Chapter Thirty-Seven/Mourning and Rejoicing at Babylon's End - An Appalling Bloodguilt

 In conclusion, the strong angel tells why Jehovah judges Babylon the Great so severely. "Yes, says the angel, "in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth." (Revelation 18:24) When on earth, Jesus told the religious leaders in Jerusalem that they were accountable for "all the righteous blood spilled on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel" onward. Accordingly, that crooked generation was destroyed in 70 C.E. (Matthew 23:35-38) Today, another generation of religionists bears bloodguilt for its persecution of God's servants.

In his book The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, Guenter Lewy writes: "When Jehovah's Witnesses were suppressed in Bavaria on April 13 [1933] the Church even accepted the assignment given it by the Ministry of Education and Religion of reporting on any member of the sect still practicing the forbidden."  The Catholic Church thus shares a responsibility for consigning thousands of Witnesses to concentration camps; its hands are stained by the lifeblood of hundreds of Witnesses who were executed. When young Witnesses, such a Wilhelm Kusserow, showed that they could die courageously by a firing squad. Hitler decided that the firing squad was too good for conscientious objectors; so Wilhelm's brother Wolfgang, at 20 years of age, died by a guillotine. At the same time, the Catholic Church as encouraging young Catholics to die in the army of the fatherland. The bloodguilt of the church is plain to see!

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