Sometimes it’s hard to remain in one’s slot while staying calm. People of faith have long been looked down upon, in large part because the “king of the mountain” inevitably discovers a whole forest of responsibilities after climbing up. To those who believe in a simple hierarchy of power and respect, it must be profoundly amusing to see a man or woman of faith climb to the upper strata only to be consumed by back-bending duties in a short time. No wonder that type finds us easy to despise.

I myself am a Roman Catholic. Because of that, the fissure in the Protestant part of the world brought forth by Darwinism is something I have not experienced; as far back as the 1920s, the Roman Catholic Church was discussing ways to square the faith with the findings of Darwin, and the answer me and my peers received – that it’s okay to accept Darwinism, provided that you also believe that God came in at some stage of human evolution between that quasi-chimp and us to give us our souls – is standard in the RC world. This means we see no need to hold any brief for creationism except as agents.

I suppose the difference between each faith’s degree of acceptance of Darwinism is a touchy subject because the Protestant world faced a crisis similar to that the RC church faced with respect to Galileo. Since this particular Inquisition is held in popular culture to be symbolic of all others, it has given the RC church a reputation of being a haven for darkness and reaction.

Until Darwin came along.

The relative ease with which the RC church bent with this new discovery might very well bring a certain insecurity to those who have used the trial of Galileo as a bragging point. This example set by the Vatican might very well have encouraged the modernist interpretation of Genesis among certain sects of Protestants. (Once again, I have to plead current ignorance of Judaism in this discussion.)

It might have also encouraged something else, which people of other faiths should see as a distant warning rather than as an opportunity to crow. The Roman Catholic Church is being implicated in the growth and terrors of Nazism.

This you have probably long known, since it has been pushed around since 1999 or so. Begun by secular humanism, it is another in a long series of attempts to bait people of different varieties of Christianity to fight each other. Here’s the charge:

“By babying Hitler and his movement, the Roman Catholic Church effectively lent sanction to Nazism. The Church should have been more active in opposing Nazism by using means such as excommunicating Hitler.”

Let me begin by noting that the unveiling of the Holy Inquisition right in the middle of the Weimar Republic would have been quickly and effectively satirized into oblivion. Given Hitler’s profoundly opportunistic character, him comparing himself to Galileo would have been easy, through wrapping his platform in the mantle of Darwinian evolution even more tightly. It might have even won him some cold respect among the moguls of Weimar culture.

“Why didn’t you throw that punch? I don’t care if it would have won him sympathy; you should have done it!”

The above notation only deals with half of the charge: the Vatican should have tried to stop Hitler before his accession to Führer. The second half says that the RC church should have pulled Hitler’s chain before the Holocaust got serious.

This point avoids the criticism above, and seems more serious, because it hints that the RC Church was either cowardly or weak during that time. So any Roman Catholic would be hesitant to answer this half of the charge out of pride.

The second word contains the answer. The Vatican was too weak at the time to do anything definitive to stop Hitler’s descent into massacrial mania. This I have been assured of by a canon lawyer who used to be a rake at this Web journal: Every time the Vatican tried to step in to “tame” Hitler, the Nazis retaliated by attacking Jews.

“Why didn’t you hit him harder? I don’t care if he’s going to take it out on others!”

The only sensible point left in the charge is that the RC Church of the time was...too meddlesome. That they made things worse for the Jews stuck in Germany by attacking Nazism too much. That they showed imprudence by baiting a monster. That they were too anti- Nazi in their actions. That they were not passive enough.

This is a criticism that makes sense, as anyone who knows the history of anti-totalitarian Resistance movements can see. It takes little common sense to conclude that the most ineffective Resistance man is the one that’s already been fingered as a vocal opponent of the régime. It’s as obvious as concluding that NRA members would be watched most closely by a regime that banned private ownership of guns entirely.

I know that the above analysis is based upon the trials of the Roman Catholic Church specifically, but a little imaginative identification can prepare members of other faiths to face a similar trial. What you have to endure is incipient hysteria, brought about by a supposed need to admit to a “weakness” which might very well be fictional. It’s not implausible to assume that a hysteric is a proud person who has been stripped of their pride.

So here’s your thought experiment:

1. For the Anglican type: “The Anglican Communion Succored Satanic Communism!”
2. For the Presbyterian/Calvinist type: “Those People Secretly Believe In The Survival Of The Fittest!”
3. For the Bible Believer type: Something you’re already used to, I’m sure. “Those People Have Just Democratized The Inquisition!”
4. For the Lutheran Type: “’Pray for Strength’? You Just Religion-ized Your Anger!”

If you belong to any of the above Protestant sects, you might be bothered by the specific mockery which fits your own Church most closely, or you might be reminded of another kind of spit you have had to endure. All of these baitings are similar in content to the charge linking the Roman Catholic Church and Nazism.

So the above deconstruction might very well, as a sort of case study, help you to get rid of your own critics.