B16's Angelus, St. John Mass, Italian Civil Protection Dept. Audience

Pope Benedict XVI (L) gives a blessing while wearing an Italian civil protection department jacket, as Italian cabinet undersecretary Gianni Letta (2nd R) and Guido Bertolaso (R), head of the civil protection agency, applaud, during a special audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican March 6, 2010. (Daylife-Reuters)


All pictures courtesy of Daylife







Vatican City, Mar 7, 2010 / 12:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Following his visit to the Roman parish of St. John of the Cross on Sunday, the Holy Father returned to the Apostolic Palace for the Angelus. In his remarks, the Pope underscored the need to look at life through the perspective of conversion.

As God appears to Moses in the form of the burning bush, said Benedict XVI reflecting on Sunday's Liturgy, he also reveals himself in different ways in the lives of each of us. "To be be able to recognize his presence, however, it's necessary that we bring ourselves to his side with knowledge of our misery and with profound respect."

Otherwise, the Pope said, "we render ourselves incapable of finding him and entering into communion with him."

In this light, he repeated St. Paul's observation that God does not reveal himself to those who are "pervaded by arrogance and thoughtlessness, but to those who are poor and humble before him."

The Holy Father then turned to the Gospel from Luke which took place following the deaths of some Galileans who were killed by Pontius Pilate, and others who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed.

Pope Benedict said that "Jesus proclaims the innocence of God, who is good and cannot want evil" as the people in the reading attribute the deaths in the community to divine punishment.

"Do you think that they also were greater transgressors than all the men living in Jerusalem?" asked Jesus in the Gospel. "No, I tell you. But if you do not repent, you will all perish similarly.”

In these words, taught the Pope, Jesus invites the perspective of conversion: "misfortunes (and) mournful events should not arouse curiosity or investigation for possible culprits in us, but they should represent occasions to reflect, to win over the illusion of being able to live without God, and to reinforce, with the help of the Lord, the commitment to changing (our) lives."

God, in his fullness of mercy, said Pope Benedict, never stops calling us to come back, to grow in his love, to "concretely" help our neighbors and to live in the joy of grace.

The possibility of conversion, “demands that we learn to read the facts of life in the perspective of the faith, encouraged also by the holy fear of God."

In the midst of sufferings and mourning, "true wisdom," concluded the Pope, is being able to realize "the precariousness of existence and reading the human story with the eyes of God, who, wishing always and only the good of his children, for an inscrutable design of his love, sometimes permits us to be tested by pain to guide them to a greater good.

The Holy Father prayed for the aid of Most Holy Mary to bring all Christians back to the Lord and to support us in "our decision to renounce evil and accept with faith the will of God in our lives."

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 7, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that God is good and cannot will evil, though in his plan of love, he sometimes allows his children to be tried through suffering to lead them to a greater good.

The Pope reflected today on the mystery of suffering when he addressed those gathered in St. Peter's Square to pray the midday Angelus.

The Holy Father spoke of the passage from today's Gospel, which recounts Pontius Pilate's order to have some Galileans killed in the Temple, and the collapse of a tower on some passers-by.

Since people had concluded that these deaths were the "effect of divine punishment, Jesus restores the true image of God, who is good and cannot will evil," the Pontiff explained.

He continued: "Jesus invites us to interpret these facts differently, connecting them with conversion: misfortunes, sorrowful events, should not arouse curiosity in us or a seeking of people presumed to be guilty, but they must be occasions for reflecting, for overcoming the illusion of pretending to live without God, and for reinforcing, with the Lord’s help, the commitment to change our life.

"In the face of sin, God shows himself to be full of mercy and he does not fail to call sinners to avoid evil, to grow in his love and to concretely help our neighbor in need, to live the joy of grace and not risk eternal death."

The Holy Father added that the "possibility of conversion entails that we learn to read the events of life in the light of faith, animated by the holy fear of God."

He said that in the presence of suffering or grief, "true wisdom is to let oneself be called from the precariousness of existence and to read human history with God’s eyes, who, always and only wanting the good of his children, by an inscrutable plan of his love, sometimes allows them to be tried through suffering to lead them to a greater good."

Related Links:

Homily at San Giovanni della Croce

Pope thanks Italian Civil Protection workers (remarks)

Anglo-Catholics seal the deal with Rome

German abuse investigation does NOT coincide with Maestro Professor Georg Ratzinger's tenure

Full Angelus:

Church Teaching On Socialism-Pius IX Thru Leo XIII

In order from top to bottom:

Pope Leo XIII
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius XI

Catechism 1883:

Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."

Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, On the Nature of True Liberty:

Denial of Divine Authority

What naturalists or rationalists aim at in philosophy, that the supporters of Liberalism, carrying out the principles laid down by naturalism, are attempting in the domain of morality and politics. The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth.

Hence, these followers of Liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this is not difficult to foresee, especially when society is in question.

For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs.

Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority. But, from what has been said, it is clear that all this is in contradiction to reason. To refuse any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God and Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other, is plainly repugnant to the nature, not only of man, but of all created things; for, of necessity, all effects must in some proper way be connected with their cause; and it belongs to the perfection of every nature to contain itself within that sphere and grade which the order of nature has assigned to it, namely, that the lower should be subject and obedient to the higher.

The results of this denial

Moreover, besides this, a doctrine of such character is most hurtful both to individuals and to the State. For, once ascribe to human reason the only authority to decide what is true and what is good, and the real distinction between good and evil is destroyed; honor and dishonor differ not in their nature, but in the opinion and judgment of each one; pleasure is the measure of what is lawful; and, given a code of morality which can have little or no power to restrain or quiet the unruly propensities of man, a way is naturally opened to universal corruption.

With reference also to public affairs: authority is severed from the true and natural principle whence it derives its efficacy for the common good; and the law determining what it is right to do and avoid doing is at the mercy of the majority. Now, this is simply a road leading straight to tyranny.

