Ecumenical Cooperation Quotes
Hoover was an inveterate racist and had an extreme hatred of King. A month later King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What was not known at the time was Hoover, although it had nothing to do with law enforcement, actually contacted New York Cardinal Spellman and illegally transmitted to him parts of FBI confidential and secret files on King for the purpose of persuading the Pope not to grant King an audience. Nonetheless, Hoover himself had a behind the scenes reputation of leaking for his personal purposes and that much of the contents of many FBI files were notes on unsubstantiated claims made by political enemies and often far from the truth. The Cardinal, the Pope and their staffs chose to ignore the Hoover materials.
Earlier in the Nazi movement he had criticized some of the more absurd anti-Semitic positions of Hitler and his henchmen. However, when it became clear that the Nazis had the upper hand he publicly recognized the Nazi government as legitimate, required Catholic clergy to remain loyal to the Nazi government, and maintained bridges between fascism and the Church while over 6 million Jews, Gypsies, and handicapped were murdered—many by his faithful.
