BS: Nazi salute in church

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 01 Apr 10 - 04:17 AM

Well, on reflection, I suppose an ill judged salute blends in nicely with the sanctimonious ethos of thinking your imaginary friend loves you, that you will be saved and people who poke fun at your superstitions are below contempt...

Doing a salute that has been hijacked (along with the swastika) by a thug regime may be alright in principle, as you can demonstrate it predates the Nazi creatures, but if you have to explain something in order for people not to jump to the wrong conclusion, then maybe it just isn't worth doing in the first place?

(Steamin' Willie's missus is into bell ringing. A couple of the ringers at the local bell tower are gay, yet the bloke with the dog collar reckons such people are the spawn of the devil... as none of the ringers go to church, the idiot doesn't know that his bells are being rung by gay dudes.

To celebrate their civil partnership, they rang a quarter peel (almost an hour of noise) to celebrate and the idiot asked what was the occasion. A wedding, they said. Excellent, said the idiot.)

Sometimes, you have to abuse a church in order to get any entertainment out of it...

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Ed T
Date: 31 Mar 10 - 04:55 PM

Worse things were done in some, manye many, churches.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 07:13 PM

Of course in our parish Church here everyone would be too embarrassed to do anything like that, even if an over enthusiastic priest were to try to get us doing it.

Well, we've got Indians, Africans, Chinese, Poles, Irish, English and so forth, but not too many Americans... Just not our style.

Maybe sticking both hands up would be better - it might look and feel as if you were getting ready to do a high dive, but nobody could imagine you were doing Nazi stuff.

But if it doesn't mean it, it doesn't mean it. Treating symbols as if they held power in themselves over and above what those using them intend is a kind of idolatry.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 07:01 PM

Most are oblivious. Some are mortified to be doing that but they were told to by the priest or deacon. It is not good enough for us to be ignorant. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:51 PM

I suppose it's possible there are some people who are thinking "Heil Hitler"when they stick their hands up, rather than "God Bless Everybody". But I rather doubt if there are too many of them.

Of course in a Catholic Church over here everyone would be too embarrassed to do anything like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:12 PM

I can't get my head around it and I am in my 60s.

The main thing to know is that it spreads. We seek social permission to lord it over certain groups or to insult certain groups of people. Once social permission is granted and critical mass is reached..and it does not have to be much...things rapidly accelerate. Then a few thugs with weapons of almost any sort can start making threats to people and the mass of people will go along with the threats out of fear. They will say I will kill 10 of your neighbors if you don't report all the Catholics you know. Or I will kill your husband if you don't reveal other information. It is generally not that people are evil; they are terrified.

Once the Nazis got the formula down pat, it could be used by others like a franchise..Pol Pot, Ida Amin, whoever.

So we have to stop things soon in theprocess. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 05:39 PM

the swastika is actully taken from pagan times. if it has been used in churches, it was only to make people come over from the dark side.

i don't mind these things in places where they should be, it is kids messing about, that i do mind. they don't know any different. i know i didn't when i was younger.

how can someone so young get their head around what the symbol was last used for. i still can't and i am in my 30s.

take care all
jade x x x x x

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 05:07 PM

Symbols symbolise what they are intended to symbolise. Treating them as if they had some power in themselves, regardless of the intention of the people who use them, or in the case of physical objects, who made them, is giving in to a way of thinking that has done enormous damage in the past.

The symbols the Nazis used, swastikas and salutes and so forth, were symbols that had been around for thousands of years, and they used them for evil purposes. The same way they used the German language for evil purposes. There's really no more sense in suggesting that all the symbols they used should be forever banished from human use than suggesting that the German language should be similarly banished.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: olddude
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:52 PM

Hmmm. I'm sure I've seen swastikas in ancient churches in Europe, Mary./ The Wikipedia article says that you'll find swastikas in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan. Thgere's also a swastika floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, France.

-Joe-

IT is a peace symbol that goes back centuries, only Hitler made it a thing of Evil ... IT has nothing to do with Nazi in an ancient church

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:50 PM

Guest Steamin' Willie, it's very easy at this safe time and distance to slag off Ratzinger for his membership of the Hitler Youth. That was at a time of intense nationalist fervour in Germany, largely stoked by the punitive terms of the WW1 armistice. The young in their droves flocked to the cause and in Ratzinger's part of the world it would have been virtually suicidal not to do so.