The empire of God over man and civil society once repudiated, it follows that religion, as a public institution, can have no claim to exist, and that everything that belongs to religion will be treated with complete indifference. Furthermore, with ambitious designs on sovereignty, tumult and sedition will be common among the people; and when duty and conscience cease to appeal to them, there will be nothing to hold them back but force, which of itself alone is powerless to keep their covetousness in check. (On the Nature of True Liberty, Pope Leo XIII, #14-16)

Communism, from a Catholic perspective:

Communism is the most logical and extreme form of Socialism, outcome of the revolutionary theory of Karl Marx. The underlying philosophy is materialistic and determinist; the social order evolves through economic struggles between the classes in the direction of the violent revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat, to be followed by a "withering away" of the state and the substitution of a society where ownership of all things is common, where all will work voluntarily, and all take freely of goods produced according to his needs.

As well as the abstract theory of Communism there must, since 1917, be considered the concrete attempt to apply its principals in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where one aspect of it can be summed up in the words of Stalin:

"Scientifically speaking, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a power which is restricted by no laws, hampered by no rules, and based directly on violence."

Whether in theory or in practice, the Church utterly rejects Communism on account of its errors, notably: its atheistic materialism, its doctrine and practice of class-war, its denial of the rights and liberties of the human person, including the natural right to possess some measure of private property, and its contempt for good morals under several heads.

Communism has been repeatedly condemned by the Holy See, notably by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical letter, Divini Redemptoris. (Definition from A Catholic Dictionary, 1951)

# "This all too imminent danger, Venerable Brethren, as you have already surmised, is bolshevistic and atheistic Communism, which aims at upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations of Christian civilization" Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "With reference to Communism, Our Venerable Predecessor, Pius IX, of holy memory, as early as 1846 pronounced a solemn condemnation, which he confirmed in the words of the Syllabus directed against "that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself."[1] Later on, another of Our predecessors, the immortal Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, defined Communism as "the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin."" Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "In 1924 when Our relief-mission returned from the Soviet Union We condemned Communism in a special Allocution[3] which We addressed to the whole world. In our Encyclicals Miserentissimus Redemptor,[4] Quadragesimo Anno,[5] Caritate Christi,[6] Acerba Animi,[7] Dilectissima Nobis,[8] We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in Spain." Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "In fact, the most persistent enemies of the Church, who from Moscow are directing the struggle against Christian civilization, themselves bear witness, by their unceasing attacks in word and act, that even to this hour the Papacy has continued faithfully to protect the sanctuary of the Christian religion, and that it has called public attention to the perils of Communism more frequently and more effectively than any other public authority on earth." Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man.

Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man.

Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents.

What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement." Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "Such, Venerable Brethren, is the new gospel which bolshevistic and atheistic Communism offers the world as the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation! It is a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose of the State; because it denies the rights, dignity and liberty of human personality." Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless" Encyclical On Atheistic Communism by Pope Pius XI, 1937

# "You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and to draw them over to the wicked theories of this Socialism and Communism, by confusing them with perverted teachings. But these enemies realize that they cannot hope for any agreement with the Catholic Church, which allows neither tampering with truths proposed by faith, nor adding any new human fictions to them.

This is why they try to draw the Italian people over to Protestantism, which in their deceit they repeatedly declare to be only another form of the same true religion of Christ, thereby just as pleasing to God. Meanwhile they know full well that the chief principle of the Protestant tenets, i.e., that the holy scriptures are to be understood by the personal judgment of the individual, will greatly assist their impious cause. They are confident that they can first misuse the holy scriptures by wrong interpretation to spread their errors and claim God's authority while doing it. Then they can cause men to call into doubt the common principles of justice and honor" Encyclical On the Church in the Pontifical States by Pope Pius IX, 1849

# Like every other apostolate, the lay apostolate has two objectives: to preserve and to win over. The present-day Church must give the closest attention to both of these. Putting it succinctly, Christ's Church has no intention of yielding ground to her avowed enemy, atheistic communism, without a struggle. This battle will be fought to the end, but with the weapons of Christ!" Encyclical On Guiding Principles of the Lay Apostolate by Pope Pius XII to the Second World Congress of the Lay Apostolate, 1957

# "There are some who show themselves fearful and uncertain when faced with the wickedness of communism which aims to rob of their faith the very ones to whom it promises material prosperity. But documents recently issued by this Holy See have shown clearly the way to be followed, the path from which no one must stray unless he wishes to fail in his duty" Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Pius XII To the Clergy of the Entire World

# "Moreover, not content with removing religion from public society, they wish to banish it also from private families. For, teaching and professing the most fatal error of "Communism and Socialism," they assert that "domestic society or the family derives the whole principle of its existence from the civil law alone; and, consequently, that on civil law alone depend all rights of parents over their children, and especially that of providing for education." Encyclical On Condemning Current Errors by Pope Pius IX, 1864

# "To this goal also tends the unspeakable doctrine of Communism, as it is called, a doctrine most opposed to the very natural law. For if this doctrine were accepted, the complete destruction of everyone's laws, government, property, and even of human society itself would follow." Encyclical On Faith and Religion by Pope Pius IX, 1846

Related Links:

Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on 28 December 1878

Pius XII Saved Close To A Million Jews

Update 1:

NYT Profiles Gary Krupp:

LONG BEACH, N.Y. — At home here on Long Island, he is Gary L. Krupp, medical equipment dealer, now retired after a career of ups and downs. He shares one car and a small house in a no-frills neighborhood with his wife, Meredith, and wryly describes himself as “an average schlemiel, just a Jewish kid from Queens.”

At the Vatican, he is known as Commendatore Gary Krupp, Knight Commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. For short, the Swiss Guard and cardinals address him as “Your Excellency.”

It is a compelling tale in itself: how Mr. Krupp became only the seventh Jewish papal knight in history, dubbed by Pope John Paul II in 2000 for persuading American manufacturers to donate $12 million worth of high-tech medical equipment to an Italian hospital.

But the more curious and complicated story is the transformation Mr. Krupp has undergone since. With no previous training or special interest in history, he has emerged as the Vatican’s most outspoken Jewish ally in a heated debate at the crux of tensions between Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders and historians: whether Pope Pius XII, the pontiff during World War II, did as much as he could have to save Jews from the Holocaust.

