Our department’s administrative assistant knows that I’ve traveled to Germany in the past as faculty advisor for our study abroad trip to Luneburg. While there, we visit the Neuengamme concentration camp. A few days ago he gave me a booklet he purchased at Dachau (this is about as close a link as I can get). Aside from the horrific stories about the camp itself, there were occasional tales of heroism and humanity. I particularly liked this (pg. 27):
Thus it happened that the SS, who had tortured and murdered many hundreds of priests [just at Dachau--ts], now gave them some privileges–to mislead public opinion. Amongst other privileges, they were granted permission in 1941, for instance, to set up a kind of chapel in the special “Barrack Block for Clergy.” Here an event took place, three years later, which must be of historical importance in the annals of the Church. On the 17th of December 1944 a prisoner, the Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, ordained another prisoner, the dangerously sick Deacon of the Diocese of Munster. This was a ceremony which had been prepared under the strictest secrecy, as it was (in the eyes of the SS) a forbidden action.
Everything that was necessary for this ordination, as for example the ceremonial robes for the Bishop, had been made secretly and “collected” by the prisoners. (Mostly these were Germans who had been in the camp longer than anybody else and who therefore knew better than any of us the possibilities and sources.) Prisoners who worked in the “Messerschmitt Works detail” had manufactured the cross and the ring. The material for the soutane and the cloak (the “camail des prêtres”) came from the looted gains of the SS from the Warsaw Ghetto. Cardinal Faulhaber in Munich had secretly sent the necessary oils for the annointing [sic], as well as the books for the various ceremonies. Thus it was not only the preparations, but also the actual carrying out of this “illegal” ordination, which showed Christian co-operation of a truly great and particularly inspiring kind.
I should note also that the previous page includes this: “Because the Churches (Catholic and Protestant alike) did not stop criticising the cruelties and practises of the Nazis either, the most outspoken of their priests were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps (pg. 26).” Lest anyone continue to believe in the myth of “Hitler’s Pope” and the Church’s coddling up to the Nazis, eyewitness accounts at the time show the exact opposite.
And, from the “history repeats itself” file, there is this:
In the card-indexes of the Dachau Camp orderly rooms were entered the reasons for the arrest of many of the Clergy. For example:
“Protested against the State marriage laws” — “Conduct likely to undermine the unity of the State” — “Enemy of the State” — “Ministering to his congregation despite orders to the contrary” — “Ministering to foreigners contrary to the existing laws” — “Hiding of deserters” — “Incitement of children” — “Friend of the Jews.”
It was indeed a Roll of Honour!
Go ahead and throw Godwin’s law at me, but I don’t consider it much of a stretch for orthodox clergy in this day and age to have at least the first accusation hurled at them. I’m certainly not saying that today’s governments would do anything as heinous as what happened at Dachau to supporters of traditional marriage. But the societal shunning is certainly happening, even at the legislative level.