If you want to have a go at fascist sympathisers in the catholic church, have a look at Pius XI's take on the Spanish Civil War or Pius XII's deafening silence in WW2 (as a result of which the Vatican still refuses to release documents from that era) or the obsessively anti-communist John Paul II's haste to beatify hundreds of priests who supported Franko, and others like Archbishop Stepinac, apostolic vicar to the crazed clero-fascist Ustashe who waged genocide in Croatia and Bosnia during WW2.

There is a lot I don't care for about Ratzinger, but he was never a Nazi.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 04:35 PM

When I was a school-child, back in the late 30s and early 40s, we were taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance, with the right hand starting over the heart, and extending the arm toward the flag with the palm up beginning at a (now-forgotten) word in the pledge. The arm was not stiffened, as in the Nazi salute. The symbolism was explained as offering the heart in the palm of the hand extended toward the flag.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 09:58 AM

I've only seen this once, done by a Presbyterian minister at a funeral. The funeral was for a an openly gay Christian friend of mine who had spent most of his short life struggling to fit his religion and his sexuality together, and the minister was like something out of "Breaking the Waves" or a kailyard novel. He made that gesture as the coffin was going into the furnace, and it looked more like a a curse than a blessing. But the guy's family didn't act like it was anything out of the ordinary, and it was their show, so I assumed whatever meaning it had for them took precedence over any Nazi associations it might have for me and the assorted leftie friends in the congregation.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 09:48 AM

are you not afraid of calling down evil? Especially when the chief exorcist of the church has made some pretty scary observations...

As I've often suspected before, ol' Mary is obviously a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:06 AM

When I was in New Zealand recently, the cathedral in Christchurch has swastikas as part of a frame around some memorial or other. No idea if it is a Catholic or Protestant cathedral, just noted the swastikas when having a look around when the missus was bell ringing there.

Nazi salute? I am sure somebody will have poked this fun already but I haven't read every post in this thread. I assume it was introduced in homage to the present Pope, a bit of nostalgia for him. he loved his faith so much he felt it more useful to be a Nazi member than stand up for whatever it is Christians reckon they stand for...

No hypocrisy there then.....

Me? I stand to have a pee and prop the bar up. The thought of Godbotherers giving the old Seig heil! makes me chuckle though. Especially if they are uncomfortable with it but don't want to offend the priest in case he buggers their offspring. zzzzzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:37 AM

Apart from the serious offense this gives, are you not afraid of calling down evil? Especially when the chief exorcist of the church has made some pretty scary observations about evil at the very top of the church? Especially when more and more depravity is being revealed? I felt that not only should the practice be stopped, or substituted for a harmless gesture, but that something very powerful had happened, that made me sick, and that made me feel this church needed to have a special purification ceremony. It was that serious. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:32 AM

Hmmm. I'm sure I've seen swastikas in ancient churches in Europe, Mary./ The Wikipedia article says that you'll find swastikas in the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan. Thgere's also a swastika floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens, France.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:22 AM

Yes, if I see a swatzika in a Catholic Church, which I never have, and I would like to hear from anyone who has, I would of course like..no insist, on it being removed. If I saw it in a Indian setting, where it has been used continuously, then I would not ask for it to be removed, but I certainly would inform the people of how their symbol, which is a pretty universal symbol, had been horribly misappropriated, and was therefore not going to be in use, except where it had been continuously in use. It is hard to stamp this out because it is a design that people just naturally draw..kids will draw it without knowing anything about this history. But of course I would insist on a swatzika being removed from a catholic church. ARE WE ALL NUTS HERE? mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 02:15 AM

You'll also find swastikas in Catholic churches, Mary - they were put there centuries before Hitler was a gleam in his father's eye. Do you want to get rid of those, too?

The people who extend their hands, are extending their hands in blessing. Sometimes people extend one hand, and sometimes two. I'm sure this is made clear when the priest asks people to do this. It's an ancient symbol, far older than the Nazis.

