The Horst Wessel Song: A Hymn for Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Since I was a small child, I have been fascinated with the Catholic Church. When I was six, I wanted to be like Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, and spend eternity with the angels and archangels. By the time I was twelve, I learned that the Catholic Church had demons among its ranks and did not always live according to the words expressed by Christ. I learned that the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Pius XII, did not act to save Jews during the Second World War. As a matter of fact, the Vatican played a significant role in helping Nazi war criminals flee overseas in a secret escape network known as The Italian Ratline.

During the Nuremberg Trials, the stance of Pope Pius XII was equally reprehensible. The Pope rejected any notion of widespread or collective guilt among the German Nazis for the deaths of millions. He regarded the crimes committed against humanity as having been committed by only a few. The Vatican even hid war criminals inside its own territory, so they were able to escape prosecution for their crimes.

It seems that Pope Pius XII could have been asleep when the Horst Wessel Song became the anthem of Nazi Germany, but that is not true. Pope Pius XII was more concerned about the rise of Secularism and Communism than he was concerned about the atrocities of mass genocide.

And despite his fear of Secularism, Pope Pius XII did not object when secular sainthood was bestowed on a young man named Horst Wessel. A school dropout, Horst Wessel was without a rudder until he joined a succession of groups that aimed to establish a dictatorship. Soon after he dropped out of college, he wrote the lyrics to a patriotic song Die Fahne hoch! (Raise the Flag!). He became a grass roots leader and later a commander of the paramilitary Sturmabteilung, engaging in street fights with other student leftist groups, the social democratic and communist parties.

When Wessel was killed by a rival member of a communist gang, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels saw a tremendous opportunity and deified him to be larger than life. The shrewd and diabolically brilliant Nazi propaganda machine positioned Horst Wessel as a saint and a martyr. The young man became a rallying cry and helped build momentum for the ascendance and domination of the Nazi Party. It was never established for certain whether Wessel’s killing was political or personal.

The legend of Horst Wessel became a symbol for nationalist white purity (Aryan superiority) and represented the sacrifices that needed to be made by the German people (sort of like America’s situation with fewer jobs and higher food and gas prices). Young men were boldly called to give their own lives for the sake of the Fuhrer and the Fatherland. The song Die Fahne hoch! (Raise the Flag!) became known as the Horst Wessel Song.

We don’t have any video clips of the original Horst Wessel. He lived long before the advent of technology and social media. There are no images of when he was shot. Today the Horst Wessel Song is banned in Germany and Austria. There are always big problems when history repeats itself. It means lessons weren’t learned the first time. We now have an American Horst Wessel. Thanks to the recent wave of media hype and hoopla, you know who he is. I don’t have to say his name.

The Catholic Church has long been embarrassed by the role it played during the rise of Nazi Germany, its spectacular downfall and incendiary aftermath. It’s a primary reason why Pope Pius XII will never be canonized as a saint. Interestingly, the Catholic Church is very aware of its public image and doesn’t often make missteps that remind the world of the mistakes it has made in the past. There is,  however, one Cardinal who has not learned the lessons from the egregious mistakes made during Nazi Germany. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of the Diocese of New York, recently praised our American Horst Wessel as a “modern-day St. Paul.”

I adore Saint Paul, and Barnabas, too, but by all biblical accounts, they have never used God or Jesus to spew hateful rhetoric against certain groups of people. When my children were very young, I wrote a play that featured Paul and Barnabas traveling, spreading the good news of the risen Christ. When the play was performed at church, it was cannily presented. No one was told prior to the play that the two men who walked into church, spewing scripture and interrupting the service, were actors. Someone called the police, thinking two homeless men had taken the church as hostage.

Cardinal Dolan would have a similar reaction to Paul and Barnabas. He would not recognize them as spreading the good news of Christ. He would not recognize Christ. The good news of Christ does not spew hatred and racism. Our American Horst Wessel has generated thousands of media clips that have gone viral. It’s as plain as day to see what he stood for. During his clever repartee, he always dominated the conversation, cutting off people with his divisive and combative rhetoric. He once famously said, “If I see a black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”  He also said that our beloved Pope Francis was a Heretic.

