Pope Benedict XVI Goes to Canossa
Submitted by Denis Schulz on Wed, 05/20/2009 - 05:56
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PDF versionWell, he tried. The Pope went to Canossa, sort of, not to do penance, but to make a plea for sanity. Somebody had to do it. Usually it’s the bad guy, the villain; the fellow with the blood on his hands who goes to Canossa and eats a little humble pie but that’s not the way they do things in the 21st Century. But Benedict went anyway.
The Pope finished his Middle East pilgrimage the other day with a plea for an end to the violence. “No more bloodshed, no more fighting, no more terrorism, no more war.” Sounds good. It’s been said before. He called for a two-state solution. That’s been said before. He might as well have called for an end to Israel. That’s been said before. He visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There was an interfaith gathering at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem. Interfaith gatherings are all the rage these days. They have replaced diplomacy. Diplomacy hasn’t worked, so why not interfaith gatherings? Maybe if they had had a Henry IV. But there are no more Holy Roman Empires. There are only European Unions—certainly a sad thought.
All did not go as planned at the gathering. The Pope asked for peace and good fellowship. Others had their say. They were down to the last speaker when Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, a guest but not a scheduled conversant, seized the stage. He just jumped right up and took over. If he had been Jackie Mason he might have shouted, “What am I, chopped liver?” But the Sheikh is not a comedian. “If I represent Islam at a meeting for dialogue and I don’t speak,” he asked, “am I just a piece of furniture?”
It was a good question. What kind of furniture, Johnny? A footstool? A vanity? A gun-cabinet?
Al-Tamimi accused Israel of turning the West Bank into ‘a large prison.’ “Your holiness,” he told the Pope, “I call on you in the name of the one God to condemn these crimes and pressure the Israeli government to stop its aggressions against the Palestinian people.”
He spoke in Arabic, a language the Pope does not understand but there was no way Benedict XVI could have mistaken the glower. It would have frozen the devil in his tracks. Jimmy Carter’s knees would have buckled. Andrew Jackson would have demanded satisfaction. Then the Pope and the Sheikh shook hands and it was over—for the time being.
Many in the radical press agreed with al-Tamimi. Andrew Lee Butters of Time World harkened back to the days of peace, good fellowship and religious diversity when Islam was in full flower, the days of peace and tolerance, the days before Zionism when there was a place for everybody and everybody was in his place. “That culture of tolerance is today under threat from the rise of religious extremism,” wrote Butters in an article for Time World. “But clash-of-civilization pundits and Western leaders like the Pope often ignore how the West helped spark such intolerance, especially through its one-sided support of Israel.”
One-sided support of Israel—did he mean Jacques Chirac and the European Union or did he mean the United Nations and the UN Human Rights Commission and Vanessa Redgrave, Jimmy Carter and the Ho Chi Minh Clubs in the faculty lounges at Berkeley and Cambridge? How far back does Butters extend this age of Islamic tolerance? The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem raised troops for Adolph Hitler.
A lot has happened since the last Caliphate. Has Butters disremembered the massacre of 150,000 Armenian Christians in 1895-96 by Turkish Muslims; the massacre of 150,000 Greek and Armenian Christians at Smyrna in 1922 by Turkish Muslims; the massacres of Assyrian Christians in the 19th Century that would continue to this day if there were enough Assyrians left to get up a good massacre; the almost yearly massacres of Christian peasants in the Balkans during the 19th Century by the Ottoman Turks that brought on the intervention of the European powers that led to the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the massacre of more than two million Christians and animists in Sudan during the last quarter of the 20th Century by Muslim theocrats; the persecution of the Coptic Christians in Egypt that continues to this day? (There are no ongoing massacres of Jews in Muslim countries because there are no Jews left in the Dar al-Islam)
So much for Islamic tolerance—then, now and in between!
Middle East Christians don’t trust the Pope says Butters. Sad, and perhaps, true. A castrated Papacy has repeatedly failed to protect them from their enemies. It’s been the likes of Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad that have kept those that would do them great harm from carrying out their threats—it hasn’t been the Pope or Europe’s secular leaders that have provided them with any kind of a security blanket.
But now Saddam is gone and those that actually read from the Qur’an are running Iraq and look at what is happening. Priests are being gunned down in the streets, churches are being torched, non-Muslim women are being forced to wear the headscarf and the burqa; barbers are being murdered for giving Western haircuts. And the new Iraqi Constitution says: “Article 2 First: Islam is the official religion of the State, and it is a fundamental source of legislation…No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.”
If Benedict had taken a shillelagh to al-Timimi and laid on one and ten he would have made a better impression and have given Middle East Christians a little hope.