If people respond to your letter in the Seattle Times, can you post what they have to say?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Seattle area church with Nazi salute
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 01:59 AM

Here is what I wrote to Seattle times:

I was attending a Catholic church service in Shoreline last Sunday and to my shock and horror looked down from the balcony and saw the congregation giving what would look to the average person like the Nazi salute. Exactly like the Nazi salute...the same gesture that is forbidden in many countries. I have seen this done in one other Catholic church in Washington, but they thankfully don't do it any more. It is called a blessing. It is not an unbroken tradition in the Catholic church. It was not done when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, nor have I seen it until a couple of years ago. How shocking this must be to some WWI veterans, who risked their lives against this evil. How traumatic if people of Jewish descent, or the other victims of Nazi genocide were to witness this..a churchfull of people being told to do this and just doing it.



Catholics: don't do this. Find another gesture that means the same thing; cross your arms or raise both arms or bend your arm at the elbow. But don't do this. The intentions are wonderful; the display is horrifying. This is a gesture that the world has retired, that nations have declared verboten. There is no reason whatsoever to do this, and every reason not to. The eyes of the world are on the Catholic church right now; let us not be discovered doing this.



Mary Garvey, Catholic

Subject: RE: BS: Seattle area church with Nazi salute
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 01:44 AM

As mentioned in another thread..another Catholic Church in Washington State..this time in Shoreline, Washington, had the congregation give the Nazi salute. It looked to the casual observer, me, and I must say the friend I was with, exactly like what you would see in historical films or photos. It is not an unbroken gesture that the church has always used, so there is no excuse whatsoever for doing it. If it had been done for 400 years and the Nazis had appropriated it, I would say continue to use it. This is new, and I have only seen it in two places.

Of course I had to put a note in the collection plate, raced downstairs to talk to the nearest usher and corralled the priest after Mass...the only response to being told that your congregation is giving the Nazi salute is to say oh I never saw the connection but now that you point it out we will inform the congreation that another gesture will be substituted. Priest was not going in that direction. I said what if Jewish people had seen this? I could also have said Poles, Gypsies, any war veterans, etc. He said and I quote: I don't think they would mind. I resolved to talk to at least 10 Jewish people to see what they would say about this. It looked like the congretation was calling down evil. I am sure they did not mean it, but I looked in shock at the woman I was with and she knew what was going on and said she spreads her fingers a bit. This was a younger congregation, and might not make the connection. My home parish is an older congregation and you can be assured that some of them were horrified..fortunately they haven't done that in some time, perhaps thanks to my putting up a stink whenever they did. Go ahead, make excuses and enable them. That is how evil spreads..by people looking around and seeing other people doing it and thinking it must be OK..and any sane person who does not think a Nazi salute is evil..regardless of what you call it..well, I just don't know. mg

---

That was me. I will be writing to the Seattle times. Is there any point in writing to any church official? Maybe I will send them a cc. The eyes of the world are on Catholics, and for good reason, and they do something dimwitted like this. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 05:38 PM

(those illustrations were a result of a Google image search on the term "the blessing"...then a little looking thru pics)

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 07:08 AM

This thread has an unfortunately provocative name. You don't find nazis by arm motion, or even goose-stepping, which the Russian army and a few others practise.

It's the thoughts, words, and deeds.

Whatever you might think of the Pope and the Catholic Churce, they are not nazis.

This world has some real problems, this is not one of them.

I enjoyed Bill D's links of illustrations.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 09:59 PM

I'm sure the priest would be horrified to know he had started up all this speculation. You must talk to him and explain your feelings. It is almost certain other people feel the same - after all the there can few communities where WW2 didn't cause hurt and suffering.

I feel sure there will be a solution, if you start talking and he will not belittle you or discount your concerns.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 09:42 PM

I am not offended by the Confederate flag. No symbol, in itself, offends me. It is bad intentions, hostile intentions that offend me. The Confederate flag in itself does not embody bad intentions, and most of the people who fought for it in 1862-65 fought primarily to defend what they regarded as their homeland, not to perpetuate slavery. Robert E. Lee, for example, was not in favour of slavery, but he was a patriotic Virginian.

If someone else is offended by the Confederate flag, well, that's up to them.

I repeat, no historical symbol offends me. It is bad, hurtful attitudes and behaviours that offend me. They are usually less easy to see than symbols.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Cluin
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 09:22 PM

I saw this salute in a seemingly innocuous commercial recently.

Oh, they're pretending to sniff their armpits... but we know what they're really doing!

