 03/04/2009 20:02 |
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[ See preceding page for new entry today, 4/3/09, about Pius XII from Sandro Magister]
FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY. ON APRIL 3, 1969,
POPE PAUL VI PROMULGATED THE 'NOVUS ORDO'
The Roman Missal, promulgated in 1570 by Our predecessor, St. Pius V, by decree of the Council of Trent,(1) has been received by all as one of the numerous and admirable fruits which the holy Council has spread throughout the entire Church of Christ.
For four centuries, not only has it furnished the priests of the Latin Rite with the norms for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but also the saintly heralds of the Gospel have carried it almost to the entire world.
Furthermore, innumerable holy men have abundantly nourished their piety towards God by its readings from Sacred Scripture or by its prayers, whose general arrangement goes back, in essence, to St. Gregory the Great.
Since that time there has grown and spread among the Christian people the liturgical renewal which, according to Pius XII, Our predecessor of venerable memory, seems to show the signs of God's providence in the present time, a salvific action of the Holy Spirit in His Church.(2)
This renewal has also shown clearly that the formulas of the Roman Missal ought to be revised and enriched. The beginning of this renewal was the work of Our predecessor, this same Pius XII, in the restoration of the Paschal Vigil and of the Holy Week Rite,(3) which formed the first stage of updating the Roman Missal for the present-day mentality.
The recent Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, in promulgating the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, established the basis for the general revision of the Roman Missal:
- in declaring "both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify";(4)
- in ordering that "the rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, can be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful can be more easily accomplished";(5)
- in prescribing that "the treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's Word";(6)
- in ordering, finally, that "a new rite for concelebration is to be drawn up and incorporated into the Pontifical and into the Roman Missal."(7)
One ought not to think, however, that this revision of the Roman Missal has been improvident. The progress that the liturgical sciences has accomplished in the last four centuries has, without a doubt, prepared the way.
After the Council of Trent, the study "of ancient manuscripts of the Vatican library and of others gathered elsewhere," as Our predecessor, St. Pius V, indicates in the Apostolic Constitution Quo primum, has greatly helped for the revision of the Roman Missal.
Since then, however, more ancient liturgical sources have been discovered and published and at the same time liturgical formulas of the Oriental Church have become better known. Many wish that the riches, both doctrinal and spiritual, might not be hidden in the darkness of the libraries, but on the contrary might be brought into the light to illumine and nourish the spirits and souls of Christians.
Let us show now, in broad lines, the new composition of the Roman Missal. First of all, in a General Instruction, which serves as a preface for the book, the new regulations are set forth for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, concerning the rites and the functions of each of the participants and sacred furnishings and places.
The major innovation concerns the Eucharistic Prayer. If in the Roman Rite, the first part of this Prayer, the Preface, has preserved diverse formulation in the course of the centuries, the second part, on the contrary, called "Canon of the Action," took on an unchangeable form during the fourth and fifth centuries; conversely, the Eastern liturgies allowed for this variety in their anaphoras.
In this matter, however, apart from the fact that the Eucharistic Prayer is enriched by a great number of Prefaces, either derived from the ancient tradition of the Roman Church or composed recently, we have decided to add three new Canons to this Prayer.
In this way the different aspects of the mystery of salvation will be emphasized and they will procure richer themes for the thanksgiving. However, for pastoral reasons, and in order to facilitate concelebration, we have ordered that the words of the Lord ought to be identical in each formulary of the Canon.
Thus, in each Eucharistic Prayer, we wish that the words be pronounced thus: over the bread: ACCIPITE ET MANDUCATE EX HOC OMNES: HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM, QUOD PRO VOBIS TRADETUR; over the chalice: ACCIPITE ET BIBITE EX EO OMNES: HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI NOVI ET AETERNI TESTAMENTI, QUI PRO VOBIS ET PRO MULTIS EFFUNDETUR IN REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM. HOC FACITE IN MEAM COMMEMORATIONEM. The words MYSTERIUM FIDEI, taken from the context of the words of Christ the Lord, and said by the priest, serve as an introduction to the acclamation of the faithful.
Concerning the rite of the Mass, "the rites are to be simplified, while due care is taken to preserve their substance."(8) Also to be eliminated are "elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage,"(9) above all in the rites of offering the bread and wine, and in those of the breaking of the bread and of communion.
Also, "other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the earlier norm of the Holy Fathers"(10): for example the homily,(11) the "common prayer" or "prayer of the faithful,"(12) the penitential rite or act of reconciliation with God and with the brothers, at the beginning of the Mass, where its proper emphasis is restored.
According to the prescription of the Second Vatican Council which prescribes that "a more representative portion of the Holy Scriptures will be read to the people over a set cycle of years,"(13) and of the readings for Sunday are divided into a cycle of three years.
In addition, for Sunday and feasts, the readings of the Epistle and Gospel are preceded by a reading from the Old Testament or, during Paschaltide, from the Acts of the Apostles. In this way the dynamism of the mystery of salvation, shown by the text of divine revelation, is more clearly accentuated.
These widely selected biblical readings, which give to the faithful on feast days the most important part of Sacred Scripture, is completed by access to the other parts of the Holy Books read on other days.
All this is wisely ordered in such a way that there is developed more and more among the faithful a "hunger for the Word of God,"(14) which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, leads the people of the New Covenant to the perfect unity of the Church.
We are fully confident that both priests and faithful will prepare their hearts more devoutly and together at the Lord's Supper, meditating more profoundly on Sacred Scripture, and at the same time they will nourish themselves more day by day with the words of the Lord.
It will follow then that according to the wishes of the Second Vatican Council, Sacred Scripture will be at the same time a perpetual source of spiritual life, an instrument of prime value for transmitting Christian doctrine and finally the center of all theology.
In this revision of the Roman Missal, in addition to the three changes mentioned above, namely, the Eucharistic Prayer, the Rite for the Mass and the Biblical Reading, other parts also have been reviewed and considerably modified:
- the Proper of Seasons,
- the Proper of Saints,
- the Common of Saints,
- ritual Masses
- and votive Masses.
In all of these changes, particular care has been taken with the prayers: not only has their number been increased, so that the new texts might better correspond to new needs, but also their text has been restored on the testimony of the most ancient evidences. For each ferial of the principal liturgical seasons, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter, a proper prayer has been provided.
Even though the text of the Roman Gradual, at least that which concerns the singing, has not been changed, still, for a better understanding, the responsorial psalm, which St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great often mention, has been restored, and the Introit and Communion antiphons have been adapted for read Masses.
In conclusion, we wish to give the force of law to all that we have set forth concerning the new Roman Missal. In promulgating the official edition of the Roman Missal, Our predecessor, St. Pius V, presented it as an instrument of liturgical unity and as a witness to the purity of the worship the Church.
While leaving room in the new Missal, according to the order of the Second Vatican Council, "for legitimate variations and adaptations,"(15) we hope nevertheless that the Missal will be received by the faithful as an instrument which bears witness to and which affirms the common unity of all.
Thus, in the great diversity of languages, one unique prayer will rise as an acceptable offering to our Father in heaven, through our High-Priest Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
We order that the prescriptions of this Constitution go into effect November 30th of this year, the first Sunday of Advent.
We wish that these Our decrees and prescriptions may be firm and effective now and in the future, notwithstanding, to the extent necessary, the apostolic constitutions and ordinances issued by Our predecessors, and other prescriptions, even those deserving particular mention and derogation.
Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, Holy Thursday, April 3 1969, the sixth year of Our pontificate.
PAUL VI
NOTES
1. Cf. Apost. Const. Quo primum, July 13, 1570.
2. Cf. Pius XII, Discourse to the participants of the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy at Assisi, May 22, 1956: A.A.S. 48 (1956) 112.
3. Cf. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Decree Dominicae Resurrectionis, February 9, 1951: A.A.S. 43 (1951) 128ff.; Decree Maxima Redemptionis nostrae mysteria, November 16, 1955: A.A.S. 47 (1955) 838ff.
4. Vatican Council, Const. on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 21: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 106.
5. Ibid., art. 50: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
6. Ibid., art. 51: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
7. Ibid., art. 58: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 115.
8. Ibid., art. 50: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
9. Ibid.
10. Cf. Ibid.
11. Cf. Ibid., art. 52: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
12. Cf. Ibid., art. 53: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
13. Ibid., art. 51: A.A.S. 56 (1964) 114.
14. Cf. Amos 8:11.
15. II Vatican Council, Const. on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Consilium, art. 38: A.A.S. 56 (1964).
I stand by my my newly-formulated hypothesis that Paul VI's decision to go along with the 'protestantization' of the Mass according to his Bugnini-led ultra-liberal commission on liturgical reform was probably his way of placating all the ruffled feathers, mountains of dander and rivers of spittle shed by his critics over Humanae Vitae promulgated in July 1968 - at any rate, for trying to 'make up' somehow to the liberal faction of the Church.
With the corollary hypothesis that he must have had second thoughts about the wisdom of his decision on the Mass when he made that famous 1972 remark about 'the fumes of Satan' having entered the Churc: the consequent bastardication of the Novus Ordo was one of the cracks which allowed that sulfurous contamination which persists to this day in many ways.
Thanks to New Catholic on RARATE CAELI, here's an item from TIME magaine on April 11, 1969, which talks about Paul VI's saffering voer dissent in the Church and priests leaving to marry, but does not make a single mention of the epochal litrgical reform that the Pope had promulgated exactly one week earlier! Nor to Humanae Vitae which had been promulgated less than a year earlier and had caused the greatest firestorm against a reigning Pope in the 20th centiry!
Could it be the reporter was completely unaware of those two most relevant events? Because if he/she was, there is no way it could not have been mentioned at all! So much for the objective historical value of news reports! Not that they are all unreliable but that you cannot take a single report and consider it reliable - you'd have to seek out other reports with other perspectives (or prejudices).
Practically Schismatic
Friday, Apr. 11, 1969
For Pope Paul VI, the solemn ceremonies of Holy Week were more sorrowful than usual. On two successive days, in his most anguished public statements to date on the crisis in the Roman Catholic world, the Pope issued extraordinarily direct attacks on defecting clergy and dissent within the church.
Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday of Holy Week, the Pope identified the present-day sufferings of the church with the agony of Christ. "The Lord tests us," he declared. "The church suffers from the abandonment by so many Catholics of the fidelity that centuries-old tradition merits."
Even "favored sons" engage in destructive criticism, and by their defections, "certain ecclesiastics and religious crucify the church."
At Holy Thursday services next day, he spoke of the "practically schismatic ferment that divides and subdivides the church. How can the living and true church be authentic," he asked, "if the company that forms it is so often and gravely corroded by contestation or forgetfulness of its hierarchical structure?"
From his point of view, the Pope had good reason for the outbursts. Although the Vatican has by now be come accustomed to the public defection of priests, it was shocked by the recent resignations of two young, promising bishops.
In Chile, the Most Rev. Gabriel Larrain Valdivieso, 44, auxiliary to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Santiago, left the priesthood for secular humanitarian work.
In Peru, Bishop Mario Cornejo Radavero, 41, auxiliary to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Lima, reportedly brought his cardinal to tears by resigning to marry.
Priestly defections have even touched the Vatican itself, where an honored member of the papal household, Monsignor Giovanni Musante (TIME, Mar. 21), had also left to marry.
Paul has frequently denounced excesses of reform within the church, but last week marked the first time that he has publicly referred to schism — a word that has almost never been mentioned by pontiffs since Clement VII hurled the accusation at Henry VIII more than four centuries ago.
To many Vatican observers, the Holy Week statements suggest that the Pope has taken as much as he can from the dissenters and is ready to deliver an ultimatum to those who persist in ecclesiastical rebellion.
The obvious irony, of course, is that the practical 'schism' was going to come from dissenters to his liturgical reform, although it would take Mons. Lefebvre nine years before he would make the open break!
Note that none of the leftist dissenters - all those in favor of contraception, abortion, married priests - ever had whatever it takes to stand up for principle as the Lefebvrians did. And that the dissenters from the left are all against the traditional teaching of the Church - which demands much more discipline and obedience - while the Lefebvrians, on the contrary, have chosen to uphold tradition in every respect.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/04/2009 00:07] |
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| 24/04/2009 00:47 |
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Should we be encouraged that an MSM outlet like the UK Telegraph, which has never been Vatican-friendly, has now come out with an article like this that at the very least, gives the Pius XII and the Church the benefit of the doubt?
Vatican planned to move to Portugal
if Nazis captured wartime Pope
By Nick Squires in Rome and Simon Caldwell
April 22, 2009
Pope Pius XII told senior bishops that should he be arrested by the Nazis, his resignation would become effective immediately, paving the way for a successor, according to documents in the Vatican's Secret Archives.
The bishops would then be expected to flee to a safe country – probably neutral Portugal – where they would re-establish the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and appoint a new Pontiff.
That Hitler considered kidnapping the Pope has been documented before, but this is the first time that details have emerged of the Vatican's strategy should the Nazis carry out the plan.
"Pius said 'if they want to arrest me they will have to drag me from the Vatican'," said Peter Gumpel, the German Jesuit priest who is in charge of researching whether Pius should be made a saint, and therefore has access to secret Vatican archives.
Pius, who was Pope throughout the war, told his advisers "the person who would leave the under these conditions would not be Pius XII but Eugenio Pacelli" – his name before he was elected Pontiff – thus giving permission for a new Pope to be elected.
"It would have been disastrous if the Church had been left without an authoritative leader," said Father Gumpel.
"Pius wouldn't leave voluntarily. He had been invited repeatedly to go to Portugal or Spain or the United States but he felt he could not leave his diocese under these severe and tragic circumstances." Vatican documents, which still remain secret, are believed to show that Pius was aware of a plan formulated by Hitler in July 1943 to occupy the Vatican and arrest him and his senior cardinals.
On 6 September 1943 – days after Italy signed the September 3 armistice with the Allies and German troops occupied Rome – Pius told key aides that he believed his arrest was imminent.
General Karl Otto Wolff, an SS general, was told to "occupy as soon as possible the Vatican, secure the archives and art treasures and transfer the Pope, together with the Curia so that they cannot fall into the hands of the Allies and exert a political influence."
Hitler ordered the kidnapping, according to historians, because he feared that Pius would further criticise the Nazis' treatment of the Jews.
He was also afraid that the Pontiff's opposition could inspire resistance to the Germans in Italy and other Catholic countries.
Some historians have claimed that General Wolff tipped off the Vatican about the kidnap plans and that he also managed to talk the Fuhrer out of the plot because he believed it would alienate Catholics worldwide.
The latest revelations will be seen by some observers as a further attempt by the Vatican to bolster the case for Pius XII being declared a saint.
