Austrian Woman Denies Holocaust on Facebook. Police then Search Her House and Find Nazi Slogan affixed to Her Toilet. She is Fined $1,280 and Given a Suspended Sentence. However, Police Don't Release Her Name Due to the Country's Privacy Laws.

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"Excuse me, can we use your bathroom?"

Mahound's Paradise is not in favor of Holocaust denial.

We think it's ignorant, irrational and potentially hateful - if that term still has any meaning after years of abuse by the left.

But we also believe it's silly and dangerous to make it illegal.

Germany and Austria had a legitimate reason to censor pro-Nazi sentiments after the war, but that time has long past.

And of course, against the background of the Islamification of Europe, where a raid on literally any mosque would turn up nasty anti-semitic literature, and where Jews are being driven out of their neighborhoods not by Nazis but Muslims - who have in practice been enthusiastically invited in by European governments - prosecuting a naive, non-violent 53-year-old German woman for "pro-Nazi" sympathies is pretty misdirected and sick.

But what got me, of course, was the clincher: after the police search her house and charge her for a small sign displayed on her own toilet, they then do not release her name due to privacy laws.

From the Jewish Press, February 20:

Austrian Woman Fined for Denying Holocaust in Bathroom

A court in Feldkirch, Austria, on Friday fined a woman $1,280 and gave her a suspended jail sentence for calling the Holocaust “lies” and placing a pro-Nazi sign above her toilet, AP reported. The woman accused of “spreading lies” a German soccer club that commemorated the victims of Auschwitz on its Facebook page. Police then searched her house and discovered the sign in her toilet. However, according to AP, because of Austria’s privacy laws police did not release her name.

And here is the story in The Local:

'Hitlerine' who denied Holocaust given suspended jail sentence

A woman who denied that the Holocaust took place and displayed a sign over her toilet saying “This Hitlerine needs a clean latrine” has been found guilty of breaking Austria’s anti-Nazi law and given a seven month suspended jail sentence.

A court in the western city of Feldkirch in Vorarlberg also handed the 53-year-old a €1,200 fine.

The woman was charged after she criticized a Facebook posting made by a German football club commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp and paying homage to the victims. In a response, she accused the club of “spreading lies”.

An anonymous internet user tipped off the police, who searched the woman’s house and found the sign in the toilet.

It is illegal in Austria to praise the Nazi era or to deny its crimes.

The woman’s lawyer described her as a “simple housewife” who had never heard of Austria’s Prohibition Act.

The woman, who has not been named, said she regretted the comments she made online, and that she had been misinformed about the Holocaust after watching a TV documentary. She added that the sign in the toilet was “just a joke”.

Pope Francis at Nuremberg: 10 Things to Know and Share*

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The Pope takes the "long walk" flanked by two German cardinals

In light of the controversy over the Pope's recent rally at Nuremberg, Mahound's Paradise is proud to host its first guest post by a well-known neo catholic author, blogger and journalist:

Pope Francis at Nuremberg: 10 Things to Know and Share

Pope Francis recently held a large rally at Nuremberg.

And some people are freaking out about it.

Here are 10 things to know and share . . .

1) Where can I watch a video of the rally?

Right here:

Also, you can use this link.

2) What did the Pope say at the rally?

He said:

The current Jubilee Year of Mercy is intended to inaugurate a Papal Reich that will endure for a thousand years.

Victory belongs to us, the People of God.

I am proud to welcome many comrades-in-arms from the internal Catholic wars of the 60's and 70's.

In the past, we were among the persecuted and were often labeled "undesirable elements," liberals, heretics and so on. But now that we are in power, we ourselves must remove the undesirable elements that have proven to be bad. What is bad has no place among us.

Other than that, our greatest enemies are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the aged.

3) What else happened at the rally?

The Pope and two German cardinals purposely strode down a central thoroughfare, with 100,000 uniformed members of the Pope's new security detail arrayed in formation on either side.

A "Cathedral of Light" was created with 152 searchlights sponsored by the World Bank and Vulcan Productions.

Statues of various Norse gods were displayed throughout the stadium and nearby areas.

4) Is it somehow wrong for the Pope to announce that his enemies will be crushed?

There is nothing wrong with defending the Faith. The Pope is merely attempting to ensure that the deposit of Catholic doctrine is protected and transmitted accurately. Obviously those who oppose this should be resisted. The Church has a long tradition of this.

The Cathedral of Light

5) I didn't like the rally. It’s not to my taste. Frankly, there was a hint of authoritarianism about it. What do you think of that?

Fine. Not everything is to everyone’s taste. Not everything in it was to my taste.

The people who planned the rally were trying to make it inspiring and uplifting, but that involves subjective elements, and you know what they say: De gustibus non est disputandum.

Not liking or even criticizing the rally is one thing, but there is no cause here to freak out as if the Pope were doing something contrary to the faith.

6) What about that security detail? Is it true that it is made up almost exclusively of young Middle-Eastern males between the ages of 20-30?

The Vatican has confirmed that most of the uniformed soldiers were Syrian migrants, yes. That's nothing to get upset about. After all, the Vatican has been using the Swiss for hundreds of years. the Pope has argued that everything should be done to help the process of assimilation. Giving the refugees spiffy uniforms and a salary is part of that effort.

7) Speaking of those uniforms, isn't there something a bit inappropriate about the new mailed fist logo with the red "F" superimposed over it?

Most pontificates have seen the creation of original emblems, medals, seals and the like. As for the mailed fist, you have to understand that Francis hails from a political culture that has some points of commonality but also some points of difference with European social democracy. He is the leader of all the world's Catholics, but he, like any of us, is also to some extent a creature of his particular time and place. That's normal.  

Our guest author

8) The cost of the rally was 5 billion Euros. What about that? And why was it held in Nuremberg, anyway?

The German Church had money left over in its budget, so they invited the Pope to have a rally. The national churches may be religious institutions but they are also bureaucracies. And as everyone is aware, bureaucratic entities will strive to use all the monies in their budgets as the end of their fiscal year approaches. It would be naive to think otherwise. You have to admit, though, that the Cathedral of Light was stunning and should be a source of pride to Catholics everywhere.

9) Okay, but you're not going to defend the Norse god thing, are you?

The statues were simply erected out of respect for adherents of Ásatrú. No theological endorsement was made or implied. Christians have always engaged non-Christians. But Pope Francis does believe that Catholics and Pagans share common values and interests, such as for example, how to make an economy run efficiently and how to control and harness the enthusiasms and energies of the masses.

News flash: that's fine.

10) Can you back that up?

Sure. But I don't feel like it right now. Get your own damn blog.


What Now?

If you like the information I've presented here, you can send away for my Secret Pope News Decoder Ring. Once you have one, you'll have the same unfailingly chipper insight on all the latest Pope news. You'll feel better.

*This is obviously a parody. But it's not meant to parody the Pope (well, mostly it isn't). Rather, it's meant to parody a certain segment of "everything is awesome" Catholic journalism  I don't mean to suggest (obviously) that the Pope is a Nazi. Rather, the claim is that if the Pope were a Nazi, there would be some Catholic writers who would defend even that. Or perhaps they wouldn't. But given some of the notorious pieces defending the Pope's recent scandalous words and actions, one does wonder. Humor aside, this is not a good thing. These journalists are doing great damage to the Catholic faith.

The Hound is BANNED from the Google+ Roman Catholics Group!

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Save the Mahound!

It is the biggest (though, in my post-banning opinion, not the best) Catholic Group on Google+.

So before anyone goes all conspiracy, it wasn't Google, it was the Moderators of the Roman Catholics group. And they didn't ban Mahound's Paradise per se. They banned its humble author, me.

I can't say it was a surprise. I made fun of Patheos, but one of the Moderators is (as he says prominently on his icon) a very Patheos-ish Patheos blogger. I was critical (to say the least) of Pope Francis, and they methodically deleted each one of those posts from the group--though, not before a few commenters would typically bomb in to my posts and accuse me of hating the Catholic Church, or not actually being a Catholic, etc. I was scathing of morons, but one of the Moderators is a...

Well, you get the idea.

Actually, what finally set it off was I that I implicitly equated the Moderators with Nazis. I still don't understand why anyone would get upset at that.

Also, they have no sense of humor.

I was called a spammer--which, if you define "spamming" as posting more than one blog link per two-week period, or sometimes posting to Roman Catholics along with one or two other Catholic groups--is technically correct, though, as far as I can tell, many of the other regular contributors do the same thing. But those other guys post links to their own self-help Catholic websites or yet another gay-marriage bashing story. I was posting original parody stories, such as the one about the heretical frat boy lawsuit crazy priest actually being a "woman" (that one travelled far, let me tell you), or fairly straight (for me) write-ups of interviews with the Pope or his allies that tended (it wasn't my fault, man) to be embarrassing.

Deleted. Deleted. Deleted.

It's just not done. You see. You're not a sedevacantist, are you?

No. I don't even know how to pronounce the word.

After "banning" me , and publicly calling me a spammer, spouter of nonsense, crazy person addicted to disproportion (me?), etc., the Owner of the site "circled" me a few minutes later. I asked him why (adding a few choice adjectives). He said it was so that we could form a "relationship" such that "after things cooled off" he "might be persuaded" to unban me. Then he called me a proto-heretic. The last part of my response rhymed with "toff". The first part rhymed with "suck."

A Catholic friend told me he thought Roman Catholics was sort of weird and New Age. I trust him, but I never saw that. Rather, they seemed to me to be merely snotty. We don't (nose held in air) serve Traditionalists.

That's okay, Skippy, I don't eat them.

But I hate snotty people. They either never let me into their clubs. Or, if I do get in (usually under false pretenses), they're always looking for reasons to kick me out.

Let me be serious for a moment. a few months ago I would have been mortified at this. Now I honestly couldn't care less. Though, I will admit that some of the things the Owner said publicly and privately got under my skin. But, at this stage of the game, I would doubt that more than 1% of the hits and readers of Mahound's Paradise came from that Group. And many of those would write obnoxious comments on my blog, like, "You know the author of this post is not really a Catholic, don't you?"

So, in recent weeks posting in the group was more out of defiance.

Yeah, I know, like that was really mature.

But let me be more serious for a moment. These people make Catholicism into a Dear Leader cult for brain dead strivers. They want to form a study group to read the new encyclical in Latin (because anything else would fall prey to the misinterpretations of the media), yet they are too stupid to know that Latin has ceased to be used by the Vatican in many cases, let alone being any kind of "official" standard. And they have ceased to be able to recognize drivel--or evil--for what it is.

They are Pharisees if ever the term had any meaning. Relax. Don't worry, be happy. The media blah blah blah. Gays blah blah blah. Traditionalists blah blah double-fucking venomous blah, and so on and so forth, etc. etc. The "Gates of Hell will not prevail" but millions will go to hell because their Pope is more interested in bragging than in saving souls.

And they're more interested in forming a study group.

Well, in you-know-where there are plenty of study groups. Indeed, contra Dante, I'm sure the whole place is one big study group--studying Laudato Si. Forever and ever.

In Latin.