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: bbc
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:54 PM

Bill, you made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 07:13 PM

Honestly, Mary, it would not matter to me. It is about what it is. It is NOT a Nazi salute, it is a blessing. If I saw 10,000 people doing it as a blessing in a stadium, I wouldn't give it a second thought. I don't understand where you are coming from on this. You, and no one else, have claimed that a Nazi salute is being done in your Catholic Church. Nothing of the sort is true. I think you need to go back and read this thread start to finish.

That is all I will say in this thread.

Your friend,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: mg
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:25 PM

Big Mick, you are wrong. You are right in that I don't like the changes in liturgy, and I flat out hate the music but this is different. What if I wanted to fly the Confederate flag in front of the church, which I think would be way more mild a thing to do, because we have direct knowledge of the Confederate flag, and are gradually coming to realize how it does offend people, but we know it has many more meanings that predominate in most people (I hope)..such as family history, loyalty, tradition etc. This symbol, and I don't care how you present, has only one meaning to most people.

Again I ask if you saw a sports audience doing it what would you think? Even if you were sure they had no Nazi type sympathy. What if you saw it at a concert where the audience did it to show appreciation of the music...those contexts do not exist. There is no reason to use this gesture whatsoever, unless people have used it in a nonbroken way in the fairly recent past..and if they used it in a nonbroken way until WWII and the Holocaust but perhaps stopped then and now are reclaiming it. This is not a gesture we are reclaiming at all. It is one that has been imposed by some committee somewhere who somehow have enough of their heads in the sand (or elsewhere) to not realize how this looks. Trust me, if you saw this you would know what I am talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:22 PM

very old Nazis

current Catholic Nazi

not sure of his denomination, but he is guilty!

even worse..the Pope is in on it

and you never know what they'll do at a tent service

this entire group is under the spell of Nazis

the pagans add a twist

there are more...I am not trying to make fun of the issue--really. But it is obvious that the basic gesture is pretty common....

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:21 PM

The Catholic church was in need of change. The attendance was at an all time low. The abuses perpetrated within it were now out in the open. The priest may orchestrate the mass, but the congregation are what keep it going.

Joe Offer's post on this thread was one of the most enlightened opinions I have heard in a long time. Those who fear change should ask themselves why. Meanwhile others will embrace it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 05:30 PM

GUEST, I have no problem with the handshake of peace; it is a social, not a religious, gesture. But conferring a "blessing" is a different thing. Each one of us can offer only our own blessing, for what it is worth; but the priest (in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) confers the blessing of Jesus Christ. To equate the priest's gesture with that of the layman is way off.

As for the child abuse that you referred to: You're out of court, this has nothing to do with the power to confer blessing or the raising of hands in church; I think you just needed to say it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 05:00 PM

Now I understand what this is all about. You just resent the change from what you were raised with. But if you had read Joe Offer's post, my friend, you would know that this is a change back to how it was, and presumably how it was intended to be at the inception. I don't miss the old days much, as I thought they were too regimented and didn't allow for enough participation by the rest of us. It is about the Body, not the Head.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: mg
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 04:56 PM

Who says they enjoy it? I see some that have obviously figured out the symbolism and do it either with bent arm held down or some other version. I doubt very much they enjoy it. Part of our problem as Catholics is being led around like sheep and not standing up when we know something is wrong because someone told us it was right, like the whole don't use birth control thing. Anyway, they are trying to make us stand up after communion now and people are just not doing it. In the little church only open in the summer here, sometimes the whole entire church is kneeling. Sometimes it is mixed. The main church has more standing. There is no reason whatsover to change good traditions that have gone on forever and neither is there any reason to add offensive ones.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 03:28 PM

I would have to disagree with the 'watering down' bit. Years ago in our Catholic church the priest was so far up on his pedestal the child abuse he perpetrated went unchecked. His power was staggering over his parishioners. He ruled by fear and that kept him safe to practise his abhorrent acts.
Nowadays we have a much more open set up. The handshake of peace between congregation is new. It is nice to touch the people around you. The priest feels comfortable letting his congregation participate in the mass. And his ever increasing attendances prove that we are also grateful with the methods he uses.
I don't see a gesture that the rest of the congregation enjoy as 'watering down.' I see it as a step in the right direction.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:30 PM

Super ted, where are you?
Oh sorry, spoiled it for you...

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:29 PM

I don't think the gesture has anything at all to do with nazism in the Catholic Church - or in your church, Mary. I do think that it is a silly gesture however.

