"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first."
John 15:18
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Posted on 05/12/2009 6:45:10 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
JERUSALEM – The Vatican defended the pope Tuesday from a growing chorus of Israeli critics who accused the German-born Benedict XVI of failing to express enough remorse for the Holocaust — a controversy that threatened to eclipse a papal pilgrimage aimed at building bridges between faiths.
The pope delivered messages of peace while visiting the holiest Muslim and Jewish sites in Jerusalem — the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.
But his speech on Monday at Israel's national Holocaust memorial attracted the most attention in Israel, with the parliament speaker accusing Benedict of glossing over the Nazi genocide and survivors lambasting him for failing to apologize for what many in Israel see as Catholic indifference during World War II.
"The pope spoke like a historian, as somebody observing from the sidelines, about things that shouldn't happen. But what can you do? He was part of them," said parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin. "With all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the baggage he carries with him."
The pope delivered an emotional address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial Monday, saying the cry of those killed by the regime under which he grew up "still echoes in our hearts." But only moments after he spoke, Yad Vashem's top two officials criticized him for failing to use the words "Nazis" or "murder" in his speech.
Israeli newspapers Tuesday were filled with criticism.
"One would have expected the Vatican's cardinals to prepare a more intelligent text for their boss," columnist Tom Segev said.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi defended Benedict, saying the pope had mentioned his German roots previously, specifically when visiting a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, in 2005 and at the Auschwitz death camp the following year.
"He can't mention everything every time he speaks," Lombardi told reporters
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
No matter what he does, it will never be enough.
Yesterday he was being criticized for be present at an event where an anti-Israel speech was given by an uninvited speaker (who turned out to be a radical Muslim jurist who wants to impose sharia) and shaking hands when the speaker walked over to him before departing the stage. Not mentioned until today was the fact that the speech was given entirely in Arabic, and was NOT TRANSLATED because the speaker was not on the list of official speakers. The Pope, btw, does not speak Arabic.
As soon as he was informed of the contents of the speech by Arabic speaking clergy, he left.
So now we have him being criticized for omitting words that somehow somebody thinks should have been there and probably attempted to relay to him by ESP, and for sitting through a speech of which he understood not a word; what’s next?
Rivlin said that "with all due respect to the Holy See, we cannot ignore the burden he bears, as a young German who joined the Hitler Youth and as a person who joined Hitler's army, which was an instrument in the extermination".
Pope Benedict, born Joseph Ratzinger, joined the Hitler Youth when enrolment was compulsory, and was drafted into the German forces, deserting towards the end of the conflict.
And this, from Reuters India:
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The official Vatican spokesman said on Tuesday that German-born Pope Benedict was never a member of the Hitler Youth, contradicting quotes from the pope himself that have been aired again during his visit to Israel.
Rev. Federico Lombardi said the pope, whose speech at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on Monday was criticized in Israel as too abstract, was a member of anti-aircraft units that many youths were drafted into in the last two years of World War Two.
But noting many media reports during his Middle East tour had mentioned membership in the Nazi Party's youth wing, Lombardi told reporters in Jerusalem: "The pope was never in the Hitler Youth, never, never, never."
In "Salt of the Earth," a 1996 book of autobiographical and religious reflections based on interviews with German journalist Peter Seewald, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said, however, that he was automatically enrolled into the Hitler Youth.
Maybe they should have written his speech for him.
What’s really going on here is the media’s hateful distortion that Popes have been Nazis, historical fact be damned. I know many Jews who simply believe that Pope Pius was a nazi, helped the nazis kill Jews, etc.
It’s very sad and this is a bigotry pure and simple. Pope Pius saved Jews, Catholics were also persecuted in the holocaust, Hitler was anti-Catholic and followed some primitive paganistic religion.
This Pope’s family was in the resistance to Hitler. He was forced into service as a boy at the end of the war, escaping to return to his family.
But let’s all pretend the Pope is a bad guy.
He was forcwed to serve, I believe placed at an anti aircraft battery as a child. He escaped and returned to his anti-Hitler family. References to “being a member of the Hitler youth” without further explanation are more than misleading.
The Pope is being attacked for delivering what teh article calls a “message of peace” on the further ground that the Pope “sounded like a historian”.
These are not deserving of attack where I come from.
Pope Pius was instrumental in saving 860,000+ Jews, far more than anyone else: dwarfing all other efforts including that of the Red Cross.