Pius has been accused of being anti-Semitic and of harbouring sympathies for the Nazi regime, most notably in the 1999 book Hitler's Pope, by British author John Cornwell.
But other Catholic and Jewish historians contend that in fact Pius was loathed by the Nazis for speaking out about the Holocaust and for behind-the-scenes efforts to save Italian Jews who otherwise would have been sent to death camps.
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| 04/05/2009 04:46 |
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Stop persecuting Pius -- WWII pontiff is branded "Hitler's Pope," but he did much to save the Jews
BY GARY KRUPP
New York Daily News
Sunday, May 3rd 2009, 4:00 AM
Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli, was pontiff during WWII and considered by many one of the greatest heroes of the war. To others, he is simply "Hitler's Pope."
The 46-year-old controversy surrounding Pacelli casts a shadow over Pope Benedict's trip this week to the Holy Land. Benedict's visit will include a stop in Israel, where he will pay respects to Holocaust victims at Yad Vashem but refrain from visiting the museum there that features an exhibit critical of Pius. The exhibit includes a photo of the wartime pontiff with a caption that says he failed to protest the Holocaust and maintained a "neutral position."
In an effort to blast the academic logjam, I launched my own investigation into Pius' role during the Holocaust.
In 2007, Pope Benedict ordered the Vatican secret archives up to 1939 and other sections up to 1947 to be opened. Recently, he ordered the balance of the war year's archives to be opened as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, many historians say they will reserve their decision until the full archives are open. It surprises me that critics continue to defend their outdated theories and assumptions without studying the newly opened archives covering the vast majority of Pacelli's ministry.
I, along with several researchers, have discovered many documents detailing little-known activities of Pacelli. In 1917, for example, he intervened to protect Jews in Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. In 1925 he helped the head of the World Zionist Organization meet with Vatican officials to promote a Jewish homeland in Palestine. We found a confidential U.S. Foreign Service document reporting the Pope's hatred of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, and a letter signed by Pacelli moving to overturn a proposed Polish law against kosher slaughtering. We located a nun's diary entry stating that her community received orders from the Pope to protect the Jews.
Hundreds of pages of documents can be viewed at pavethewayfoundation.org.
More evidence shows Pius secretly moved Jews out of Europe. We 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."
Aware of Hitler's plan to kidnap him and seize the Vatican, Pius formed a government in exile and still managed to directly stop the arrest of Roman Jews on Oct. 16, 1943. In literally one day, the Vatican managed to hide, feed and support more than 7,000 Jews in Catholic institutions and private homes - all with German rifles posted 200 yards beneath Pius' windows.
Prominent Jewish and Israeli leaders like Albert Einstein, Golda Meir and Joseph Lichten, as well as the Italian Jewish community, praised Pius after the war. Upon Pius' death in 1958, Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide reported that many had suggested a forest of 860,000 trees be planted in the Judean hills to represent the Jews Pius had helped to save.
The public controversy began in 1963 with a negative portrayal of Pius in a fictitious play called "The Deputy." The highest ranking KGB agent to ever defect recently wrote an article detailing how the KGB planned, financed and edited this play in an operation called "SEAT TWELVE." This illicit KGB effort to discredit the church has been the most successful character assassination of the 20th century.
It's time for our "historians" to correct this academic negligence and honestly research the open archives. Jewish teaching says, if you save one life you save all humanity. We must acknowledge what Pius actually did rather than criticize him for what he should have done. Pope Pius should be commended for his courageous actions that saved more Jewish lives than all the world's leaders combined.
Krupp, who is Jewish, along with his wife, Meredith, founded the Pave the Way Foundation. (ptwf.org)
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| 18/06/2009 03:39 |
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WHO BROUGHT DOWN PIUS XII?
L'Osservatore Director Blames Communists, Church Division
ROME, JUNE 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The director of the Vatican's semi-official daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano contends that the Black Legend surrounding Pope Pius XII and Nazism has two causes: Communist propaganda and division within the Church.
Giovanni Maria Vian affirmed this when he talked with ZENIT about a book that he edited titled "In Difesa di Pio XII: Le Ragioni della Storia" (In Defense of Pius XII: The Reasons of History).
Benedict XVI's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, presented the book last week.
Vian uses the expression "leggenda nera" (black legend) in referring to the controversy surrounding Pius XII, which claims the Pope did too little to stop the Nazi horrors against the Jews. He said that at the Pope's death in 1958, he was unanimously praised for his efforts during the Second World War, but since then he has truly been "demonized."
How was such a reversal of image possible, a reversal that took place within the space of a few short years, beginning more or less around 1963?
Vian attributes this campaign against the Pope first of all to Communist propaganda, which intensified during the Cold War.
"The line that the Pope and the Holy See assumed during the years of conflict, averse to totalitarianism but traditionally neutral, was, according to actual deeds, favorable to the anti-Hitler alliance and was characterized by a humanitarian effort without precedent, which saved many human lives," he observed. "This line was, in any case, anti-Communist, and because of this, already during the war, the Pope became the target of Soviet propaganda as being in cahoots with Nazism and its horrors."
Soviet propaganda against Pius XII was powerfully re-launched in Rolf Hochhuth's play "Der Stellvertreter" (The Deputy), performed for the first time in Berlin on Feb. 20, 1963, which presented the Pope's silence as indifference to the extermination of the Jews, Vian said.
Already then, Vian continued, it was noted that the play took up many of the ideas proposed by Mikhail Markovich Scheinmann in his book "Der Vatican im Zweiten Weltkrieg" (The Vatican in the Second World War), first published in Russian by the Historical Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a propaganda instrument of Communist ideology.
From the inside
Vian contended that there were also those within the Church who promoted the discrediting of Pius XII because of the division between "progressives" and "conservatives" that developed during and after the Second Vatican Council.
Pius XII's successor, John XXIII, "was very early hailed as ‘the good Pope,' and without nuance was more and more set [by some] in opposition to his predecessor: because of the radically different styles, but also because of the unexpected and clamorous decision to convoke a council," he remarked.
But, Vian continued, Catholic criticism of Pius XII began already in 1939 with the questions of the French Catholic philosopher Emmanuel Mounier, who criticized the Pope's "silence" about Italian aggression in Albania. Pius XII was also criticized by Polish groups in exile, who reproved him for his silence about the German occupation of their homeland.
Vian suggested that with division in the Church beginning in the 1960s, those who opposed conservatives attacked Pius XII -- who was presented as their symbol -- fostering and using the arguments of the black legend.
Justice at last
The director of L'Osservatore Romano stressed that this book did not stem from the intention of an aprioristic defense of the Pope, "because Pius XII does not need apologists who do not help to clarify the historical question."
Vian stressed that Pius XII's low key approach -- not only in regard to the Nazi persecution of Jews (which was denounced without clamor but unequivocally in the Christmas message of 1942 and in an address to cardinals on June 2, 1943,) but also in regard to other Nazi crimes -- had the purpose of trying not to aggravate the situation of the victims, while the Pontiff worked to help them in other discreet ways.
"Pacelli often questioned himself about his attitude, which was nevertheless a conscious choice that he endured in order to save the greatest possible number of human victims rather than continually denouncing the evil with the real danger of still greater horrors," Vian explained.
He noted that the aim of the book is above all to contribute to restoring to history and the memory of Catholics a Pope and a pontificate that, for many reasons, is of capital importance and that remains obscured in public opinion by the polemics caused by the black legend.
The book brings together pieces by Cardinal Bertone; the journalist and historian Paolo Mieli; the late Jewish biologist, physician and writer, Saul Israel; the historian and founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, Andrea Riccardi; Archbishops Salvatore Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture; and finally a homily from Benedict XVI and two speeches in memory of his predecessor.
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| 18/06/2009 20:00 |
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DEFENDING PIUS XII
"Fighting Nun" Publishes New Book on Wartime Pontiff
By Edward Pentin
ROME, JUNE 18, 2009 (Zenit.org).- She may be 87, but Sister Margherita Marchione isn't even close to retiring.
The indomitable sister of the Religious Teachers Filippini, and ardent defender of Pius XII, has just published a new book on the wartime Pontiff which she launched in Rome last month. Called "Pope Pius XII -- An Anthology on the 70th Anniversary of Coronation," the work is just one of over 60 she has written. Most of them are passionate defenses of Pius against accusations he did too little to save Jews in World War II.
Meeting Sr. Margherita is always a pleasure. A loveable, tiny nun whose broad New Jersey accent matches her tough resilience in clearing Pius's name, she ardently defends Pope Pacelli's holiness and innocence at every opportunity. And her historical research is supported by a growing number of prominent figures, including the highly reputed Jewish historian Sir Martin Gilbert and -- increasingly -- rabbis and ordinary Jews.
She began campaigning to clear Pius XII's name after hearing of the many Jews who were saved through hiding in the convent of her Order in Rome. She also has especially fond memories of meeting the wartime Pope in 1957. "Just that one time I met him, I can still visualize him," she recalls. "Just thinking about him, I can hear his voice -- there was something about him that was so saintly."
But this isn't mere sentiment: She backs up these claims with hard facts. He was not silent, she says, as his condemnations of Nazism were regularly reported in L'Osservatore Romano and on Vatican Radio; she stresses that whatever the bishops or apostolic delegations did in Europe to save Jews was on the Pope's instructions; moreover, she argues that all the convents, monasteries and the Vatican itself opened their doors to hide Jews because Pius XII had asked them to. "What more could he have done?" she asks.
What Sr. Margherita and many others have been trying to counter is the so-called black legend – a smear campaign masterminded by communists in the Soviet Union after the War to discredit the ardently anti-Communist wartime Pope. He was not silent during the war, says Sr. Margherita and others in his defense, but kept a low profile in order to avoid aggravating the situation of the victims.
Sr. Margherita also is quick to brush away one criticism which often comes up: that other Catholics who lost their lives to save Jews, and who have not yet been beatified, should be elevated to the altars before Pius XII who survived the war. She insists Pius XII did lay down his life -- he risked his own self and was prepared to die (a recent testimony has given credence to rumors that the Nazis secretly planned to kill or kidnap Pius in 1943). "Can you picture the kind of fear he experienced day in and day out?" she says. "What would happen to him and the Catholic Church, the Vatican? He had a terrible responsibility."
But according to the Congregation for Saints' Causes, no convincing miracle attributed to Pius XII (necessary for beatification) has yet to been found, which is why Sr. Margherita is keen to press Catholics to pray for one. She gave me a 1958 prayer card in the hope that ZENIT readers will do their part. It reads:
"O Jesus, Eternal Pontiff, you deigned to elevate to the supreme dignity your Vicar here on earth, your faithful servant Pius XII and to him you gave the grace of being an intrepid defender of the faith and a courageous asserter of justice and of peace, a devoted glorifier of your Holy Mother and a luminous model of charity and of all the virtues. Deem worthy now, in view of his merits, to grant us the grace that we ask of you. We are certain of his efficacious intercession and we hope to see him one day glorified on your altars Amen."
Sr. Margherita -- nicknamed the "Fighting Nun" -- remains ever hopeful that she will see Pius XII beatified in her lifetime. And it's a hope coupled with characteristic good humor. In a recent telephone call to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, she told him: "I'll be back in the fall for the beatification."
"Pope Pius XII -- An Anthology on the 70th Anniversary of Coronation" is published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana as a bilingual edition in Italian and English.
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| 02/07/2009 17:24 |
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PIUS XII 'SURPRISES' IN STORE
'Holocaust pope' archives to open in '5- 6 years'
(ANSA) - Rome, July 2 - Defenders of wartime pope Pius XII have ''nice surprises'' in store, the keeper of the Vatican's secret archives said Thursday.
The controversial pope, who has been criticised for not speaking out clearly against the Holocaust, ''even ran personal risks'' to save Jews, said Msgr Sergio Pagano, Prefect of the Secret Archives.
''When the archives can be published there'll be some nice surprises,'' he said.
''I can't tell you any more,'' Pagan said, fending off eager reporters during a press conference on Galileo.
''You'll have to wait five to six years,'' when the archives are scheduled to be ready for release, he said.
Pagano's statement did not change the expected release date of 2014-2015 for the archives, which are currently being collated.
Pagano stressed that Pope Benedict XVI, a staunch defender of his precedessor, will have the final word on publication. Many Jews insist a full verdict on the pope, who is up for sainthood, would only be possible when those archives are opened.
The Vatican has been building evidence of how Pius helped Jews in Italy - although may Jewish organisations will still not accept the argument that he kept silent on the Shoah for fear of provoking the Nazis into even greater savagery.
Earlier this year Father Peter Gumpel, the so-called 'postulator' of Pius's cause for beatification, said a newly discovered document urged Rome nuns to shelter whoever was being ''persecuted''.
Gumpel said the document - together with a similar one sent to then bishop of Assisi, Monsignor Giuseppe Nicolini - proved that Pius did all he could to help Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy.
The accusations by critics that he did nothing to prevent the infamous round-up of 1,022 Jews in the Rome Ghetto on October 16,1943 was ''an absolute falsehood,'' Gumpel said.
BEATIFICATION PROCESS.
Referring to the beatification process - the final step towards sainthood - Gumpel said the paperwork was completed and was awaiting Pope Benedict XVI's signature.
Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said recently that moves to make Pius a saint were the Vatican's business.
''The representation of Pius XII as indifferent towards the victims of the Nazis...or even as 'Hitler's Pope' (the title of a recent book) is outrageous and historically unsustainable,'' Bertone told a conference marking the recent 50th anniversary of Pius's death.
Bertone said the polemics - revived last October when a Jewish minister called plans to put Pius one step from sainthood ''unacceptable'' - were ''biased and ever less comprehensible''.
Pius was the victim of ''a defamatory legend,'' Bertone said, reiterating a view expressed by Pius's supporters.
The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations met with Pope Benedict XVI in November to ask him to put off Pius's beatification until after the archives are available for study.
Benedict replied that he was ''seriously considering'' it, the Jewish group said.
Vatican sources later stressed the pope was answering a private question and not taking an official stance.
Benedict praised Pius at a Mass on the 50th anniversary of his death on October 9.
He reiterated that Pius saved the ''largest possible number of Jews'' by acting in silence to ''avert the worst''.
He told the mass that Pius's action had been recognised after the war by Jewish leaders including Golda Meir.
Benedict said he was ''praying'' that the beatification process would continue but gave no indication of when he would sign the key decree.
Pius XII, who was pope from 1939 to 1958, took a crucial step towards sainthood last year when a panel of top Catholic prelates voted in favour of recognising Pius's ''heroic virtues''.
This is the key requirement for beatification, but the relevant decree has yet to be signed by Benedict.
The lag has been taken by some observers as indicating the pope believes more reflection on the case is needed.
The Pius question, and a Holocaust museum in Jerusalem where he is accused of remaining silent, was widely considered to have been a hurdle to Benedict's trip to the Holy Land in May, despite denials on both sides.
After vain Catholic calls for the anti-Pius exhibit to be removed, it was eventually decided that Benedict would visit the Yad Vashem Memorial, but not the museum itself.
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| 03/07/2009 02:07 |
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Wouldn't this be ironic?
YAD VASHEM HONOR SOUGHT FOR PIUS XII
Foundation Announces Plan to Initiate Process
NEW YORK, JULY 2, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A foundation announced plans to nominate Pope Pius XII for the "Righteous Among the Nations" honor, traditionally given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Gary Krupp, president of the New York-based Pave the Way Foundation, an organization that promotes interreligious dialogue, affirmed this Wednesday in a statement to ZENIT.
He reported that the foundation has the nomination guidelines from the Righteous Among the Nations Department of the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and will open the case soon.
Krupp stated that the foundation has "devoted years to gathering original documentation and video testimony on this controversial papacy and we believe we have uncovered enough pertinent material to now begin to seek the notarized written testimonies to officially begin this judicial procedure [with] Yad Vashem."
The president, himself a Jew, explained, "In most cases of those who have been honored as Righteous Among the Nations, the honoree has directly acted to save individual lives all while risking his or her own life to do so."
He continued: "The actions of Eugenio Pacelli [Pope Pius XII] do not fit this general description. However, we can establish the direct intercession of the Pope to act resulting in saving hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.
"But obviously because of the nature of the high office he held, Pacelli would almost never have been in direct contact with those he saved."
Krupp reported one exception, when the Pontiff personally interceded "on behalf of his best friend Dr. Guido Mendes, an Orthodox Jewish boyhood friend," sending the family to Palestine in 1938.
The president added, "We can also establish that the life-saving actions of Pacelli were carried out under the threat of death."
He reported: "In an emergency meeting called by Pope Pius XII with the cardinals on Sept. 6, 1943, he informed [them] that he signed a letter of resignation placed in his desk and that he expected to be kidnapped at any time.
"The cardinals were to be packed and ready to instantly leave the Vatican for a neutral government where they were to elect a new Pope.
"This emergency meeting was a month before the Jews of Rome were rounded up and the Pope interceded immediately to save them. This actual document is not yet available, but we know it exists."
Krupp added that the foundation recently obtained from Germany "the affidavit from General Karl Wolff, deputy to Himmler and Commandant in Italy, that he was ordered by Hitler to plan the seizure of the Vatican and to kidnap the Pope."
Seeking truth
The statement expressed the hope that by initiating the case for honoring the Pontiff, Yad Vashem will begin its own investigation, "which is an internationally respected judicial process and will help to bring the historical truth to light."
The president noted that the foundation will be seeking "notarized original testimonies of individuals who, in many cases, were never aware that it was Pacelli who acted to save their lives."
He explained: "An example of this is the acceptance and transport of Jews into the Dominican Republic.
"We have the video testimony of 97-year-old Monsignor Giovanni Ferrofino, secretary to the nuncio in Port Au Prince, Haiti, during the war who, together with the nuncio, personally acted on the direct orders of Pius XII twice a year to obtain visas for Jews arriving from Portugal to the Dominican Republic.
"Monsignor Ferrofino traveled with the nuncio, [Archbishop Maurilio] Silvani, to get 800 visas per boat load twice a year from 1939-1945 and appealed directly to General Rafael Trujillo in the name of Pius XII."
"This action," Krupp noted, "saved over 10,000 Jews who were then routed into America with the help of Monsignor Ferrofino through Cuba, Mexico and Canada."
He expressed the hope that Yad Vashem "will act to verify the information we will be sending."
"The job is now locating many of these survivors or their relatives to get signed notarized statements," Krupp affirmed.
He stated that "we have located thousands of documents and could not locate one negative document in our search."
This "private investigative project" has been carried out in accordance with the foundation's mission, the president affirmed, with the hope of breaking "the 46-year-old academic log jam" and of eliminating "this obstacle which impacts over one billion people."
Over 22,000 men and women from 45 countries have been awarded this title by the State of Israel, representing over 10,000 confirmed rescue stories.
Only a Jewish party can initiate a nomination, and must prove that the nominee gave assistance that was repeated or substantial, and without any expectation of compensation.
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| 06/01/2010 20:20 |
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The argument about Pius XII goes on and on and on....
Pius defender responds to ADL
By Ami Eden
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
January 6, 2010
We recently cited a column in The New York Post by Gary Krupp of the Pave the Way Foundation defending the World War II-era record of Pope Pius XII and the rebuttal from the Anti-Defemation League.
Now the foundation has sent in a response to the ADL's response:
Pave the Way foundation is Saddened by the Recent Attack on our Work by Abe Foxman Executive Director of the ADL.
Pave the Way Foundation, is a non-sectarian organization, which sought to bring this 46 year old negativity between Jews and Catholics concerning the papacy of Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) to a public forum. To correct Foxman’s fallacious statements, we held our symposium in Rome in September 2008 not 2009. All of the Holocaust institutions and the critics (including Prof. Paul O’Shea) were invited to attend. We hoped to open an exchange of information in order to reveal newly discovered documents and eye witness testimonies. All of the critics declined our invitation since they didn’t consider it a scholarly forum and it was going to be open to a public group of Rabbis and Jewish leaders. These same critics claimed that the symposium was one sided, which is comical since their refusal to participate created that impression.
The documents, Foxman is referring to, were only recently discovered in Campagna and only showed that there are thousands of Vatican WWII documents that are available for study by those who wish to simply look. To correct Foxman again, according to the report Prof. Paul O’Shea sent to me, the Campagna documents did in fact show how Pius XII directed efforts to send financial aid specifically for care of the Jews. This was in one small diocese in Italy. Just like General Eisenhower, Pius XII had his army of trusted clergy to carry out his instructions and verbal orders. He physically couldn’t do everything as Foxman seems to demand as proof of his benevolence. He acted to save Jews when no one else would. He did this, according to our original documents, fully expecting a full scale invasion of the Vatican where he would have be kidnapped and the clergy would be killed.
The significant evidence that we have gathered is from many other countries. More importantly the testimony from eye witnesses who describe the secret actions that they were ordered to take by the Vatican to save Jewish lives. Pius XII took these actions with German guns 200 yards under his very windows when he expected the imminent attack on the Vatican. He still managed to save more Jews than all of the world’s religious and political leaders combined. Pacelli acted directly to stop the arrest of the Roman Jews 2 PM on the day it began October 16, 1943 and managed to hide over 7000 Jews in just one day. He accomplished all of this anonymously (this is our highest form of charity).
Foxman is calling for the Vatican Archives to be opened when curiously just over 2 years ago Pope Benedict XVI ordered the opening of the archives up to 1939 along with the documents of the Inter Arma Caritas up to 1947. According to the sign in sheets in Rome, none of the recognized critics or institutions showed up to study this material. What should be questioned is why did virtually every Jewish organization, (including the ADL), every major Jewish religious personality and Israeli leader of that era, who lived through the war, praise Pius XII unreservedly? What happened? What smoking gun? What documents were discovered to change this?
