MikeS, I hold no brief for the Catholic Church, but what you are suggesting is borderline insane. In fact you are over the border with your passport stamped.

The Popes have stood for some pretty mad things in their various times, still do - that much must be faced. However first and foremost - they do stand for the teachings of Christ in the New Testament.

These latter cannot be squared with what Adolf Hitler did. Chalk and Cheese.

Hitler said many things, most of his pronouncements were dishonest and cynical. He was more than a little crazy and his agenda shifted. But The Sermon on the Mount and its injunctions - even at his most calculating - were never really going to be for him.

Hitler had a constituency of what must have been decent folk at one time. I suspect he had to lull as many of them as he could, those that he couldn't actually corrupt. I suspect that lies at the heart of his 1941 pronouncement.

Also Catholic means Universal in another less frequently used sense. He was cynical and intelligent enough to be ambiguous. He had plans for world domination.