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Insight on the News

Selfish Motive

Soon after coming into power in 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler negotiated a concordat with the Catholic Church. This concordat gave Hitler the right to veto the nomination of German bishops in exchange for certain privileges granted to the church. But which of the two parties was to benefit most? A new French Catholic encyclopedia gives a straight answer to this question.

“Pope Pius XI himself . . . considered it absolutely essential to ensure the safeguarding of the German church by means of a concordat. This was negotiated between April and July 1933. Although formally favoring the Catholic Church, this concordat was actually a success for Hitler, as it granted recognition to his regime. Moreover, since Hitler constantly violated it, the pope was accused of lulling Catholic consciences and disarming the bishops by making a fool’s deal.”

Today, especially in France and Germany, the Catholic Church is openly criticized for the compromises of its hierarchy during the Nazi regime. These problems develop when church leaders fail to heed the words and example of Jesus Christ, who said of his true followers: “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) True, such compromises by church leaders have curried the favor of the political element, but what has this done for their relationship with God? When writing to fellow Christians, Jesus’ disciple James warned: “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.”​—James 4:4.

Lottery Losers

The odds are about 14 million to 1 against your winning the lottery. Yet, millions of people regularly play government-sponsored lotteries, reports The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper. Research shows that lotteries have no appeal other than the hope of winning the jackpot, which is often fueled by advertising that focuses “on the prize and on the perils of failing to buy a ticket.” Since the lottery’s objective is to make profits and produce few winners, sponsors make daily pitches in “hopes of establishing habitual purchases.”

Is this working? Yes! Reporting in American Health magazine on the increase of gambling among teenagers, Dr. Durand Jacobs points to lotteries as their introduction to gambling “because they’re cheap, accessible and promoted as okay.” He adds: “The lottery is the Pied Piper that leads adolescents into other forms of serious gambling behavior.” One Canadian authority on compulsive gambling states: “Anyone who would try to tell you that lotteries are not gambling is either acting stupid or they are stupid. . . . We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lotteries in the hopes of winning something. It is gambling.”

Lotteries promote a love of money. Dr. Marvin Steinberg, president of the Connecticut Council on Compulsive Gambling, observed that problem teenage gamblers used their lunch monies, stole money, and even shoplifted to support their gambling habit. True, indeed, are the words of the apostle Paul: “The love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things, and by reaching out for this love some have . . . stabbed themselves all over with many pains.”​—1 Timothy 6:9, 10.