I Invite Foxman and all others to devote 56 minutes to view a narrated power point illustrating just a small part of the evidence we discovered, then you be the judge. Additional documented proof and video testimonies can be viewed on www.ptwf.org. I further challenge the ADL to host its own open forum on this subject and, like in our cherished jury system, allow the public to decide whether Eugenio Pacelli is guilty of these charges.
The ADL shows no signs of backing down. In fact, it's stepping things up, with a lengthy report attempt at rebutting the documents that Krupp has taken to citing.
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| 02/02/2010 03:41 |
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PIUS XII DEFENDED IN ISRAELI NEWSPAPER
American Scholar Says Defamation is "Doomed to Failure"
JERUSALEM, FEB. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Similar to a defense of Pope Pius XII by French scholar Bernard-Henri Levy, American writer Dimitri Cavalli has published an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in the same vein.
Cavalli hails from New York where he is writing a book on Pius XII. His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times; L'Osservatore Romano reported on the Haaretz report today.
In that piece, Cavalli asserted that the "campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure."
"[H]is detractors cannot sustain their main charges against him -- that he was silent, pro-Nazi, and did little or nothing to help the Jews -- with evidence," Cavalli contended.
The author said the proof that exists shows the contrary.
He noted that in 1933, when Cardinal Pacelli [the future Pius XII] was still secretary of state, he "instructed the papal nuncio in Germany to see what he could do to oppose the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies."
The author also points out that Pope Pius XI's 1937 encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge," which was drafted by Cardinal Pacelli, was considered by the Germans as a "security threat."
Then, Cavalli continued, when Cardinal Pacelli was elected Pope on March 2, 1939, "[o]n March 4, Joseph Goebbels, the German propaganda minister, wrote in his diary: 'Midday with the Fuehrer. He is considering whether we should abrogate the concordat with Rome in light of Pacelli's election as Pope.'"
Moreover, Cavalli continued, "During the war, the Pope was far from silent."
And, he asserted: "Unlike many of the Pope's latter-day detractors, the Nazis understood him very well.
"After studying Pius XII's 1942 Christmas message, the Reich Central Security Office concluded: 'In a manner never known before the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order. ... Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.'"
"Pick up any book that criticizes Pius XII, and you won't find any mention of this important report," Cavalli reflected.
The author reiterated that during the War, representatives of the Pope "frequently ordered the Vatican's diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews."
And he observed that until the Holy Father's death in 1958 "many Jewish organizations, newspapers and leaders lauded his efforts." He cited in this regard a 1944 letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, from Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Bucharest.
Cavalli concludes, saying, "Perhaps only in a backward world such as ours would the one man who did more than any other wartime leader to help Jews and other Nazi victims, receive the greatest condemnation."
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| 02/02/2010 18:10 |
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Pius XII was 'totally anti-Nazi,' former aide says
By John L Allen Jr
National Catholic Reporter
Created Feb 02, 2010
Italian news outlets reported yesterday that two documents about Pius XII’s role during World War II have been found in an English archive. One is a brief report of a conversation between Pius XII and an American diplomat in October 1943, in which Pius XII does not address the round-up of Roman Jews by the Nazis. The second, a year later, reports a session between Pius and a British envoy in which the pope discusses balancing criticism of the Nazi crackdown on Jews in Hungary with also speaking out against Soviet war crimes in Poland and the Baltic states.
Upon review, experts have raised questions about both documents. In the first case, some historians say the document from October 1943 has been misdated, and that the conversation between Pius XII and American Ambassador Harold Tittmann came two days before the round-up of Jews in Rome – hence explaining the absence of any reference from the pope. In the second case, experts note that Pius XII actually sent a telegram of protest to the Hungarian government defending those persecuted “because of their nationality or race” five months before Pius XII’s meeting with the British ambassador.
Such clarifications, however, have not silenced the drumbeat of debate over Pius XII in the international press. The following is an NCR translation of an interview with Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, a veteran Vatican diplomat who served under Pius XII early in his career. The interview appeared on Monday in the Italian daily La Stampa.
Interview with Cardinal Achille Silvestrini
February 1, 2010
Your Eminence, you were a young priest in the Secretariat of State under Pius XII. From the [recent discoveries] in the English archives, it seems was worried above all about Rome.
In that tragic period, he was concerned about the Germans leaving Rome in peace and respecting its sacred character. It was not a choice against the Jews, because the pope believed that a gesture of protest would have been counter-productive. At the same time, however, he worked to see that as many Jews as possible were sheltered in churches and Catholic institutions.
He worried that a public condemnation of Nazism would have negative repercussions, that an explicit protest would carry more disadvantages than advantages. His awareness of the situation affected his state of mind. He had been the nuncio in Munich and then in Berlin, from 1917 to 1929, and was favorable to the Weimar Republic. He shared the anti-Nazi encyclical of Pius XI, “Mit Brennender Sorge,” in 1937. The German episcopacy played a large role, especially Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich, but also Eugenio Pacelli, at the time the Secretary of State.
Why was he silent?
Pius XII considered what had happened to the Dutch bishops a warning not to do the same. The Dutch episcopacy had written a letter that condemned the “merciless and unjust treatment reserved for the Jews.” That document was read in Dutch churches in July 1942. The intentions were the best, but the results were disastrous. Anne Frank died in the crackdown that followed. It was precisely the country where priests and bishops most vocally denounced the anti-Jewish persecutions that had more deportations than any other nation of Western Europe.
What did Pius XII mean when he told the American ambassador that the Germans had respected Rome?
He wanted Rome to be left alone, so much so that it’s true the bombing on Via Rasella was considered a terrible mistake by the Holy See because it ruptured this sort of quiet. In fact, it swiftly led to the ferocious reprisals of the Fosse Ardeatine.[Note: In March 1944, Italian partisans fire-bombed a column of Nazi troops on Rome's Via Rasella, a small side-street near the Piazza Barberini. Thirty-three soldiers died. In response, the German occupiers executed roughly 350 Italian prisoners in caves on the outskirts of Rome called the Fosse Ardeatine -- a ratio of 10 Italians killed for every one German.]
Pius XII was totally anti-Nazi. Always. In the winter of 1940, before the German attack on the Western front, a group of high-ranking German officials who wanted to dethrone Hitler asked the pope to be a mediator with the Allied governments in order to find out what guarantees they might receive. Pius XII twice summoned the British ambassador to the Holy See, Osborne, to communicate the initiative to him. He did that directly, keeping the Secretariat of State out of it. In fact, there’s no trace of it in the Vatican Archives, but only in Osborne’s diary and a book by Chatwick.
Why is that important?
Pius XII, who was always so sensitive to the rules of diplomacy, took this step against every procedure. A head of state never acts as a go-between on these matters. Pius XII did it because he was convinced that Germany could be saved.
Pius XI published two encyclicals in 1937. The first, “Divini Redemptoris,” against Communism, was very strong in doctrine. The second, against Nazism, was stronger in terms of tone. Pacelli was with him.
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| 11/02/2010 14:31 |
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from Teresa's thread
Last month, two days after Benedict XVI's visit to the Rome Synagogue, French philsopher/journalist/all-around commentator Bernard-Henri Levy wrote an essay in defense of Benedict XVI and Pius XII which was widely published, and posted in translation on Page 61 of this thread:
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...