Mr. Krupp, 62, has raised enough money through the Pave the Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization he founded in 2002, to travel the globe, hire researchers to scour historic documents, sponsor a three-day symposium in Rome and publish four editions of a glossy, illustrated volume of evidence supporting his view that Pius XII spared no effort to save the lives of persecuted Jews.

He has pressed his case in a recent op-ed article for The New York Post, and in interviews with conservative Catholic television programs and Web sites, which have cited him as an expert on Pius.

And in a special audience at the papal summer residence in September 2008, Pope Benedict XVI thanked Mr. Krupp for bringing attention to “what Pius XII achieved for the Jews.”

Historians and religious leaders around the world have taken increasing notice of Mr. Krupp’s work — some with alarm, some with pleasure — because his advocacy has coincided with efforts within the Vatican to promote the canonization of Pius. Pope Benedict nudged that process forward in December by affirming Pius’s “heroic virtues” and pronouncing him “venerable,” a step on the path toward sainthood.

The controversy over Pius’s wartime conduct had stalled his elevation for so many years that Pope Benedict’s action shocked scholars on both sides of the debate. And while agreeing on little else, some in both camps credit Mr. Krupp for breaking the logjam.

“I wrote 10 books about Pius XII, but in all these years I never knew how to shake things up for the cause like this wonderful man, Mr. Krupp,” said Sister Margherita Marchione, a professor emerita at Fairleigh Dickinson University who is considered the foremost defender of Pius outside the Vatican.

Deborah Dwork, a professor of Holocaust history at Clark University, put it another way: “Pope Benedict would not have had the chutzpah to go forward with the veneration process if not for this P.R. work Gary Krupp does.”

In a dispute decades long, the church has maintained that Pius XII supported efforts throughout the war to hide Jews or help them escape, but worked behind the scenes to avoid retaliation from Nazi and Italian Fascist authorities.

Holocaust scholars, who consider Pius, with his worldwide network of diplomats and clergy, to be among the first world leaders to have grasped the scope of the Jewish persecution, have asked why he did not condemn it publicly. But most consider that and other questions unanswerable until the Vatican opens the complete archives of Pius’s papacy. Although a selection of those papers has been published, the Vatican has kept most off limits to outside researchers.

How Mr. Krupp happened onto this muddy battlefield is hard to explain, even for Mr. Krupp, a husky man who sometimes seems almost possessed, bounding up and down the stairs of his split-level house to retrieve copies of documents or books to make his points.

“Believe me, I never dreamed I would be defending a man who, when I was growing up, we believed he was a Nazi sympathizer,” he said.

Being knighted thrust Mr. Krupp into the ranks of some of the world’s richest and most prominent people, living and dead — Bob Hope and Rupert Murdoch included — who received the knighthood of St. Gregory the Great for serving the church in some way. Unlike the vast majority of them, however, Mr. Krupp said he saw his elevation as an opportunity to become a conduit between the Catholic Church and the world. In 2005, he brokered an agreement with the Vatican Library to lend a rare set of manuscripts by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides to the Israel Museum. And gradually he decided he liked promoting interreligious understanding more than he liked selling medical equipment.

His Pave the Way Foundation became a full-time occupation in 2005, around the time a friend at the Vatican suggested that he might help clear up misunderstandings between Catholics and Jews about Pius. Mr. Krupp began collecting and underwriting research.

“Did you know Pius XII saved more than 860,000 Jews from the death camps? I mean, I never knew that before. It’s character assassination — a shanda — that so many Jews say he was an anti-Semite,” said Mr. Krupp, using a Yiddish word for disgrace.

Several historians said the 860,000 figure that Mr. Krupp cited appeared frequently in biographies of Pius XII, but had never been documented.

“Listen to me: Pius XII was the greatest hero of World War II,” Mr. Krupp said recently. “He saved more Jews than Roosevelt, Churchill and all the rest of them combined. We should not let him be an issue between Catholics and Jews.”

He added: “And I predict this: Historians are never going to solve this whole problem. There will always be questions.”

A defense of Krupp can be found here.




The Truth Regarding Pope Pius XII:

The word “hero” so often conjures up images of the brash and the bold. We may think of Audie Murphy’s WWII exploits, the Spartans at Thermopylae, or the doomed holdouts at the Alamo. But then there are the quiet heroes, people such as Oskar Schindler. Ever since Schindler’s List hit the silver screen in 1993, his clandestine efforts resulting in the rescue of almost 1,200 Jews from Nazi death camps have been well known.

Yet that dark time birthed another quiet hero, one who saved as many as 860,000 Jewish lives. Today, however, few know of his accomplishments, few sing his praises. And Steven Spielberg will undoubtedly never make a movie lauding him. On the contrary, this man is roundly maligned as a WWII villain who was at best indifferent to the plight of the people in the Nazis’ crosshairs. This man is Eugenio Pacelli. But he is better known as Pope Pius XII.

By the lights of the popular culture and the increasingly unpopular media, it is a “fact” that Pius was practically a Nazi collaborator. British journalist John Cornwell’s book Hitler’s Pope got a lot of press after its 1999 publication, and self-professed “anti-theist” Christopher Hitchens never misses a chance to highlight the papacy’s supposed WWII sins and silence. It has become atheist boilerplate, the barbarous vehicle through which barbarian historians sack modern-day Rome.

Beliefs Not Borne Out But the embrace of this impious Pius narrative extends far beyond activists and atheists, to people of good will. And one of them was a man named Gary L. Krupp. As a Jewish fellow raised in Queens, New York City, he had learned much about the Holocaust and knew who its main players were. He also knew who its monsters were — or, at least, he thought he did. He thus grew up “hating the name Pius XII,” as he put it. Yet he also had a certain passion: building bridges among people of faith by eliminating non-theological differences among religions. To this end he and his wife, Meredith, founded the Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF) in 2003. And, to this end — and despite his prejudices — the couple decided to investigate the story of Pope Pius XII.

After poring over literally thousands of documents during an exhaustive investigation, what the Krupps found was, to use Mr. Krupp’s characterization, nothing less than shocking. Far from being the callous Nazi sympathizer of many people’s nightmares (and some people’s fantasies), Pius was a hero who worked behind the scenes, quietly and diligently, saving lives and risking his own. Treating this matter just this past December in a New York Post piece entitled “Friend to the Jews: Pius XII’s real wartime record,” Krupp revealed some of what shocked him so, writing:

It is unquestionable that Pius XII intervened to save countless Jews at a time most nations — even FDR’s America — refused to accept these refugees.... He smuggled Jews into the Americas and Asia. He ordered the lifting of cloister for men and women to enter monasteries, convents and churches to hide 7,000 Jews of Rome in a single day.

Krupp provided a few more details in a Daily News piece entitled “Stop persecuting Pius — WWII pontiff is branded ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ but he did much to save the Jews,” revealing:

More evidence shows Pius secretly moved Jews out of Europe. We [at the PTWF] conducted dozens of video interviews, among them a witness account of a priest who revealed a secret “underground railroad,” directly ordered by the Pope, sending more than 10,000 Jews to the U.S. via the Dominican Republic. Many countries would not accept “Jews,” so they were given false baptismal papers to travel as Catholics.

Pius successfully stopped the deportation of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews when he appealed to the Regent of Hungary. Similarly, he desperately tried to impact the deportation policies of many other countries to, in his words, “save this vibrant community.”

Yet, while Krupp is currently the most visible of the pope’s defenders, he is far from the first. Another is Rabbi David G. Dalin, Ph.D., a widely published scholar of American Judaism and author of the 2005 book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope. He provided a trove of information about Pius’ efforts in his piece “A Righteous Gentile: Pope Pius XII and the Jews.” And here is a small sampling:

Throughout World War II, he [Pius] spoke out on behalf of Europe’s Jews. When Pius learned of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, he urged the bishops of Europe to do all they could to save the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution. On January 19, 1940, at the Pope’s instruction, Vatican radio and L’Osservatore Romano revealed to the world “the dreadful cruelties of uncivilized tyranny” that the Nazis were inflicting on Jewish and Catholic Poles.

... In June 1942, Pius spoke out against the mass deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied France, further instructing his Papal Nuncio in Paris to protest to Marshal Henri Petain, Vichy France’s Chief of State, against “the inhuman arrests and deportations of Jews from the French occupied zone to Silesia and parts of Russia.”

The London Times of October 1, 1942, explicitly praises him for his condemnation of Nazism and his public support for the Jewish victims of Nazi terror. “A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession,” noted the Times, “leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestations in the suppression of national liberties and in the persecution of the Jewish race.”

Pius XII’s Christmas addresses of 1941 and 1942, broadcast over Vatican radio to millions throughout the world, also help to refute the fallacious claim that Pope Pius was “silent.” Indeed, as The New York Times described Pius’ 1941 Christmas address in its editorial the following day, it specifically applauded the Pope, as a “lonely” voice of public protest against Hitler.... The Pope’s Christmas message of 1941, as reported by The New York Times and other newspapers, was understood at the time to be a clear condemnation of Nazi attacks on Europe’s Jews.

Hitler’s Nemesis In fact, not only was Pius not silent, he was passionately opposed to Hitler at a time when many other notables — such as former U.K. Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Joseph Kennedy, J. Paul Getty, future Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide, and writer Gertrude Stein — supported the German leader.

For example, a close collaborator of Pius’ named Sister Pascalina and other witnesses reported that, while still Cardinal Pacelli, he said of Hitler, “Everything he says and writes has the mark of his egocentrism; this man is capable of trampling on corpses.” Even more significant is a confidential letter sent to Washington by U.S. consul general A.W. Klieforth. Recording a 1937 conversation with Pacelli, he wrote (as rendered by World Over Live host Raymond Arroyo during a January 10, 2010 interview with Krupp), “His [Pius’] views, while they are well known, surprised me by their extremeness. He said that he opposed, unalterably, every compromise with National Socialism. He regarded Hitler not only as an untrustworthy scoundrel but as a fundamentally wicked person. He did not believe that Hitler was capable of moderation, and in spite of appearances would end up in the camp of left-wing Nazi extremists.”

The pope had also said, according to Krupp in the same interview, that it was better to lose young Catholics than to submit to Nazism.

Yet Pius’ charitable behavior toward Jews (which merely reflected his charity for all) greatly predated, and outlived, the Nazi menace. Pius’ closest friend growing up was a Jewish boy named Guido Mendes, and when Mendes’ life was later imperiled during WWII, Pius would intercede and rescue him (Mendes’ affection for his great friend was evident in an article he wrote the year of the pope’s death).

Additionally, to cite just a few more examples: As Nuncio Pacelli in 1917, he intervened with the Germans to prevent the Ottoman Turks from exterminating the Palestinian Jews; in 1930, he supported orders excommunicating anyone who joined Hitler’s party; he threw his weight behind the defeat of a Polish anti-koshering law in 1938; and at the United Nations in 1947, Pius encouraged Catholic nations to support the creation of the state of Israel.

Then, returning to the fruits of the pope’s wartime actions, I can add a somewhat personal note to this story. I had a Jewish relative who was a little girl in France during the Nazi occupation, and I had the opportunity to get to know her because she survived those harrowing days. And she only survived them because she was hidden and protected by Catholic priests.

Revisionist History Now, all this runs so contrary to the modern Pius narrative that some may wonder where it’s coming from. Is this a matter of revisionist history? It is — only, the revisionism occurred long ago.

If Pius was Hitler’s pope, he sure fooled Hitler. As to this, The Tablet of London reported that Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels distributed pamphlets referring to Pius as the “pro-Jewish Pope.” Then, after Pius’ 1942 Christmas message, Germany’s Reich Central Security Office issued a report stating, “The Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order ... and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.”

And, writes Sister Margherita Marchione, Ph.D. in her piece “Three Jews and a Pope,” “The Nazi plan, reported in the July 5, 1998 issue of the Milan newspaper Il Giornale ... described Hilter’s [sic] plan to ‘massacre Pius XII with the entire Vatican,’ because of the ‘Papal protest in favor of the Jews.’”