One must remember there was a time when Christians and non-Muslims made up 100% of the population of what is now Iraq. The decline began long before the advent of Benedict XVI, long before Richard Lion-Heart. The goal of Islam from Mohammed to the Muslim Brotherhood to the Council on American-Islamic Relations is the eliminations of Christianity. “We are not here to be one of many faiths.”
Last week in Turkey, the Direction of Religious Foundations based in Ankara appropriated land and buildings belonging to the Orthodox Church for private purposes (in the past churches have been converted into gaming halls). Last week, Somali officials beat up Abdi Welli, a Kenyan pastor who was legally visiting Somalia, for possessing Christian materials. He was threatened with death if he didn’t convert to Islam. In Depok, Indonesia, Muslim Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail rescinded a building permit for a church. The parishioners had been put off for nine years! In Jeddah, an Indonesian housemaid was tortured and brutalized by her employers—a not uncommon occurrence. Christians are murdered in the Philippines, in Kosovo, in Egypt, in Nigeria. A park ranger was kidnapped and beheaded in Kupwara, India, by Islamo-fascists extremists. And Darfur—does Butters also blame that on the Pope? Or was it the fault of Ulysses S. Grant?
The Butters approach is typical of the radical left. Only the West could do something so stupid or unthinking as to antagonize the religion of peace and tolerance.
Middle East Christians in Lebanon have given up on the Pope, insists Butters, and are looking toward Hezbollah as a potential savior. It is their last chance to secure a Middle East future for Christianity.
Sure, and Heinrich Stulpnagle joined the Nazi Party in 1939 to secure his future in Germany.
“It may seem far-fetched now,” suggested Butters, “but there may come a day when Christians hit the Arab streets to welcome not a Pope from Rome, but an ayatollah from Iran.”
Yes, just like the Ukrainians welcomed a Fuhrer from Germany in 1941.
The pope is a joker! He can
The pope is a joker! He can only scream and shout when some Indian states declare coerced conversions as illegal. He has pity for Christian terrorists killing people in the NE. However this joker goes weak kneed when it comes to fighting Islam, the old man goes weak in the knees.
The stupid old bloke can only ask the Jews to part with their land and give it to the Arabs, by proposing a two state solution.
What sort of a dimwit are the Catholics following! Popes have played the roles of Villians throughout history and this fool is no different.
I remeber couple of years back the former the pope, was no allowed to enetr China and Sri Lanka, India was the only country which allowed this cumbag to enter our country and the only thing this ungrateful man had to say was that India should pave way for greater conversions. His message to his junior scumbag bishops was that India was a fertile region for conversions.
Seriouly all these Christian scumbags should not be allowed to enter Asian countries. The Benny Hinn zand the popes should be kicked on their butts and never be granted permission to even put their foot on our soil.
Retards like them have destroyed the social fabric of so many countries in Asia and are not still satified with the amount of blood that has been shed on that account.
Feel the love of Jesus!
Not many people are aware
Not many people are aware that the Vatican was involved in the Holocaust and the Catholics ran their own concentration camps during WWII killing Jews, Serbians (Orthodox Christians) and Gypsies. This is because the RC church is exceptional as far as propaganda is concerned, and quite a lot of Jews believe that Hitler's Pope actually saved a million Jews. He did not.
Catholic Collusion In Croatia
During World War II, Pavelic Regime Offered Croatian Jews Conversion To Catholicism & Contributing Personal Property - In Return For Not Being Deported To Death Camp. However, IsraCast Has Uncovered Evidence That Even These Jews & Their Families Were Later Executed By Ustasha
Jewish synagogue in Vukovar, 1940
Some of the most horrific Holocaust atrocities against Jews were perpetrated by the Pavelic regime in Croatia. The tragic history of the Jewish communities in that country has yet to be told because there are literally no survivors. But part of the documentation still survives. On this Holocaust and Remembrance Day, Avi Yaffe of IsraCast reveals documented evidence of how the Catholic church collaborated in the annihilation of the Jewish communities of Croatia. The town of Vukovar, located on the Croatian border with Serbia, is but an example of what transpired in Croatia where the Ustasha movement was unleashed, with the support of the Catholic church, to launch a sadistic campaign of murder and torture against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. The Ustasha barbarity was said to have even shocked their German masters.
From - http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?ID=544
Killing people has been a
Killing people has been a favourite hobby of the popes, since the begining of the papacy. Perhaps the most corrupt instution headed by overfed, virgins, the RC church has been instrumental in organising massacres all over the world.
The RC church is a propaganda machine which churns out lies at a rate at which is JC would be proud!
This is why I say, feel the love of Jesus!
#3 lIKE i HAVE SAID ROMAN
#3 lIKE i HAVE SAID ROMAN CHRISTIANITY IS NOT THE GOSPEL OF JESUS BUT OF THE ROMAN RULER CALLED CONSTANTINE WITH HIS GREAT ROMAN ARMY. CONSTANTINE SENT cHRISTIAN TO THE LIONS.
His mother had become a semi-Christians from one of the cults at the time, and Constantine wanted to please his mother and he was baptized on his deathbed. He was pagan through and through. Jesus replaced Saternalia and her birthday became Jesus' birth when the bible says no way. Jesus was born six months after John the Baptist.
A wrote: Not many people are
A wrote:
Not many people are aware that the Vatican was involved in the Holocaust and the Catholics ran their own concentration camps during WWII killing Jews, Serbians (Orthodox Christians) and Gypsies. This is because the RC church is exceptional as far as propaganda is concerned, and quite a lot of Jews believe that Hitler’s Pope actually saved a million Jews. He did not.
Dude Pope Pius was responsible for saving the lives of 800,000 Jews in Europe and his work was applauded by Golda Meir by the former prime minister of Israel. Yes there were Catholics but they did this despite the Pope stance against the Nazi regime.
By the way I am not Catholic, I am actually a protestant ( I'm with the Lutheran Church ) and agree with some of the Catholic Churches teachings, so don't accuse me of being the Catholic Churches PR.
Accusations about Pope Pius
Accusations about Pope Pius collaborating with the Nazis has been debunked by The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Rabbi David D. Galin.
The Pope is wrong about the
The Pope is wrong about the two state solution and other points. A two state solution will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but make it worse, because it just create another enemy state for Israel to worry about. Also the two state solution will not help the Christians of Palestine, but only make their situation worse.
Also in regards to Rabbi
Also in regards to Rabbi Galin's book, it debunked John Cornwell thesis Hitler's Pope and because of this Cornwell withdrew his thesis.
you say the pope is wrong in
you say the pope is wrong in the two state solution , the pope has the same stance as Obama Bush and the Isrealis, and the rest of the world.
ibrahim you post was a big joke, you must be the joker around here, and not very funny either, more like a clown falling on his face...
Marie said - "Dude Pope Pius
Marie said -
"Dude Pope Pius was responsible for saving the lives of 800,000 Jews in Europe and his work was applauded by Golda Meir by the former prime minister of Israel. Yes there were Catholics but they did this despite the Pope stance against the Nazi regime."
This number of 800000 is now 1500000 and is part of the Roman Catholic propaganda. It is possible that the pope saw the coming defeat of the Nazis and therefore actually saved some Jews in order to save face, but that is about it. The Vatican was directly behind the killings of Serbians, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia.
CATHOLICISM & FASCISM: A BRIEF RETROSPECTIVE
Although there are elements within the contemporary Catholic Church attempting to alleviate the misery of millions of people living in Third World countries under the ideological or theological rubric of "Liberation Theology," the Catholic Church's hierarchy is for the most part opposed to this trend and is more comfortable wheeling and dealing with right-wing despots, just as it was comfortable earning the favor of royalty in days gone by.
This was especially true between the two world wars of this century when the Soviet Union and Stalinism appeared to pose a challenge to the political status quo of Europe. It was into this milieu that Adolf Hitler stepped and volunteered to serve as the messianic savior of Germany and later turned his "anti-communist" crusade into a world war.
Adolf Hitler virutally commenced his crusade as a champion of Christianity. While there are those who question the sincerity of his Christian (Roman Catholic) religious convictions, the Roman Catholic Church never saw fit to excommunicate him while giving him enthusiastic support in Germany and in the Vatican, especially after the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941.
What follows is an excerpt from a speech made by Hitler early in his career taken from a book called My New Order, a collection of some of the more significant speeches he made from 1922-1941 (edited by Raoul de Roussy and published by Reynal & Hitchcock). In this speech Hitler proclaims his devotion to the Christian religion, thus laying the basis for the support he eventually obtained from the Roman Catholic and Lutheran religious establishments of Germany. The speech was made on April 12, 1922:
"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
"In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
"Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
"As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.
"And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
"When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited."
That the Roman Catholic Church had no hesitancy to back fascism in the name of the crusade against "godless atheistic communism" needs no documentation here. But there is a chapter in the history of Roman Catholicism's bloody alliance with fascism that is virtually unknown to people who are not literate or fluent in the Serbian/Croatian languages. I have reference to Yugoslavia during the years 1941-1945, particularly certain events that transpired in Croatia.
Anne Gaylor's essay "Hitler's Religion" mentions the Roman Catholic Croatian dictator Ante Pavelic and his massacres of the (Greek) Orthodox Serbian minority during World War II. Literature on this subject is very difficult to come by in English. One source is Spy in the Vatican by Branco Bokun, published by Praeger in 1973.
Branco Bokun was a young man of 21 years when his mother was able to obtain an appointment for him in the foreign service of Yugoslavia shortly before Hitler's invasion of that country in April, 1941. When the royalist government was quickly disposed of by the invading German military machine, the personnel of the foreign office was transferred to the Red Cross which was allowed to function by the occupying power.
Branco Bokun was fluent in at least two foreign languages. He was able to speak Hungarian like a native and Italian well enough to enroll at the University of Rome as a Hungarian in order to study the political economy of fascism as pracriced in Italy. He was ordered to do this by his boss in Yugoslav intelligence-also a Red Cross employee-to serve as a cover for his real mission which was to get the Vatican (that is, Pope Pius XII) to order the Roman Catholic Croatian dictator Ante Pavelic to stop his massacres of Serbian Orthodox Christians. Bokub's mission was a dismal failure (although he did win his degree in economics from the University of Rome in 1945).
The following is an excerpt of a speech by Mike Budak, Croatian Minister of Religion, made on July 22, 1941, three months after the Croats won their independence from Yugoslavia by joining the Axis cause during World War II. (From Spy in the Vatican):
"The Ustashi movement is based on the Catholic Religion. For the minorities, Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, we have three million bullets. A part of these minorities has already been eliminated and many are waiting to be killed. Some will be sent to Serbia and the rest will be forced to change their religion to Catholicism. Our new Croatia will therefore be free of all heretics, becoming purely Catholic for the future years."
At this point over 300,000 Serbs, Gypsies and Jews had been murdered by the Croatian fascists known as the Ustashi. A grand total of 700,000 human beings, mostly Serbian Orthodox Christians, were to fall victim to the Ustashi gangsters who did their killing in the name of Holy Mother Church.
Bokun quoted a Roman Catholic priest as having made the following remarks on June 13, 1941:
"Brethren, up to now we have worked for the Holy Roman Apostolic Church with the cross and the missal. Now the moment has come to work with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. The more Serbs and Jews you succeed in eliminating, the more you will be raised in esteem in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church."
A game that was played by the Ustashi personnel who manned the concentration camp was called "cut throat." According to the author, whoever was "able to kill a Serb or a Jew causing the least agony is the winner." On July 14 (1941. the Pope received, and gave his blessing to a hundred Ustashi policemen. The delegation was selected from the winners of "cut-throat."
Bokun described some photographs an intelligence boss asked him to look at before he left for Rome.
"I saw a picture of an Orthodox Church in the village of Glina. In front of the church was a pile of bodies, with two Ustashis in the foreground throwing the body of a dead Orthodox priest on the pile. To the left of the photograph, a Catholic priest stood watching.
"The next photograph depicted an Ustashi in the act of beheading an Orthodox priest, his axe raised, ready to strike. In the background several other Ustashis were standing around laughing.
"The third picture showed an Ustashi brandishing a knife dripping with blood, at his feet the bodies of several women and children.
"My eyes fixed on a naked child in the front who could not have been more than three years old. The look of surprise in his wide-open eyes made him look as if he were still alive."
Bokun was only able to deal with one significant Vatican bureaucrat, and that was done only through his administrative assistant. The bureaucrat in question was the future Pope Paul VI, who was then Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, Pro-Secretary of State of the Vatican, Secretary of the Department of Ordinary Affairs. Montini accepted the version of events concocted by the government of Croatia claiming that the atrocities were the work of communists who maliciously attributed them to Catholics.
One highly-placed person in the Vatican bureaucracy, Cardinal Eugene Tiserant, Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, was informed about what was happening in Croatia in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. He informed Pope Pius XII but to no avail.
The Vatican was especially proud of one facet of Croatian domestic policy: new abortion laws in Croatia justifying the persecution of Jews since "most practitioners of abortion were Jewish."
Wrote Bokun in his journal dated June 12, 1943: "When millions are being slaughtered the Vatican has nothing better to do than to honor Croatia for pronouncing abortion illegal. What is even more ironic is that his bloody Excellency is preventing abortion by murdering the parents."
Spy in the Vatican documents the holocaust no one knows about, as well as giving a memorable account of life and politics in Rome and the Vatican from 1941-1945.
Admittedly, this brief look at Roman Catholicism's World War II love-affair with fascism is hardly complete. Nevertheless, we should never forget that Adolf Hitler was never ex-communicated by the Roman Catholic Church for his crimes against humanity, and that the "Holy Mother Church" has more blood on her skirts than she is willing to acknowledge. Let's keep these historic facts in mind when we are urged by priest or politician that only a belief in "God" is going to produce a moral human being. The Roman Catholic Hitler and Christian Croatia have taught us otherwise.
END
From - http://www.newyouth.com/archives/historicalanalysis/catholicism_and_fasc...
# Ibrahim :"However this
# Ibrahim :"However this joker goes weak kneed when it comes to fighting Islam, the old man goes weak in the knees"..
Papas benedict it appears is slightly better r than pope john paul 11 who kissed quran.
A wrote: This number of
A wrote:
This number of 800000 is now 1500000 and is part of the Roman Catholic propaganda. It is possible that the pope saw the coming defeat of the Nazis and therefore actually saved some Jews in order to save face, but that is about it. The Vatican was directly behind the killings of Serbians, Jews and Gypsies in Croatia.
Hitler made plans to kidnap the Pope which he did not go through with, the Nazis bombed Castle Gandolfo the Pope summer residence and the Nazis harassed and shutdown Churches, Catholic newspapers, and Catholic organizations.
Adolf Hitler virutally commenced his crusade as a champion of Christianity. While there are those who question the sincerity of his Christian (Roman Catholic) religious convictions, the Roman Catholic Church never saw fit to excommunicate him while giving him enthusiastic support in Germany and in the Vatican, especially after the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941.
A the reason why Hitler was not excommunicated was because Italy was in league with the Nazis and anyone who criticized Hitler was murdered or sentenced to death camps. Also the reason Pius did not excommunicate him because it would have drawn attention to what he was doing which was to save the Jews.
A, Hitler said a bunch of things to attract the Church and the Christians to his cause, just like Muhammed did to attract Meccan pagans, Christians, and Jews to his religion which was to say a bunch of stuff in order to appeal to them. In reality Hitler hated Christianity, tried to replace it with his own brand of religion, and he was into the Occult. Hitler Occultic activities has been documented by experts in this field. Don't believe me then look up Hitler and the Occult or Hitler and Theosophy.
A, last year the United
A, last year the United States Holocuast Memorial Museum sent out a press release stating definitive conclusions are being drawn regarding the record of Pope Pius XII during the Holocuast. For over quarter of a century the Vatican has published 11 volumes of selected material from their archives. These records are not a complete record of the Vatican's actions during the Holocuast.
The Museum also stated it urges the Vatican to speed up the process and make full and complete access to all it's archives from that period.
Here's more: John Cornwell who started up the controversy of allege ties between the Pope and Hitler, has in light of new evidence presented in Rabbi David D. Galin's book The Myth of Hitler's Pope, has since then withdrew his thesis.
Interview with Rabbi Dalin on
Interview with Rabbi Dalin on The Myth of Hitler's Pope
Rabbi David Dalin answers questions about his new book, "The Myth of Hitler's Pope"
Do you remember how you first became interested in the controversy about Pius XII's actions during World War II?
I'd always heard about Pius XII, but in 2000 . . . I was asked to write a book review for The Weekly Standard. . . . At the time I knew relatively little about the subject. . . .this was shortly after the book by John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope, had been published. I thought I would write a short book review, and I spent that summer just immersed in this. I came to the conclusion that really there had been a terrible historical injustice against Pius XII, and I wanted to make a small contribution in the book review to set the historical record straight.
And I want to come back to that, because I basically came first in that book review and then in this book to the exact opposite conclusion from John Cornwell the British journalist that Pius XII not only was not Hitler's pope, but he was a great friend of the Jewish people at a moment in history when it really mattered quite a bit: World War II during the Holocaust years. So what started out as just a small book review ended up being quite a significant review essay . . . and that really motivated me -- I got a terrific response; nothing I've ever written before has gotten as much attention-to try to write a book that would in some way also help to correct the historical injustice against Pius XII. The motivation was to set the historical record straight.
Can you give maybe just one example of evidence that you came across that's really ignored by the folks who believe in Hitler's pope?
Can I give you more than one-two or three? You can tell me when to stop. . . .
Oh, please go ahead.
Let me give you a few quick examples. During World War II, during the Holocaust, it's estimated that close to 80% of the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe were killed, were exterminated by the Nazis. In Italy itself, and in Rome, over 80%, close to 85% of the Jews survived. Now what I argue and document in my book is that this was more than a coincidence-that, contrary to those who say that the high rate of Jewish survival in Italy was because of mere luck or chance or coincidence, or that the rescue efforts for the Jews were carried out spontaneously by individual Catholics unconnected to the pope, I show that this had a lot to do with the pope's direct intervention in the rescue efforts, that he was directly involved in the rescue efforts, and therefore became a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in Italy.
Now let me give you a couple of examples of this. There were certainly individual Catholics, a lot of individual Catholics who rescued Jews, but most of this took place on the instructions and through the involvement of the pope. Now, in Castel Gandolfo, which is the pope's summer residence outside of Rome, it's estimated that close to 3,000 Jews were sheltered and hidden in Castel Gandolfo throughout the years of the Holocaust.
That's a very large number. How does that compare with [numbers of Jews helped by] other rescuers?
Well, that's just what I was going to say. I argue in my book, in no-it's an estimate; it may have been less than 3,000 . . . we have no precise figure, but let's say for the sake of argument it's even closer to 2,000 than to 3,000-in no other location in all of Nazi-occupied Europe were as many Jews sheltered and hidden for as long a period of time as at Castel Gandolfo. And this absolutely, definitively could not have happened without the intervention, the involvement and the go-ahead of the pope because this Castel Gandolfo was essentially part of the Vatican. It was the pope's summer residence. And by the way, parenthetically, it's interesting to note, during the time in which they were hidden there, the Jews at Castel Gandolfo were even provided with kosher food, which is amazing, which is a tremendous kind of footnote to all of this. Also related to this, during the time of the Nazi occupation, in 155 monasteries, churches, and convents in Rome, as well as in buildings of the Vatican itself, Jews were also sheltered and hidden.
Now, once again, this could not have happened without the direct intervention of the pope, this could not have happened independent of the pope. Can I give you two other quick examples? John Cornwell who coined the phrase "Hitler's Pope"-and I want to come back to that term, by the way, which is so historically misleading-but he and other papal critics alleged that Pius XII even before he became pope did little in the 1930s to oppose Hitler and Nazism. And nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I've come up with over 40 statements by the pope . . .especially in the1930s, from the late 1920s, once Hitler takes office, and even before, opposing Nazism, then the Hitler regime, and Nazi anti-Semitism. . . . Pius XII's contemporaries knew that indeed he was a friend of the Jewish people. . . . The Nazis themselves realized this because the Nazis for example opposed strongly his selection as pope in 1939. Already in the 1930s Nazi documents were referring to Pius XII as the Jew-loving cardinal in Rome. He was then the cardinal Secretary of State. A Nazi document . . . later refers to Pius XII as the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals. So the Nazis themselves considered him an outspoken opponent of the Hitler regime and of anti-Semitism and as a defender of the Jews. And one last example: In 1938 Hitler makes his famous state visit to Rome, to Italy at the invitation of Mussolini. Eugenio Pacelli-who's the Vatican Secretary of State, the future Pius XII, who becomes pope the following year -- he publicly snubs Hitler. He leaves Rome for Castel Gandolfo, refuses to meet with Hitler, to even shake his hand. Besides being what I would argue are tremendous courageous acts, it was risky as well. We now know that the Nazis had plans to kidnap Pius XII, to attack the Vatican and kidnap him, and there was historical precedent for this. In 1809 Napoleon Bonaparte had sent his troops to Rome and had kidnapped the pope of that era and taken him as a prisoner to Paris. . . . In the 1930s Pius XII I would argue was a lonely voice in the wilderness of opposition to Hitler. One might compare him in that respect to Winston Churchill who was lonely voice in opposing Hitler during the same time period. . . .
What do you say to critics who say, well, Pius XII should have taken any risk in order to save as many Jews as possible, in order to take an even firmer stand. Why didn't he do even more?
Well, okay, that's an argument that his critics have made. . . . One thing he might have done which many critics . . . say . . . maybe he should have tried to do this was to excommunicate those Nazi leaders who were baptized Catholics, and that included Hitler and several other top Nazi leaders. Now that having been said, this would have been a moral statement . . . it's arguable that maybe that would have been an important statement for the pope to have made. The answer to that of course is that . . . the fact is, it wouldn't have helped. The Nazis were oblivious to public opinion. And, on the contrary, it might have invited more reprisals against both Jews and Catholics. And let me give you another example similar to that. . . . One of the arguments of papal critics is that the bishops of Germany, at the instruction of Pius XII, should have published and read out loud in every German church a pastoral letter publicly opposing Hitler, opposing the Nazi regime, and opposing anti-Semitism. Now that was never done in Germany, one of the reasons being, and I think it's a good assumption that the reason is wasn't done [was] that Pius XII was a diplomat, he was a papal diplomat for years, and he realized he didn't -- he was concerned about inviting more reprisals against both Catholics and Jews if his actions would be, you know, would outrage so to speak the Nazis. Now, if I were to make [this] statement his critics would say, Oh, come on . . . he should have done this; this was an example of his cowardice. But the perfect answer to that is . . .just what his critics have asked for here . . . did take place in Holland. In 1942 the Dutch bishops at the instruction of Pius XII . . . read a pastoral letter at every Catholic church in Holland on the same Sunday . . . opposing, attacking Hitler, the Hitler regime, and Nazi anti-Semitism. This is just what his critics said should have been done in every country of Nazi-occupied Europe. Well, the reprisals were catastrophic and devastating, and they've led even some of his critics to pause for a moment. The reprisals were so strong that in no other country in all of