In a recent interview with the French daily newspaper, Le Journal de Dimanche (it used to be a weekly paper but it has kept its name), Levy, who is Jewish, reiterated his support of both Popes. Here is a translation of the relevant excerpt from the interview:
BHL speaks up again for
Benedict XVI and Pius XII
February 6, 2010
Some readers of your book L’Idéologie française, on the roots of the Vichy regime [the puppet French government that collaborated with the Germans during World War II], cannot understand why you have supported Benedict XVI and Pius XII in a recent article...
Well, they obviously misread me. The book was a critique of Maurassism [after Charles Maurras (1868-1952), theoretician of a national Church]. and paganism, not of Christianity.
As for Benedict XVI, I have been reading him closely. And on Judaeo-Christian relations, the systematic disinformation against him has truly been incomprehensible: besides the fact that he has elevated the discussion intellectually, he has also been in total continuity with his predecessor.
As for Pius XII, all I ask is that one looks at the facts, And the fact is that, contrary to what cretins have been repeating in a loop, most of the relevant archives are open and can be consulted [The 12-volume compilation ordered by Paul VI in the 1960s].
The fact is that, amid the deafening silence in the world about the Shoah, he was actually the least silent of all. The fact is that it was he, who had no planes, no tanks, no army, who said and did more than Churchill, Roosevelt and De Gaulle combined [considering they said and did nothing!]
Of course, he could have said and done more. Everyone could have said and done more. But to present him as 'Hitler's Pope' and to embroider endlessly on the so-called 'silence of Pius XII' is absurd and rather disgusting.
You have been a defender of Jewish-Christian relations...
In 1981, I wrote an article on the Polish Solidarity movement which I entitled 'We are all Polish Catholics'. Since Le Testament de Dieu, in 1979, which was my celebration of Judaism, I have believed that there is common cause between Judaism and Christianity, particularly in the fight against totalitarianisms.
How did you come to this belief?
From some powerful encounters. Maurice Clavel [1920-1979, French philosopher, journalist and literary writer], that great Catholic convert whose work I edited. But above all, Emmanuel Lévinas [1906-1995, French philsopher and Talmudic commentator], whom I met after writing La Barbarie à visage humain (Barbarism with a human face).
And there were also two decisive events. On the Catholic side, Vatican II: Jews were no longer 'fathers' in the faith but brothers - 'older brothers' according to the bishops - and for me, this changes everything, since a father is destined to die while you are supposed to grow alongside your brother. And on the Jewish side, the growing awareness of the thought of Franz Rosenzweig [1887-1929, influential German Jewish theologian and philosopher], author of Star of redemption, Levinas's master of thought, who said in effect that there are two ways [Jewish and Christian - Rosenzweig had thought seriously about converting to Christianity] to the truth, not one but two, thus, dialog.
And what would that lead to?
Today, outside perhaps of some residual exceptions, the dominant anti-Semitism is no longer of Catholic origin... And the time has come to engage and to explore these two ways to the truth...
Of course, for us Catholics, Jesus Christ is both the Way and the Truth, as well as the Life...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA |
| 13/02/2010 01:27 |
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The Woman Who Knew JP2 Best
BY THE EDITORS
National Catholic Register
Posted 2/12/10 at 5:42 PM
Wanda Poltawska was 17 when the German army overran her country.
She was 18 when Nazi doctors used her as a guinea pig for experimental surgical techniques at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
She studied medicine and psychiatry in the difficult years after the war, trying to understand how human beings could sink to such barbarism.
But when she was stricken with cancer at age 40, a still greater tragedy loomed for her and her young children.
Then two saints stepped in.
The young bishop Karol Wojtyla wrote personally to St. Pio of Pietrelcina to ask for his intercession. “This one we can’t say no to,” said Padre Pio on reading the letter. When the cure came, the doctors called it “inexplicable.” Wanda knew better.
Now 88, she published her memoirs Diary of a Friendship first in Polish (Beskidzkie rekolekcje) and then in Italian (Diario di un’amicizia) last year. On Feb. 9, reported Andrea Tornielli in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, she visited Milan for the public presentation of the Italian edition.
“I felt so comforted by the fact that someone finally understood me!” was her remembrance of the experience of going to confession with a young priest she had never seen before. The priest was Karol Wojtyla.
Soon, he became her spiritual director. Then came the deep friendship with her husband Andrzej and their children.
And before long, their family was his family.
He encouraged her to found an institute for young mothers in difficult situations, and he lent her a room in his apartment for counseling couples in marital crisis.
“They were different, but they had so much in common,” Andrzej writes in the prologue to his wife’s book. “It was the encounter between a very masculine man, in the deepest sense of the word, with a very feminine woman, in the best sense of the word: sensitive, with deep sentiments, willing to work hard for others.”
The result?
“Even today,” Wanda reflected, “it’s possible to live a pure friendship between a man and a woman. We can and we ought to love all people as brothers and sisters, beyond the simple relationship between husband and wife.”
“I’ve met so many holy priests,” she continued, “not just him, who know how to cultivate pure friendships with women while remaining faithful to their celibacy.”
What does she remember most? The question struck her as odd.
“It’s not so much that I remember him. I’m still in contact with him, in a certain way. You can talk to the saints. I think that even right now he ‘s here right beside me.”
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| 07/08/2010 13:18 |
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I meant to post this yesterday, but couldn't get Image Shack to play ball with me last night.
6th August was the thirty second anniversary of the death of Paul VI at Castel Gandolfo. I had been somewhat distracted during the day by the fact that it was also The Feast of The Transfiguration and the 65th anniversary of Hiroshima. But I'll never forget Paul VI, for whom I have great admiration and whom I did see. I believe that his Cause for Canonisation has been opened and quite rightly. He never recovered from the terrible reception given to "Humanae Vitae" and, as we know, never wrote another encyclical. But he was right and the encyclical was prophetic. By taking no heed of it all humanity, not just Catholics, allowed a spread of immorality, lack of respect for women and all types of sexually transmitted disease. |
| 18/05/2011 07:04 |
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ALLIES URGED POPE PIUS XII
British, US Document Unearthed
ROME, MAY 17, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The United States and Great Britain discouraged Pope Pius XII from speaking out against Nazi brutality, warning the Pope that a public protest could have grave consequences.
The Allies' recommendation is reported in a document unearthed recently by the New York-based Pave the Way Foundation, founded by an American Jew, Gary Krupp.
Krupp asserted that these revelations help to give context for the way in which Pius XII handled the Nazi horror.
The document is correspondence between the British representative to the Holy See, Sir D'Arcy Osborne, and Myron Taylor, his U.S. counterpart.
A Nov. 7, 1944, note signed by Taylor's assistant, Franklin C. Gowen, reports to Taylor that Osborne "called and said that he feared the Holy Father may make Radio appeal on behalf of Jews in Hungary and that in his appeal he may also criticise what the Russians are doing in occupied territory."
"Sir D'Arcy said something should be done to prevail upon the Pope not to do this," the note added, "as it would have very serious political repercussions."
Krupp showed ZENIT another note between the envoys' offices that references a letter about help for Jewish refugees. The note "clearly states that the letter must be destroyed in order to prevent it from falling into enemy hands," Krupp said.
Osborne wrote the May 20, 1944, note to Harold Tittman, another of Taylor's assistants.
The British representative tells the U.S. envoy's assistant that he will destroy the letter, saying that if it were to fall into enemy hands it would incriminate a priest called Father Benedetto.
Krupp observed that the destruction of documents was necessarily common during the war. "There are some critics who do not seem to understand that this is why so many written orders also had to be destroyed," Krupp noted.