In the aftermath of World War II, some Nazi war criminals made a strategic conversion to Catholicism to gain the Vatican’s protection. Today there are many politicians who have weaponized Christianity to achieve political power. They regard our immigrants as subhuman and are using them as scapegoats, in the same vein that Joseph Goebbels once proclaimed, “If we didn’t have the Jews, we’d have to invent them.” Every authoritarian regime must have a scapegoat to gain and sustain power. Nazi Germany scapegoated Jews. America in 2025 is scapegoating immigrants.

On September 18, 2025, St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, the flagship American Catholic Church, unveiled a 25-foot-tall mural honoring immigrants. The archdiocese of New York commissioned Adam Cvijanovic to paint the 12-panel mural. According to the Archdiocese, “The artwork blends history, faith, and the immigrant spirit that shaped the city.”

And what of our immigrants? There are video clips of Cardinal Dolan extolling the beauty of the new mural, brightening an otherwise drab entrance into the Cathedral, but he does not decry the current injustice against America’s immigrants. Our immigrants, largely Hispanic, are being persecuted in the New York metropolitan area right under the watchful auspices of Cardinal Dolan, but about that he has nothing to say. He does not speak about gross immorality, injustice and deportation without due process that is happening in the same city showcasing his new mural.

The Catholic Church is always willing to do a deal with the devil if it will get them what they want. During the era preceding and during World War II, Pope Pius XII deemed Communism to be a great threat to the church as an institution, as an entity whose lands and riches could be seized to enrich the masses and create a more egalitarian society. But Secularism has always been the far greater threat. The Catholic Church has been steadily shrinking in numbers in Europe and North America for over a century. The attrition is a natural outgrowth of a patriarchal culture. The Catholic hierarchy might have liberal, moderate and conservative factions, but there is complete alignment among them regarding three mandates: No same sex marriages. Priests cannot marry. Women cannot be priests.

In the 21^st Century, the threat of Communism has abated. Secularism has been the greatest threat to the church in America. But the rise of White Christian Nationalism is a game changer. The new movement seeks to unite the White Christian Churches around the primary doctrine of the bible and to eliminate progressive and liberal thinking from schools, institutions, and government. The new movement fears the growing acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in the United States, is highly suspicious of immigrants, and supports replacement theory, asserting that Jews are replacing white Americans with non-white immigrants.

Hispanic immigrants are viewed as “replacers” of White Americans. The same view is held for Black Americans. Most important of all, White Christian Nationalism is a growing movement that is critical of the separation of church and state. And what the Catholic Church needs more than anything is growth. It is not surprising that the Church would strike a deal with the devil by riding on the coattails of White Christian Nationalism, which has already scored a major victory for themselves and Catholics alike by driving a stake into the heart of legalized abortion. By aligning itself with White Christian Nationalism, the Catholic Church has everything to gain and little to lose, but only in the short term.

I have seen firsthand how Cardinal Dolan regards immigrants. For two years I have worked from afar to help save a church in Yonkers, New York. St. Mary’s Church (known as the Church of The Immaculate Conception) was built in 1848 on the backs of Irish immigrants. My great grandparents, grandparents and parents were all married in this church. Cardinal Dolan once called the church “The Cathedral on the Hudson River.”

St. Mary’s Church is and has always been a church of immigrants. Today the parish is composed of people who are largely Hispanic and of modest means. The Archdiocese of New York has allowed the church to lapse into decay. Shortly after the church’s 175^th Anniversary celebration, Cardinal Dolan issued a decree to merge St. Mary’s parish with another parish. The merger would ultimately mean the demolition of the church. A confidential source once asked Cardinal Dolan what could be done to save the church. “Do you have forty million dollars?” he quipped. ($40 million is the estimate of what the church lot is worth to real estate developers.)

Amazingly, the parish rallied. St. Mary’s Friends, a nonprofit group, was formed. The church building, both interior and exterior, was granted landmark status by the city of Yonkers. After Cardinal Dolan’s decree was issued, three St. Mary’s parishioners filed an appeal with Cardinal Dolan on June 8, 2024, arguing that St. Mary’s should remain an independent parish. After Cardinal Dolan rejected this appeal, these parishioners made a higher appeal to the “Dicastery for the Clergy of the Holy See,” a department of the Vatican which hears appeals against the elimination of parishes and the permanent closure of churches. Earlier this year, Cardinal Dolan’s decree was revoked.

This was the first time in the history of the Archdiocese of New York that a decree was revoked by the Vatican. The decision also marks only the ninth time in modern Catholic history when a decree eliminating a parish has been revoked by the Holy See.

The Hispanic population would be grievously harmed by the closure of the parish and destruction of the church, but the Archdiocese, under the direction of Cardinal Dolan, continues the fight to have the church shuttered. The Archdiocese sued the city of Yonkers over the landmarking of the church and lost. St. Mary’s vital and active parishioners are passionate about saving their church, but they have been barred from raising funds to make needed repairs to the church. A fundraising event scheduled for September 25, 2025 was cancelled by the Archdiocese.  The reason given for the cancellation is “St. Mary’s Friends, Inc. is not recognized by the Archdiocese as a fundraising entity.” The skeletal church administrative staff does not maintain the property. A permanent priest has not been assigned to the parish. The church languishes in a state of limbo. Last week the church was vandalized. A statue of St. Michael the Archangel lay shattered on its front steps. Desecrate. Deconsecrate. Destroy. These are the three elements needed to demolish a Catholic church.

A shattered statue is a far cry from the Nazis’ Kristallnacht, Night of Broken Glass, in 1938, but there are consequences for any member of the Catholic hierarchy to proclaim a secular saint to be on equal footing with St. Paul. About our American Horst Wessel, Cardinal Dolan said. “He was a missionary, he's an evangelist, he’s a hero. He’s one I think that knew what Jesus meant when he said, ‘The truth will set you free.’” Within the context of how Dolan treats the Hispanic community, and especially its immigrants, his words about truth ring as hollow as the broken bell in St. Mary’s Church in Yonkers.

There are lessons to be gleaned from Cardinal Dolan’s notion of sainthood, which differ mightily from how Sainthood is regarded by the Vatican. Carlo Acutis, a young Italian boy, who died at the age of fifteen from leukemia, was recently canonized as the first millennial saint. Highly skilled in technology, his deft use of the Internet allowed him to spread the good news to young people around the globe. Carlo was highly influenced by the Jesuits at his school. He counseled other young people not to be slaves of conformity—but to be modernly and radically individualistic within the context of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis included the words of Carlo Acutis in his apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit (“Christ is alive”).

After Carlo Acutis died, miracles occurred by praying in his name. A boy in Brazil, Mattheus, was cured of a pancreatic defect. A woman, Valeria Valverde, who suffered from traumatic brain injury was healed. The second miracle paved the way for his canonization that took place on September 7, 2025. It is oft-thought that sainthood bestowed on a teenage boy offers the Catholic Church a hedge against Secularism. The sainthood of Carlos Acutis has the potential to bring the church the renewal and growth among the young that it so desperately needs.

Dorothy Day performed miracles every day. The American journalist and activist has been dead since 1980. She served the poor, the unsheltered, the sick, the mentally ill.  A devout Catholic and founder of the Catholic Workers Movement, Dorothy Day devoted her life to serving those in need. She was faithful to the Gospel and the Catholic Church, and lived a life providing comfort, care, and community in accordance to the teachings of Christ—to love the unlovable. There has long been speculation that she would be canonized as a saint, but sainthood has not been forthcoming. It might be because she was just too radical. She was too much like Christ.

It is dangerous for any organization to have to rely on sainthood to bring a resurgence to its solidly patriarchal culture. Pope Pius XII was willing to do a deal with the devil (Nazi Germany) by denying the horrific genocide of the Jews. Cardinal Dolan is striking a deal with the devil (White Christian Nationalists) by turning away from the carnage of our immigrants. The lessons learned from the life of Dorothy Day require Catholics to relinquish power and control in order to truly serve Christ. Pope Pius XII was not able to give up power or control. Nor is Cardinal Dolan able to give up power, control, and money. In the long run, these types of decisions will cause irreparable harm to the church and could facilitate its demise. Someone should play the Horst Wessel Song for Cardinal Dolan. I hear he likes to dance.