Blessing, my foot! Blessing is given by the priest as the representative of Christ, not by the community. In the Catholic and Orthodox Chrches that's the whole point for having a priest (that he represents Christ), not just as a prayer-leader - unlike may Protestant Churches.

Gestures like that are a sign of the slow descent (over a number of decades, perhaps as much as 100 years) towards things physical/material and away from the spiritual emphasis that both Catholic and Orthodox covet; where a gesture is required to express religious feeling, like an external sign of what you feel. So that others can judge you by it, perhaps? It ends up with old grannies trying to out-genuflect each other, or the churchgoers imitating some sort of ecstatic state - in the hope of achieving it, I wonder?

So it's not the (unlikely) nazi links that annoy me in this case. It's the fact that there is a gesture in the first place, and that the power of blessing is being watered down by such newfangled theatrics.

I do feel better now;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 01:50 PM

Mary if you don't feel comfortable enough to ask your priest the meaning of this, why are you worshipping there?

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 01:11 PM

Why, PoppaGator? Because people use Hitler as a handy repository for all their own hatred, fear, and negatige karma. It is comforting for them to make him ever bigger and more evil in their own minds. It saves them having to examine themselves and their own faults more closely.

The Americans did this recently with Saddam Hussein too, but they have killed far more innocent people and invaded far more countries than Saddam ever managed to.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 12:14 PM

If they add the heel clicking I'm going to become a Protestant. mg

LOL! Good one! Made my day, Mary!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 12:13 PM

I just Googled "Amsterdam Olympic Games" and verified that they were held in 1928 -- pre-Berlin. Since the oversized ceremonial flag with the five-ring symbol debuted at Amsterdam, the rings *couldn't* have been introduced by the Nazis. They just tried to heighten their importance by faking and filming that "archeological find."

Of course, one wouldn't know that from reading the Discovery News article cited earlier. That kind of sensationalist innuendo-by-omission, unfortunately, seems to be a feature of much contemporary "journalism." In this case, the writer isn't advancing her own politcal prejudice (as is so often the case), but she is certainly trying to enhance the impact of her work by "gilding the lily," trying to make Hitler look even worse than he was, an even Bigger Liar. Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 11:27 AM

Sorry, Mary. Converting to Protestantism is likely to make you more unhappy. The gesture is much more prevalent there than in Catholicism, particularly among the more fundamental/evangelic groups. Hope you get this sorted out to your satisfaction; I think we've said about all we can to help.

best,

Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 09:06 AM

Nazis wore shiny boots too. Let's ban them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: matai
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:57 AM

Either that or you could get arrested. But either way you make your point. Good luck.

matai

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: matai
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:54 AM

Hey Mary, you could always try yelling out hiel Hitler next time they all do it and see what happens. They might just discover the error of their ways.

matai

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: GUEST,Martian Gibbon
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:35 AM

This is quite simply a sign of a Blessing nothing to worry about or am I missing something?

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 07:59 AM

The Hitler salute is forbidden in Germany but that doesn't mean you cannot reach out with your right arm for fear of getting jailed. It is a matter of context and intention.

So if a group of neonazis shows the 'resistance salute' (like the Hitler salute but with only three fingers outstretched to form a 'W' (first letter of the German word for 'resistance') the planned dissimilarity in appearance of the salute will not prevent them to be sentenced.

For some time, it was a 'contest' among photographers to picture each politician doing the 'Hitler salute' but that fad soon disappeared for it was too easy: Reaching out with his right hand for something above head level, saluting a crowd, trying to calm down a hostile crowd, asking for the right to question during a speech of somebody else in parliament etc...


Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:29 AM

Am I alone in finding this thread totally bizarre?

Can you imgine what must have gone through the priest's mind on the day he decided to add this to the service?

"I know what would add something to the service - not different flowers, not a new prayer......Got it! A Hitler salute! Sure they'll never be expecting that!"

I mean divergent thinker, or what.....

Its like something out of Father Ted.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: mg
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:27 AM

if they add the heel clicking I'm going to become a Protestant. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:00 AM

Nazi salutes are against current German Law, but I'm fairly certain 'religious blessing gestures' are not - the Nazi Salute also having other bodily movements too.

But perhaps we should wait for a German Resident Catter to comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Nazi salute in church
From: mg
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 01:54 AM

Well they can't do it in Germany now because it seems to be against the law there, according to one site I visited. I suspect it is against the law here too. Somewhere. mg