as universal health care, conspiracy theories, caring about poor people while being filthy rich, and cool hats.

Of course, white people aren't alone here.

I'm reminded of the Colombian hostage rescue earlier this month, during which some of the country's security forces posing as FARC rebels wore Che Guevara T-shirts as part of their elaborate ruse.

This, in turn, prompted me to recall this satire thereof: