Thoughts from Abroad by Fr. Duane

I wrote the following during my tour of the Documentation Center at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany. The center documents the rise, fall, and crimes of the Nazis...

This is how a nation remembers it's bloody and awful history. The German nation opened the documentation center on the site of the old Nazi Party parade grounds in 2001. There is no honor for the men and women who sought to subjugate and eradicate people's considered undesirable: Jew, gypsy, Communist, gay, Christian pastor, and many more. Instead, a solemn place remembers the victims and how this bloody history came to be. The conqueror's crown jewel, a building intended by Hilter to gather the National Socialist Party, has been adapted to shame him and give honor to the millions of victims.

It is a lesson Americans, and especially Southerners, could replicate and follow. We could acknowledge our unwillingness to atone for our sins and place the honor on those who were subjugated and killed. We could honor the enslaved and subjugated peoples who created the wealth and literally built our cities, of all stripes and colors.

Christ came to turn the vanquished into the victor and the victor into the vanquished. When a group of people seeks to make another group less than what the Creator intended them to be, the suppressor should be removed from lofty places of honor and as Mary, Mother of God, said about her son, "He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek."

Germany has remembered its past well without giving it honor - a difficult task. Thank you for the brave and thoughtful example.

The Documentation Center at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany.