The Fallacy of Assumed Supremacy

In his article “A German Lesson: the Fallacy of One True Path” Daniel Jonah Goldhagen carefully underlines an interesting connection between Pope Benedict XVI’s rejection of the concept of “relativism” and the imperialistic attitude of the Nazis.

One of the first possible sources of this attitude that Goldhagen notes is the Pope’s past involvement in the Hitler youth. Although he abandoned his military duties only one month before the end of the war, Goldhagen suggests that his involvement nonetheless supports the little conversation about the horrors of the Holocaust. He then continues to explain Benedict’s rejection of the concept of “relativism,” the idea that other religions could have possible pathways towards salvation. Such a rejection is quite comparable to the Nazi attitude and its utter sense of supremacy over the Jews.

I imagine that Goldhagen makes this analogy between the current Pope and the Nazi regime to pinpoint the fallacy behind declaring Catholicism as the one true path, declaring the concept as German because of the failure of Nazi Germany to make one true race. In his “Dominus Jesus” Pope Benedict XVI declared the need for the supremacy of the Catholic Church in the modern world and that all further dialogue with other religions should include “the necessity of conversion to Jesus Christ.” This idea of Catholic supremacy over the world directly correlates to the same concept the Nazis had in mind, the only difference being a religion as opposed to a whole race of people. Essentially, the fallacy lies in the Pope’s belief that what he deems as truth is the Truth, just as the Nazis so fervently believed. Simply because either party deemed themselves as “all-powerful” does not actually make their word supreme over that of others. The “because I said so” argument does not work anymore.