It’s not. We are taxed on our income, and also on our assets, above a certain threshold. On the whole, the tax burden is not that different from the US (at least in NY).
Actually, the Pope never endorsed Hitler in the 30s. On the contrary, he wrote and circulated an Encyclical in Germany, called « Mit brennender Sorge », which was clandestinely imported and read at Sunday mass in every German church, and roundly condemned Nazism as pagan and antinomic to Christianism (triggering a wave of repression against priests). It’s worth noting that it’s one of only two Encyclicals that were not written in Latin.
I know, but unfortunately I wasn’t part of them when I lived in NY. Neither am I today in France…