Nazi-occupied Europe were as large a percentage of Jews deported to Nazi death camps and killed as in Holland. The percentage was higher than in any other country of Nazi-occupied Europe. And also tens of thousands more Catholics were killed in Holland in reprisal for the statements of the Dutch bishops. So one can say, Yes, he should have done, but I think an argument is that he recognized -- Pius XII was an ordained priest, but he wasn't a pastor in a church so to speak; his career was, almost from the time of his ordination he was a diplomat, he worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State; so in other words he wasn't so much a pastoral priest and clergyman as a trained diplomat; and this is important because that's one of the reasons, by the way, when he was selected as pope in 1939 it was on the eve of World War II and one of the credentials that he had, it was felt that he should be named pope because he had tremendous credentials as a diplomat. Now it was his very experiences as a diplomat that led him to be cautious and pragmatic in an instance like this. Now his critcs will say, No, that wasn't being cautious and pragmatic, that was being fearful and you know, and just not ready to -- he was silent. But his silence may actually have saved a lot of lives. And one last thing on this. I'm often asked as a rabbi, What possibly could be worse than the mass murder, the extermination of 6 million Jews? And my answer is the mass murder extermination of hundreds of thousands more. . . . Not to mention hundreds of thousands of more Catholics as well. The threat of Nazi reprisals to actions on the part of the papacy were very real, I think.
If the evidence is this overwhelming, what's driving the myth of Hitler's pope? Who wants to believe, or wants other people to believe, that Pius XII was an anti-Semite, or a coward?
It's a good question. First of all, the myth goes back to a play. It goes back -- the term is John Cornwell's, from his book in 1999 -- the myth goes back actually to the play The Deputy in 1959 -- 63, rather -- by a West German playwright, a secular Protestant by the name of Rolf Hochhuth, which portrays Pius XII for the first time -- this was five years after his death -- as a collaborator with Nazi Germany and as an anti-Semite. Parenthetically, we now know that Rolf Hochhuth was among other things a member of the Hitler Youth as a child, as a youngster. But the point is that . . . until that time, Pius XII had an [enviable] reputation among Catholics and Jews alike. . . . I've documented in my book that no pope has had such gratitude and praise from Jewish leaders throughout the world during his lifetime as had Pius XII, until then. . . . If Pius XII truly were Hitler's pope, one would expect the most devastating attacks and critiques to come from Jewish scholars and journalists. But, on the contrary, the most devastating have not been, in fact some of the best defenses have come from Jewish scholars, some much more prominent than myself. I'll give you a good example, Sir Morton Gilbert of England, who's Churchill's official biographer and one of the great historians of the Holocaust of this generation, also one of the greatest historians of the past 50 years. He's the author of well over 70 books. Now, he -- he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth; he's a very prominent leader of the Jewish community in London; he has a home in Israel as well -- he's been one of the great defenders of Pius XII. In fact, in an interview in Inside the Vatican, published in Rome, he spoke about, in praise of Pius XII. And there are others as well. What surprised me was that the most vicious critics of Pius XII have been Catholic writers, for the most part liberal or lapsed Catholics, who kind of have a problem with and a political agenda against the church. You know, John Cornwell . . .is a former Jesuit Jesuit seminarian, Gary Wills, who wrote the book Papal Sin, is a former Jesuit seminarian, and James Carroll, another critic, a papal critic in this respect is a former priest. Why did they write these books?
My argument is -- and this has generated a lot of discussion when I wrote this in The Weekly Standard, and I develop it in this book -- is that they had a political agenda with the pontificate of the late pope, Pope John Paul II, which for them was anathema. John Paul II was far too conservative for them, and I think they hoped if they could undermine the papal credibility and say that one pope was morally fallible, who was also, now, Pius XII was an orthodox Catholic, in many ways similar in his theology and orthodoxy to John Paul II, and I think if they could try to prove, to argue that one pope was morally fallible and to question his credibility as a moral leader then they could insult or undermine the moral credibility of the modern papacy, especially of John Paul II. And it's interesting in each of the books written, each of these books, and subsequent books by Cornwell and Wills, they have even more about their attack on John Paul II. And I think this is really their political agenda.
And the other thing is, Why did these books emerge, and there were several almost at the same time. . . . Part of that, there was another agenda. Your readers may remember, there was a momentum during the 1990s from John Paul II to canonize Pius XII. And my sense is . . . these books are coming from ultra-liberal Catholics, for the most part not from Jews, and it's to forestall the movement for the canonization of Pius XII, to curtail the momentum . . . I think it's been put on hold for quite a while. You talk about the underlying motivation -- my sense is that the timing is more than coincidence. . . .
Very interesting.
By the way, can I mention one thing about the title Hitler's Pope? When the book came out, it was historically misleading in so many ways. . . . Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, never met Adolf Hitler. He was the papal nuncio, diplomat in Germany in the 1920s, but he left Germany in 1929 to return to Rome become the Vatican Secretary of State. He never returned to Germany. So he never met with Adolf Hitler. And as I mentioned before when Hitler visited Rome on a state visit in 1938 he publicly snubbed Hitler; he refused to meet with him. Now here's the dishonest thing about the book. In the British edition of John Cornwell's book, the malicious title, Hitler's Pope, is reinforced by the book's misleading jacket and picture, which has a picture of Eugenio Pacelli, who was then the papal nuncio in Berlin, leaving a reception given for the constitutionally elected president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, in 1927. . . . In the background are two uniformed German soliders, [of] which the implication is -- well, the caption of this jacket says that this meeting took place in 1939 -- not 1927. So the implication is that he's just come out of a meeting with Adolf Hitler, and that the soldiers in the background are Nazi soldiers. Well, the fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. The picture, which later was-the publishers admitted was -- from 1927, these were soldiers of the democratic Weimar Republic. But you know, the use of this photograph, is something that is a favorite of those who wish to portray Pius XII in an unfavorable light. And it's just completely dishonest, you know. In fact, as one historian has said that-he's said in criticizing this, he says: Perhaps photographs do not lie (I can give you his name if you want), but this particular book cover, offered in the context it was, and under the title Hitler's Pope, comes close. By the way, in the caption reads, "Cover photograph shows Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, leaving the presidential palace in Berlin in 1939" -- which is patently false. So, the whole term, and I would think in the popular culture and imagination, people almost equate automatically Pius XII equals Hitler's Pope. You know, it was a bestselling title, I'm afraid. It must've made Cornwell a fortune. It was on the bestseller list for quite a while.
Marie, What happened
Marie,
What happened in Croatia came out only a couple of years back. The Roman Catholic Church has not excommunicated Hitler until now. Like I said earlier, the RCC runs the most formidable propaganda machine ever employed in history.
Shouldn't he be in Ireland
Shouldn't he be in Ireland instead of Crotia?
A wrote: Marie, What
A wrote:
Marie,
What happened in Croatia came out only a couple of years back. The Roman Catholic Church has not excommunicated Hitler until now. Like I said earlier, the RCC runs the most formidable propaganda machine ever employed in history.
Don't understand what I said, the Pope could have excommunicated Hitler because Hitler would have had him killed.
In regards to propaganda I could say the same things about those websites you posted.
The guy who started this whole Pope Pius controversy, his work has been criticzied by Ken Woodward in Newsweek as filled with errors and ignorance. His work was also criticized by Ronald Rychlak, Law Professor and the author of Hitler, The War, and The Pope. There is also Rabbi David G. Dalin's book. These two authors were given special access to the Vatican archives.
In regards to Catholics taking part in the murder of Jews, they did this despite Pope Pius stance against the Nazis.
Hi Marie; Talking about
Hi Marie;
Talking about your Pope and Vatican, just look in the following links what they were doing when their pious Christian priests and nuns were practicing the Islamic sunnah of pedophilia.----
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/abuse-report-state...
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Commission-to-Inquire-into-Child-Abuse/pho...
# 3. ibrahim Says: May 20th,
# 3. ibrahim Says:
May 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
"Killing people has been a favorite hobby of the popes, since the beginning of the papacy. Perhaps the most corrupt institution headed by overfed, virgins, the RC church has been instrumental in organizing massacres all over the world."
Well brother I can't say better than that. Power hungry Politician Posing like some spiritual Priest is called a Pope.
I believe I already made it
I believe I already made it clear that I am not Catholic, I am protestant ( Lutheran ).
Hi Marie; you said " In
Hi Marie; you said " In regards to Catholics taking part in the murder of Jews, they did this despite Pope Pius stance against the Nazis."
Just tell us if that Pius Pope was a " protestant ( Lutheran )" ? LOL
Don't hide behind your own logic.
A0000Z wrote: Hi Marie; you
A0000Z wrote:
Hi Marie; you said ” In regards to Catholics taking part in the murder of Jews, they did this despite Pope Pius stance against the Nazis.”
Just tell us if that Pius Pope was a ” protestant ( Lutheran )” ? LOL
Don’t hide behind your own logic.
Huh? I am not Catholic. I don't pray to the Virgin Mary or to the Saints. I don't believe in purgatory, and I don't recognize the Pope as the head of the church. The only reason I am defending Pope Pius because of his good deeds in saving the Jews. You don't like my defense of Pope Pius then bite me.