Mourners said at his funeral: "May the sun grow cold before we forget what you did for us!".
Well: they did not forget him, but as far as their descendants are concerned it's getting pretty chilly.
Didn’t Uncle Joe Biden say the same thing about a two-state
solution?
"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first."
John 15:18
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Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Balderdash! Stickelgruber was both baptized and confirmed as a Roman Catholic! Though he wavered on church attendance in his adult life and rambled somewhat about dallying in paganism his statements many times confirmed his Catholicism click here for proof!
Most of us here are very pro-Israel however the segment of Israeli society that continues to slice open the scars of the Holocaust are rather annoying! Grant it was a horrible past event but Hitler and henchman are long dead and gone. Pope Benedict is an honorable man and definitely not anti-semitic. Save the rancor for Ahmedinejad and Chavez types-— proven avid and dangerous anti-semites.
This is ridiculous. Pope Benedict gave a moving speech that vowed to do whatever is necessary to never allow another holocaust. There is no reason for the Pope or the Church to apologize, and there is no reason to dwell on the past. The anti-Catholic Israelis are just looking for an excuse to make a stink.
In the 1997 book Salt of the Earth, Ratzinger is asked whether he was ever in the Hitler Youth."At first we weren't," he says, speaking of himself and his older brother, "but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth. As soon as I was out of the seminary, I never went back. And that was difficult because the tuition reduction, which I really needed, was tied to proof of attendance at the Hitler Youth.
"Thank goodness there was a very understanding mathematics professor. He himself was a Nazi, but an honest man, and said to me, 'Just go once to get the document so we have it...' When he saw that I simply didn't want to, he said, 'I understand, I'll take care of it' and so I was able to stay free of it."
Ratzinger says this again in his own memoirs, printed in 1998. In his 2002 biography of the cardinal, John Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in detail about those events.
Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't believe it
The next attack will be that he didn't visit the suffering in Gaza.
He might have been raised Catholic, but the teachings obviously didn't stick. His antics were not quite in keeping with "What would Jesus do?"
In any event, no totalitarian ruler can afford to tolerate the continued operation of an organization (the Catholic Church in Germany) which has any independent opinions on how society should operate.
http://www.geocities.com/chiniquy/Hitler.html
Was Hitler a Christian?
The allegation is sometimes made that Hitler was a Catholic - a Christian until the day he died. This claim is based upon the fact that Hitler was born and raised in a Catholic family.
However, as an adult, Hitler specifically rejected the Catholic Church, as well as Christianity in general. He described himself as “a complete pagan”.
The book Hitler’s Secret Conversations: 1941-1944, published by Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc. (1953), contains definitive proof of Hitler’s real views. The book was published in Britain under the title, Hitler’s Table Talk: 1941-1944, which title was used for the Oxford University Press paperback edition in the United States.
All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:
National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday:
Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday:
The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that’s why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity [is] the liar.... We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night:
The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.
21st October, 1941, midday:
Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus’ doctrine was the work of St. Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St. Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight:
Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... [here he insults people who believe transubstantiation] .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)
14th December, 1941, midday:
Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity— the Christianity of the catacombs— is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner:
There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday:
It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors— but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 yearse will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn’t... behold its demise.” (p 278)
Hitler was kicked out of Catholic school and had a lifelong hatred of the Church and Christianity in general, which he regarded as a slave religion.
He didn’t “dabble” in paganism; it was a big part of his program at creating a “new” German identity, free of the Church.
Initially, he didn’t dare to attack the Church openly, and unfortunately this gave some bishops the impression that if they kept their heads down, he’d leave Catholics alone, which accounted for their early silence and confusion. He ruthlessly attacked any of them who actually did their pastoral duty and spoke out, however.
In addition, he felt very challenged by the existence of the Church (as a power that he felt could be a rival) and it was an irritant to him: he actually did have a plan to kidnap the Pope, but fortunately he lost and the war ended before he could ever do this.
Ah, thank you for the information.
The Jews will never forgive him for being German. His great sin is racial.
And thank you for identifying the media as the central culprit. Their ceaseless attacks stem from a heartless manipulation of words and/or actions, twisted to suit their program of dismantling the Catholic Church, one priest at a time. Let them spin their tales, we can rejoice in the knowledge that they will utterly fail, as have their predecessors throughout the centuries.
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