And Pius must have fooled all the newspapers as well. Krupp points out that during the course of the PTWF’s research, they examined hundreds of WWII-era articles on Pius and found not one negative piece. Thus, ironically, while the New York Times has given much ink and credence to recent anti-Pius books, it is contradicting the findings of its own WWII-generation reporters.

Most significant, though, are the pronouncements and behavior of a veritable who’s who of WWII-era Jewish figures. For example, Golda Meir praised Pius, saying, “When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the dec-ade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims.”

Albert Einstein was quoted in Time magazine in 1940 as stating, “Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth.”

Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran of Bucharest, Rumania, wrote in an April 7, 1944 statement, “In the most difficult hours which we Jews of Rumania have passed through, the generous assistance of the Holy See was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experience because of the concern of the Supreme Pontiff.”

These voices were joined by contemporaries such as Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, Israel’s first President Chaim Weizmann, Israeli Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, and Jewish historian Pinchas Lapide, just to name a handful. In fact, some prominent Jews actually suggested that a forest of 860,000 trees be planted on the hills of Judea in Pius’ honor.

The pièce de résistance, however, would have to be Israel Zoller, Chief Rabbi of Rome from 1939 to 1945. After the war, he actually converted to Catholicism and adopted the name Eugenio Zolli — in honor of none other than Pope Pius XII.

Given this, what do you call it when many today stubbornly insist they know better than every prominent Jewish voice of Pius’s time? Well, Jewish folks have a word for it: chutzpah. To use another Yiddish term, though, how did all this narishkeit, or foolishness, surrounding Pius get started? Believe it or not, it began with one man, one day, and one play.

Pius’ reputation remained intact until about five years after his death. But then on February 20, 1963, The Deputy opened in Berlin. Written by leftist playwright Rolf Hochhuth, it depicted Pius as a self-serving man who failed to act or protest during the Holocaust, a man who subordinated the inklings of the Holy Spirit to the spirit of expediency. The play would ultimately be translated into more than 20 languages, and its narrative would metastasize even more aggressively. It illustrates the influence one man can have.

Persecuting a Pope Then again, if a story that broke in 2007 is to be believed, maybe it doesn’t. That year, the highest-ranking communist intelligence officer to ever defect to the West, Ion Mihai Pacepa, claimed that the attack on Pius was no accident — it was Soviet agitprop.

He revealed, wrote John Follain in the Sunday Times of London, “that he was involved in the operation code-named Seat12, a Kremlin scheme launched in 1960 to portray Pius XII ‘as a cold-hearted Nazi sympathiser.’ The result, according to Pacepa, was the 1963 play The Deputy, by Rolf Hochhuth.” Oh, I should add that the motto of this Cold War plot was “Dead men cannot defend themselves.” No, they can’t — but men with dead souls can attack very well.

While the hard-left Hochhuth certainly needed no encouragement to write such propaganda (except, perhaps, for some convenient misinformation “finding” him), should Pacepa’s story surprise anyone? After all, Pius and the church at the time were staunchly and explicitly anti-communist, and Catholic teaching specifically condemns communism.

In fact, so effective was the church’s opposition that Mikhail Gorbachev credited it as being instrumental in the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying in 1992, “What has happened in Eastern Europe in recent years would not have been possible without the presence of this Pope [John Paul II].”

The point is that the communists viewed the Catholic Church as a major (if not the main) impediment to their aims. Also remember that, as Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov pointed out years ago, 85 percent of the KGB’s resources were devoted not to intrigue but to subversion, efforts at, as he put it, “demoralization.” That is, efforts such as the attack on Pius.

But as Bezmenov would also point out, most cultural havoc wreaked upon the West is done by Westerners to Westerners. Thus, however great (or minor) the communist influence over the character assassination of Pius, there is no doubt that it is covered with Western fingerprints. And why did so many glom on to The Deputy’s malicious lies?

Simple: The time was right. Secularist forces were on the march in the 1960s, hungry for any hammer suitable for bludgeoning traditionalist institutions. As University of Mississippi law professor and author of Righteous Gentiles: How Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Church Saved Half a Million Jews From the Nazis Richard Rychlak explained in a January 2006 Zenit interview:

Many of the critics [of Pius] share a view of the world that runs counter to the Catholic Church, and they have tried to advance their view and discredit the Church by denigrating Pope Pius XII.

Read through to the end of most of these [anti-Pius] books and you will find that the authors are critical not only of Pope Pius XII, but also the late Pope John Paul II, the positions expressed by Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, traditional Catholic doctrines of papal supremacy, the all-male priesthood and especially Catholic sexual teachings.

In fact, as Rychlak points out, the Catholic Church is being attacked for the same reason Christianity is always targeted: It advances the concept of Absolute Truth. For this reason, he writes, “it is their main target — not Pius or any other -individual.”

It’s Nothing Personal In reality, many of Pius’ critics couldn’t care less about the pope any more than they do about the truth concerning him. Rather, he is a vehicle. If they can discredit the church by impugning Pius, they will do that; and if they could discredit the church by lauding Pius, they would do that. Moreover, there is no question in my mind that the agenda-driven, secularist critics care not a whit about the Holocaust, either. It is also a vehicle.

And as an example, we need look no further than the impious playwright Rolf Hochhuth. To this day he is great friends with David Irving — the man who recently completed a prison sentence in Austria for Holocaust denial. In fact, Hochhuth was accused of anti-Semitism himself in 2005 when he defended Irving’s statement, “More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz,” by dismissing it as black humor.

Then there is an irony here: If you’re the church, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Moderns lament those medieval days when popes and prelates melded with princes and politics, but then turn about and say that the church didn’t do “enough” to stop the owners of arguably the most powerful military on Earth. But while nothing is ever enough to one bent on criticism, the days of a pope summoning Crusader armies to vanquish the barbarians du jour are long gone.

This brings us back to quiet heroism and Oskar Schindler. Krupp has pointed out that in Judaism “the highest form of charity is anonymous charity,” and he says that this is what Pius is “guilty” of. Yet anonymous help is sometimes driven by necessity as much as nobility. Sure, we often like our heroes spitting in the eye of 1,000 devils while dodging 1,000 bullets, but bravery that kills innocents is no virtue.

