What´s the Catholic Church's position the Franco regime?

[NadaTeTurbe]

As a man who was once a hero - Verdun -, and then became a traitor, who yields France to the Nazis, while the english were resisting, and who was responsible for the deportation of jewish and Roma of France (and I don't even speak about the people of Alsace and Moselle !)!). Yes, he was old, yes, he was manipulated, but he did it. Our admiration should go to Churchill, to De Gaulle, not to Pétain. 

There's no excuse for that : 

[Nihil Obstat]

Is there, or should there be some nuance? Or is he nothing more than a former hero who became a villain? 

[NadaTeTurbe]

There was not nuance for the jewish in Auschwitz. There was no nuance for the resistant who were tortured by the millice. There was no nuance for the foreign soldiers - english, american, canadian, algerian, etc... - who died in France with the full support of Pétain. There was no nuance for all the alsaciens and mosellans who had to fight in the nazis armies because once again, France was to weak to support its own people. 

Pétain PERSONALLY participated in the redaction of the text of 1940, about the situation of jewish, and he PERSONALLY, (with notes writted from his own hands, in the official text), HARDENED the text. The texte was horrible, Pétain wanted it worst. He could have, at least, add nothing. He did. 

80% of the jewish deported were arrested by the police du Maréchal, not by the nazis. My own ancestors were arrested by this police, the french police. The police of Pétain. 

you know what ? Hitler didn't want the collaboration. He thought France was a defeated country, not a partner country. 

Pétain went beyonds the nazis demends when it comes to the Jewish, the Resistant, the STO. HE wanted to support economically Germany. 

So, no, there's no nuance. There's no nuance, because it's not that he did nothing in face of the nazis : he did worse. He wanted the jewish to be deported, HE wanted the resistant to be killed. There's no nuance, there's no apologies. 

 

[Nihil Obstat]

Well, I do not know a huge amount about it, but De Gaulle himself did not seem to be so antagonistic towards Petain.

[Nihil Obstat]

Well, I do not know a huge amount about it, but De Gaulle himself did not seem to be so antagonistic towards Petain.

[NadaTeTurbe]

De Gaulle said in his memory "the tragedy is that Pétain died in 1925, and nobody saw it"

He admired him during the 1WW, but he was more on the Foch side when it comes to military strategy. He then fought the Petainist ideas : he did not want the jewish to wear the yellow star (Pétain wanted it), he did not want the jewish to be deported (Pétain wanted it), he wanted the France to fight and to be free (Pétain did not). See here : http://fresques.ina.fr/de-gaulle/fiche-media/Gaulle00302/reponse-au-marechal-petain-apres-la-declaration-d-armistice-du-25-juin-1940.html It's pretty antagonistic for me. 

(but from a political point of view, De Gaulle comes from a more conservative environment - he was a catholic, with royalist tendencies. De Gaulle was a strong catholic, he had a very "normal" private life (married to the same woman, etc...), while the private life of Pétain was more turbulent (he married only at the town hall in the 20's, and then married religiously in 1941, under the pression of the Church, and he asked to be married without confession).

[Ice_nine]

We kind of glossed over Spain during the WWII era in school. Shame.

So while I don't know much about this particular situation I will say that it very much bothers me when fellow Catholics are nationalistic or imperialistic. Makes my stomach sick, and really challenges me on that whole "judge not lest ye be judged" thing. But what draws me to Catholicism is its universality and accessibility to people from every culture past and present so when Christians talk about how colonization and blowing rival nations to hell is a great, laudable and patriotic it is, I'm very saddened.

 

[Kia ora]

They hate De Gaulle because of Algeria, so they love Pétain. It's very complicated. The Algeria War still have a big impact on France today. 

If you speak a good french, there's a very good book about the priest deported in Dachau : http://www.laprocure.com/baraque-pretres-dachau-1938-1945-guillaume-zeller/9791021004764.html "La baraque des prêtres" by Guillaum Zeller. Dachau is the "biggest cemetery of catholic priest in the world", and this book tell the story of this priest, their life, their faith... 

I know about the pieds-noirs, one of my friends comes from a pied-noir family, but not from North Africa but from the Sahara.

One can't forget that they were the descendants of colonists living on colonised land, with Arabs and Berbers living as second-class citizens. On the same day as France was liberated, the French massacred  thousands of Algerians who were protesting for the same freedom that the French had just won. That's not to say I approve of the nationalists, or the war at all, in fact the more I read about it the more I find it all atrocious.  

I find the French right-wing truly frightening. They used torture and massacres and rape just as easily as the other side did, it really does reveal the true face of colonialism. I don't see how any Christian could support oppression, nor violence. 

Ma biblio ne contient pas ce livre, alors je suppose qu'il me faille que je l'achète en Espagne, merci pour la recommandation. 

Edited August 27, 2015 by Kia ora

[NadaTeTurbe]

The Algeria War, and the whole Algeria things, was an horrible, horrible war. It's just... I don't know, but the more I read about it, the more I feel like it was a Civil War, but extraterritorial. I think the worst was for the harkis. They were algerian, muslims, who fighted against the independance. France has abandoned them after the war, they had to stay in Algeria when they wanted to go to France. They were hated in Algeria, because they were "traitors", often, they were tortured and killed; And they were hated/ignored in France because they were algerian and muslims. 

http://www.lejourduseigneur.com/Web-TV/Focus/60-ans-de-la-Guerre-d-Algerie Here are some reportages with testimonies from christians who fought during the Algeria war. 

Bon séjour en Espagne, et bonne lecture  

[Era Might]

Interesting posts Nada, just wanted to say I don't know much about contemporary France but it seems like a complicated country in a way America isn't.

[Norseman82]

Because someone had to post it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=butZyxI-PRs