Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.
Einstein slowly watched his homeland give in to Adolf Hitler’s fascist dictatorship in the 1930’s.
Einstein wondered if any institutions were going to stand up and oppose Hitler. He said:
“When Hitler and Hitlerism came to Germany I expected the universities to oppose it. Instead they embraced it. I hoped for the press to denounce it, but instead they propagated its teachings. One by one the leaders, the politicians and the institutions which should have opposed the Nazi philosophy bowed meekly to its authority. Only one institution met it with vigorous opposition and that was the Christian Church.”
Einstein confessed, “That Church which I once despised, I now love with a passion I cannot describe.” The commitment of the Church in standing against evil made a profound impression upon Albert Einstein.
Those individuals in the 1930’s understood the cost associated with their actions, and yet they did not back down from opposing and speaking out against Hitler and Hitlerism. Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many other Christians joined the 6 million Jews who died in Hitler’s concentration camps.
We are now observing the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp where 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered.
Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland has said: “More and more we seem to be having trouble connecting our historical knowledge with our moral choices today.
“I can imagine a society that understands history very well but does not draw any moral conclusion from this knowledge. In this current political moment, that can be very dangerous.”
Democracy offers moral constraints that often make problem-solving difficult. There are a lot of rules to follow in a Democracy, so change is slow to happen. Populism offers people problem-solving, a quick fix, but with no moral constraints.
What are YOUR thoughts about Democracy and Populism? Did St. Maximilian Kolbe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer say and do the right thing when they put their lives on the line?
JESUS IS THE REASON WHY EVEN IN PAIN, I SMILE; IN CONFUSION, I UNDERSTAND; IN BETRAYAL, I TRUST; AND IN FEAR, I CONTINUE TO FIGHT!
Please share today’s Message with others and don’t forget a prayer for Pope Francis.