Many have observed that whenever the church spoke out, reprisals against Christians and Jews alike intensified. And this could only be observed because the church did speak out. This — and the fact that a dead savior saves no one — is the reason why, like Schindler, Pius had to work his miracles in secret.

Unlike Schindler, though, who is admired for using a pretense of friendship with Nazis to save 1,200 lives, Pius is condemned for using an occasional pretense of neutrality to save the better part of one million.

Yet, in trying to correct the record here, one encounters a very difficult stumbling block. It’s called the Big Lie technique. It was articulated by Adolf Hitler himself in Mein Kampf when he wrote, “It would never come into their [average people’s] heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Now, what does it say about Pius’ Machiavellian critics when, in order to paint him as a Nazi collaborator, they were willing to infamously distort the truth?

You can answer that yourself. As for the Big Lie that Pope Pius XII didn’t do enough, we should ask the big question: Who did more? One of Pius’ former enemies, Gary Krupp, knows. He put it this way, “Through our research of documented proof, we have discovered that secretly, he saved more Jews than all of the world’s religious and political leaders combined.”

That is a big truth. It’s big, it’s beautiful, and maybe it will even be, one day, known.

H/T: Mick Spadea

Related Video:

Karol Wojtyla's Belgian College Experience

(left) Entrance to the monastery of S. Carlo by Francesco Borromini; (centre) entrance to SS. Gioacchino e Anna; (right) entrance to the Belgian Seminar

In the XVIIIth century there were at least seven monasteries aligned along Strada Pia. Almost at the same time as the construction of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, the Carmelites built next to it a small monastery and a church dedicated to SS. Anna e Gioacchino. The church was inside the monastery and it did not have a façade, although it had a direct access from the street. In 1846 the monastery and the church were acquired by the Belgian Seminar which still makes use of part of the monastery. The church houses the tombs of several Belgian soldiers who served in the Papal Army and fell at Mentana in 1867 during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX.

Picture/caption courtesy of Rome Lover

B16 Hails St. Bonaventure-General Audience

Pope Benedict XVI smiles as he leads his weekly audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican March 3, 2010. (Daylife-Reuters)

All pictures courtesy of Daylife





VATICAN CITY, 3 MAR 2010 (VIS) - In his catechesis during this morning's general audience, Benedict XVI turned his attention to St. Bonaventure who, he said, "makes me feel a certain nostalgia because, as a young scholar, my research focused on this author, who is particularly dear to me".

Bonaventure, who was born around the year 1217 in the Italian town of Bagnoregio and died in 1274, was one of the great Christian figures who contributed to the "harmony between faith and culture" in thirteenth-century Europe. He was "a man of action and contemplation, of profound piety and prudent government".

Baptised with the name of Giovanni da Fidanza, he suffered an illness during childhood from which he nearly died, but his mother entrusted him to the recently-canonised St. Francis of Assisi and the young Giovanni recovered. This event marked his whole life. During his education in Paris, where he studied theology, he decided to enter a Franciscan convent and took the name of Bonaventure. In the first years of his religious life he stood out for his knowledge of Sacred Scripture, the 'Sentences' of Peter Lombard, and other great theologians of his age.

Bonaventure's book entitled "Evangelical Perfection" was his response to critics of the Minor Orders who questioned their right to teach in universities and even the authenticity of their consecrated life. In that work the saint showed "how the Minor Orders, and especially the Friars Minor, by practicing the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, were in fact following the counsels of the Gospel itself", the Pope explained.

"Over and above these historical circumstances, Bonaventure's teachings in this book and in his own life still retain all their validity", he said. "The Church is enlightened and beautified by the faithfulness to their vocation of these sons and daughters of hers, who not only put the evangelical precepts into practice but, by God's grace, are called to observe the evangelical counsels and thus bear witness - with their poor, chaste and obedient lifestyle - to the fact that the Gospel is a source of joy and perfection".

When in 1257 Bonaventure was elected minister general of his order, the Franciscans numbered more than 30,000; most of them were in Europe but they also had a presence in North Africa, the Middle East and China. "It was necessary", said the Holy Father, "to consolidate this growth and, especially, to give it a unity of action and spirit, in complete faithfulness to the charism of St. Francis. In fact, various ways of interpreting the saint of Assisi's message had arisen among his followers and there was a real risk of internal division".

In order to preserve the saint's authentic charism, his life and teachings, Bonaventure "zealously gathered documents concerning Francis and carefully listened to the recollections of those who had known him personally". Thus the "Legenda Maior" came into being, which is considered the most complete biography of St. Francis.

Bonaventure presents Francis as "a man who passionately sought Christ. With the love that leads to imitation, he entirely conformed himself to Him. Bonaventure indicated this as a living ideal for all the followers of St. Francis.

"Such an ideal, which remains valid for all Christians, yesterday, today and always, was also suggested as a programme for the Church in the third millennium by my venerable predecessor John Paul II", Pope Benedict added.

Almost at the end of his life, Bonaventure was consecrated a bishop and appointed a cardinal by Pope Gregory X, who entrusted him with the preparations for the Council of Lyons which sought to reunify the Latin and Greek Churches. However Bonaventure never saw the results of his labours because he died while the council was still underway.

The Pope concluded his reflections with a call to take up the heritage of this saint and doctor of the Church, who "reminds us of the meaning of our lives with the following words: 'On earth we can contemplate the immensity of divine things by reason and admiration; in the heavenly homeland, on the other hand, we can view them, when we will have been made similar to God and by ecstasy will enter into the joy of God'".

Pope Travels To Spain In November, AB Chaput Video

Pope Traveling to Spain:

Pope Benedict XVI will this year visit Spain, which last month passed a law easing access to abortion over fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican announced Wednesday.

Benedict's second trip to the predominantly Catholic country as pontiff will take place on November 6 and 7, with stops in Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona, the Vatican said.

Spain's new law allows abortion on demand up to the 14th week of pregnancy and up to 22 weeks if there is a risk to the mother's health or if the foetus has serious problems, in line with most European Union nations.

But hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid in October to condemn the abortion liberalisation by the socialist government.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has been at loggerheads with Spain's conservative Catholic Church heirarchy since he came to power in 2004, moving to transform Spanish society with reforms including same-sex marriages and fast-track divorce.

Benedict addressed a message of support to a family values rally of Catholics in Madrid in December, saying a family was "founded on the marriage between a man and a woman."

One of the greatest services Christians could perform was to raise a "family based on marriage between a man and a woman... because it is of paramount importance for the present and the future of humanity," he said.

The Vatican has long been concerned about what Spanish bishops describe as militant secularism in Spain and its influence in Europe and former Spanish colonies in Latin America.

Spain's health ministry last year mounted a high-profile challenge to controversial remarks by Pope Benedict during a trip to Africa last year when he said condoms aggravated efforts to battle AIDS.

It said it would send one million condoms to Africa, which has been worst hit by the disease.

The pope said on his first trip to Africa last March that the solution to the AIDS pandemic lies in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer."

The Vatican opposes contraception and has long argued that sexual abstinence is the best way to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Benedict, 82, will go on November 6 to Santiago de Compostela, which during the Middle Ages was Christendom's third most important place of pilgrimage after Jerusalem and Rome.

Officials predict around 10 million people will visit the city this year because it is a jubilee year, when pilgrims believe they are granted remission for their sins.

Jubilee years occur when Saint James the Apostle's feast day, July 25, falls on a Sunday.

The faithful believe James's remains lie in the city's cathedral, which is a World Heritage site.

In Barcelona on November 7, the pontiff will inaugurate modernist Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi's unfinished church, the Sagrada Familia, where part of the interior is scheduled to open to the public by September.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed the visit, already announced in Madrid, to reporters.

Benedict visited Spain in 2006, the second year of his papacy, speaking out against sweeping secularism at a mass in eastern Valencia.

The visit was designed to galvanise Church opposition to what Benedict called the "rapid secularisation" of the former Catholic bastion.

Benedict condemned the "excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual" in contemporary culture in Spain, where 80 percent of the population consider themselves Catholic but only one in five attend mass.

Read more about the Holy Father's visit here and here.

Related Links:

CTV going HD

Archbishop Chaput's Houston speech:



Crucifix Appeal accepted:

STRASBOURG, France, MARCH 3, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A five-judge panel at the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights accepted Tuesday an appeal filed by the Italian government to a November ruling that deemed crucifixes in public schools a violation of freedom.

Arguing that the crucifix is a symbol of Italian culture, the government on Jan. 28 filed an appeal of the European Court ruling. The Grand Chamber's acceptance of the appeal is the first step in the process; in the coming months, the chamber will give its ruling in a final judgement.

“This is the first step of the victory, indeed it is already a victory in this case," said Grégor Puppinck, director of the European Center for Law and Justice. "The Court has recognized that the November decision raised serious legal issues and must be reconsidered due to its lack of case law reference and due consideration of the margin of appreciation. We can consider that the Grand Chamber decision will be the real first true decision of this case.”

The court's November ruling was criticized as being based on a negative understanding of religious freedom, and as overstepping the cultural and religious traditions of individual nations.

The European Center for Law and Justice is encouraging other nations to associate themselves to the case as third parties, since a final ruling will be binding for them as well. Nations such as Poland and Romania often have religious symbols in schools, the center pointed out; and nations with a large presence of Orthodox Churches are deeply influenced by religious traditions.

“It is very important in this context that the European court respects the spiritual and moral values on which it is based," Puppinck affirmed. “If the court ruled against its own spiritual and moral foundation it would ruin this European system which was founded to protect human rights.”

New Vatican iPhone Apps

Edward Pentin:

News of the first Vatican-sponsored application for the iPhone made me wonder what’s needed for app developers to gain Vatican endorsement for their products, or for new digital media in general.

The iPhone app, sponsored by the Vatican Observatory Foundation, is the first to come from a Vatican-affiliated institution. But the Vatican has also been giving its approval to independent app developers, most notably the iBreviary which was developed by Fr. Paolo Padrini, an Italian priest, and an app from H2O news which offers video and audio coverage of the Vatican.

According to Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Vatican will “approve or sanction” new apps or other digital media depending on their content. “Certain initiatives will begin locally and if they’re relevant and have potential, they may then be taken up to a more centralized level,” he said. “They grow from the bottom out and some of them will get retrospective sanctioning and some of them won’t.”

Perhaps a good example of what to avoid was a ‘Vatican’ Twitter page which looked so authentic that it fooled many people, including me. As it was using feeds from Vatican Radio without permission, Father Federico Lombardi, the director of Vatican Radio, has been looking into it but may take over the service, or develop a bona fide Twitter service of the Vatican.

“Sometimes the idea is not bad and there’s no hostile intention and we think we could actually take it on ourselves,” said Msgr. Tighe.

He said other Vatican departments, not the Pontifical Council, are currently in discussion with other developers about offering endorsements for their products, and that the Vatican may even be developing some of its own in addition to a Vatican Twitter page, and other digital media it already runs such as the Vatican YouTube channel.

In the meantime, here’s a helpful update of the latest Catholic apps on the iPhone from Faith and Family Magazine.

Sunday Angelus-Chile, Iraq, Galician Leader Visit

Pope Benedict XVI poses with Galician President Alberto Nunez Feijoo (R) during a meeting at the Vatican March 1, 2010. (Daylife)









VATICAN CITY, 28 FEB 2010 (VIS) - At midday today, the Holy Father appeared at the window of his study to pray the Angelus with faithful gathered below in St. Peter's Square.

Benedict XVI began his remarks by referring to his recently-concluded spiritual exercises with members of the Roman Curia. "We spent", he said, "days of meditation and intense prayer, during which we reflected on the priestly vocation, in keeping with the Year for Priests currently being celebrated by the Church".

Commenting then on today's liturgy, in which St. Luke recounts the episode of the Transfiguration, the Pope explained how the Evangelist "describes the event using two elements: Jesus face which changed appearance, and His clothes which became dazzling white, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, symbol of the Law and the Prophets. The three disciples present at the scene were overcome with sleep. Theirs was the attitude of people who, though witnesses of divine prodigies, fail to understand. Only by struggling against their torpor could Peter, James and John 'see' the glory of Jesus".

A little later, as Peter speaks to Jesus in amazement, a cloud came and covered them. "It was a cloud which, while covering, revealed the glory of God, as happened with the people wandering in the desert", said the Holy Father. "Their eyes could not see, but their ears heard the voice emerging from the cloud: 'This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to Him'.

"Then", he added, "the disciples no longer found themselves before a transfigured face or dazzling garments, nor a cloud revealing the divine presence. Before their eyes 'Jesus was found alone', ... and this is what must suffice us for our journey. He is the only voice to listen to, the only one to follow, He Who climbing towards Jerusalem would give His life and one day 'transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory'".

"The Transfiguration reminds us that the joys God disseminates in our lives are not goals in themselves but lights He gives us on our earthly pilgrimage, that 'Jesus alone' may be our Law and His Word the criterion that guides our existence".

"In this period of Lent", Benedict XVI concluded, "I invite everyone to meditate assiduously upon the Gospel. Furthermore, it is my hope that in this Year for Priests, pastors 'may truly be pervaded by the Word of God, know it authentically and love it to the extent that it truly does give them life and form their thoughts'".

Related Links:

Archbishop Dolan and Archbishop Burke will be elevated to Cardinals

Speaker Pelosi, once again, defies Catholic bishops, mis-represents bill

Caritas providing aid to Chilean victims of massive earthquake

Gay Dutch protesters disrupt church services

Archbishop Chaput challenges JFK's 1960 discourse

Catholic-Muslim agreement to counter act religious justification for violence

Iraqi Chaldean Catholics thank Holy Father for support

Papal Appeals For Iraqi Christians

Iraqi faithful hold a banner prior to the start of Pope Benedict XVI's Angelus prayer in St. Peter's square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010. The Pontiff appealed to the Iraqi authorities to provide security to Christians minority following the recent spate of killings against Christians in Iraq. (Daylife Photos-AP, Reuters, Getty)








Papal Intentions for March:



Calls on Iraqi Government to Protect Vulnerable Minorities:

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is calling on the Iraqi government to do all they can to stop the recent killing spree of Christians in the northern city of Mosul.

Before praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Pope called the recent killings of Christians as "tragic news," and that it filled him with "deep sadness."

At least eight Christians have been killed in the last two weeks. The last murder occurred Tuesday, when an armed commando entered the home of an Assyrian Christian family, killing the father and two sons in front of his wife and daughter, whose lives were spared by the criminals.

Some 15,000 Christians remain in the Muslim-majority city of Mosul, where their families have lived for 2,000 years.

The Holy Father said that during his weeklong spiritual exercises, which ended Saturday, he "followed with much concern the other episodes of violence, perpetrated in the martyred land of Iraq, which have harmed defenseless persons of various religious affiliations."

"I often prayed for all the victims of those attacks and today I would like to join myself spiritually in prayer for peace and the restoration of security promoted by the council of bishops at Nineveh," he added.

"I am affectionately near to the Christians communities of the whole country," said Benedict XVI. "Do not weary of being a ferment for good for the homeland to which, for centuries, you have rightfully belonged!"

Protest

Some 1,000 Christians gathered today in Mosul to protest the almost-daily killings. In Kirkuk, a similar march will take place Monday.

In 2000, as many as 5,000 Christian families lived in Mosul. They have endured multiple attacks, particularly in September 2008, after which about half the Christian population fled the city. Many of those subsequently returned.

The murders come just ahead of March 7 parliamentary elections in the country, which many see to be decisive for determining the future direction of the country.

"In the delicate political phase that Iraq is passing through I call upon the civil authorities that they do everything possible to restore security to the population and, especially to the most vulnerable religious minorities," urged Benedict XVI.

"It is my wish that they do not given in to the temptation to allow the temporary and special interests prevail over the safety and the fundamental rights of every citizen," he continued.

"Finally," the Pope added, "as I greet the Iraqis present here in the piazza, I exhort the international community to do its best to give the Iraqis a future of reconciliation and justice...

Reuters:

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 1,000 minority Christians, many holding olive branches, marched in protest near the restive city of Mosul on Sunday to urge the Iraqi government to act decisively after a series of killings.

World

At least eight Christians have been killed in the last two weeks in the turbulent northern city, 390 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, prompting Pope Benedict to appeal on Sunday for Iraq's Christians to be better protected.

Two of those attacked had gone missing, their bodies later found dumped in the street with gunshot wounds. Others were shot dead in the street, near their homes, or at their place of work.

Some 683 Christian families, or 4,098 people, fled Mosul between February 20 and 27 following the attacks, a United Nations report said on Sunday.

The murders came just weeks before Iraq's March 7 parliamentary election, which has the potential to help cement an end to seven years of war or plunge a still-divided country into a new cycle of violence.

"I appeal to the civil authorities to complete every effort to give security again to the population, and in particular, to the most vulnerable religious minorities," the Pope said in his weekly blessing from Vatican City.

Priests in religious vestments led the protest procession in the Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40 km (25 miles) east of Mosul.

"The blood of innocents screams for terrorism and violence to be stopped," read one banner.

Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda have long targeted Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and other Iraqi minorities, as well as majority Shi'ites, whom they consider heretics. Christians number an estimated 750,000 in Iraq, a small minority in a country of 28 million.

Al Qaeda has vowed to use "military means" to derail the national ballot next month, which it sees as a farce to ensure Shi'ite domination of Sunnis.

Targeting Christians is an effective way to highlight the shortcomings of Iraq's security forces, given the media attention that attacks against Christians attract. Iraqi Muslims are killed in much greater numbers.

Making life especially difficult for minorities in Iraq's north is their precarious position among the region's larger Arab and Kurd communities, which are feuding over land and oil.

The dispute has left a security vacuum in some areas which al Qaeda has exploited, even as its influence has waned elsewhere in Iraq.

"We blame the federal and local governments and the head of security operations in Nineveh (province) for the killing of our Christian sons," said Saad Qanyous, one of the Christian protesters.