News
Further information about the Catholic response to the Holocaust has been uncovered by Dimitri Cavalli, a journalist, researcher, and contributor to Pave the Way archives and publications. He has located documents from an international Jewish press called the JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency).
One release dated June 28, 1943, reports Vatican Radio denunciations of the treatment of Jews in France.
A few days earlier, June 25, 1943, the JTA reported the denunciation in German of anti-Semitic actions in Slovakia.
Cavalli also discovered a May 19, 1940, Jewish Chronicle magazine published by B'nai B'rith featuring Pope Pius XII's picture on the front cover with the lead article titled the Pope's Jewish scholars.
This article reports how the Vatican was hiring Jewish academics who were fired by Italian institutions due to Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws.
The JTA also reported a confrontation between Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, when he was visited by Nazi authorities in France.
The Nazis told the archbishop they would leave the Church alone, if the cardinal and other clergy would not oppose the anti-Jewish laws and would stop protecting Jews.
The cardinal responded that the French clergy did not engage in politics but "is obeying the Pope." He cut short the confrontation telling the Nazis, "You no doubt know that the Holy Father has condemned the anti-Semitic laws and all anti-Jewish measures."
Another JTA article, from Feb. 5, 1943, reported a strong condemnation of Nazi theories from Cardinal Jusztinián Györg Serédi, archbishop of Esztergom.
On the same page is a short article on how Mussolini is reported to be relaxing his Jewish racial laws in order to try to strengthen his relations with the Vatican.
The Jewish Chronicle of London dated Sept. 9, 1942, reports that Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, printed 10 million pamphlets in multiple languages for distribution in Europe and Latin America, condemning Pope Pius XII for his pro-Jewish stance.
Proof
Krupp told ZENIT that "to date, Pave the Way foundation has amassed over 46,000 pages of news articles, original documents, research materials, along with numerous eyewitness video testimonies, and audio and video files answering the 47 questions left unanswered by a Jewish Catholic study session in 2001."
This material is available at the Pave the Way site.
Elliot Hershberg, Pave the Way chairman, said the abundance of material unearthed and recorded by the foundation gives plenty of material to scholars studying the Vatican's response to the Nazi regime, even as the Vatican archives on this period are still unopened.
Hershberg said the foundation is aware of the Vatican’s eagerness to complete the cataloguing process and to open the archives as soon as possible. Benedict XVI has quintupled the numbers of trained archival personnel to complete this tedious work, he explained, adding that with more than 31 million documents needing to be sewn into books, numbered page by page, and summarized, this job is difficult.
Hershberg pledged that in the meantime, Pave the Way will continue to research and post all documents relative to this period in order to hasten the resolution of this 47-year-old obstacle between Jews and Catholics worldwide.
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| 07/07/2011 10:55 |
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What a great pope and sweet and humble man Albino Luciani was.....*sigh* |
| 08/07/2011 19:10 |
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| | | OFFLINE | Post: 2.047 | Registrato il: 18/10/2005
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Giovanni Paolo I
www.amicidiipapaluciani.it[Modificato da GABRIELLA.JOSEPHINE 08/07/2011 19:14] JOSEPHINE
"OMNIA POSSUNT IN EO QUI ME CONFORTAT"
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| 08/07/2011 21:52 |
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| | | OFFLINE | Post: 33 | Registrato il: 30/06/2011
| Utente Junior | |
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GABRIELLA.JOSEPHINE, 08.07.2011 19:10:
One "i" too much.
![[SM=g27827]](https://im0.freeforumzone.it/up/0/27/10212509.gif)
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| 23/07/2011 03:35 |
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| | | OFFLINE | Post: 6.200 | Registrato il: 23/11/2005
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DOCUMENTS REVEAL PIUS XII SAVED 11,000 ROMAN JEWS
Pave the Way Foundation Announces Findings
By Jesús Colina
ROME, JULY 22, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The direct action of Pope Pius XII saved the lives of more than 11,000 Jews in Rome during the Second World War, according to documentation recently discovered by historians.
Pave the Way Foundation representative for Germany, historian and investigative researcher Michael Hesemann, discovered a number of very important original documents in his research of the open archives of Santa Maria dell Anima Church, which is the National Church of Germany in Rome.
The U.S.-based foundation, founded by Jew Gary Krupp, announced the findings in a statement sent to ZENIT.
"Many have criticized Pius XII for remaining silent during the arrest and when trains left Rome containing 1,007 Jews who were sent to the death camp Auschwitz," Krupp stated.
"The critics also do not acknowledge Pius XII's direct intervention to end the arrests of Oct. 16, 1943."
"New discoveries prove that Pius XII acted directly behind the scenes to end the arrests at 2:00 p.m., on the very day they began, but who was powerless to stop the ill-fated train," he added.
According to a recent study by researcher Deacon Dominiek Oversteyns, there were 12,428 Jews in Rome on Oct. 16, 1943.
"Pope Pius XII's direct action saved the lives of over 11,400 Jews," Krupp explained. "On the morning of Oct. 16, 1943, when the Pope learned of the arrests of the Jews, he immediately ordered an official Vatican protest with the German ambassador, which he knew would no doubt be fruitless.
"The Pope then sent his nephew, Prince Carlo Pacelli, to meet with Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal. Bishop Hudal, head of the National Church of Germany in Rome, was by some accounts, sympathetic to the Nazi's and had good relations with them. Prince Carlo Pacelli told Hudal that he was sent by the Pope, and that Hudal must write a letter to the German Governor of Rome, General Rainier Stahel, to demand that the arrests stop."
Bishop Hudal's letter to General Stahel stated: "Just now, a high Vatican source [...] reported to me that this morning, the arrest of the Jews of Italian nationality has started. In the interest of a peaceful dialogue between the Vatican and the German military command, I ask you with urgency to give order to immediately stop these arrests in Rome and the surrounding area. The German reputation in foreign countries requires such a measure and also the danger that the Pope would openly protest against it."
The letter was then hand-delivered to General Stahel by a close confidant to Pope Pius XII, German Father Pancratius Pfeiffer, superior general of the Society of the Divine Savior, who personally knew General Stahel.
The following morning, General Stahel responded by telephone: "I forwarded the affair immediately to the local Gestapo and to Himmler personally, Himmler ordered that, concerning the special status of Rome, these arrests are to be stopped immediately."
These events are further confirmed by the testimony obtained during the investigation of relator (high Judge) to the cause of Pius XII, Jesuit Priest Father Peter Gumpel.
Father Gumpel stated that he personally spoke to General Dietrich Beelitz, who was then liaison officer between Kesselring's office and Hitler's command. General Beelitz listened in to the Stahel-Himmler telephone conversation and confirmed that General Stahel used a threat of military failure to Himmler if the arrests were to continue.
Exemptions
An additional document titled "The direct actions to save innumerable persons of the Hebrew nation" states that Bishop Hudal managed -- through his contacts with Stahel and Colonel Baron von Veltheim -- to get "550 religious colleges and institutions to be exempt from inspections and visitations of the German military Police."
Just in one of these places, the Institute of St. Joseph, 80 Jews were being hidden.
The note also mentions the involvement "for a great part" of Prince Carlo Pacelli, the nephew of Pius XII. "The German soldiers were very disciplined and respected the signature of a high German official ... Thousands of local Jews in Rome, Assisi, Loreto, Padua etc. were saved due to this declaration."
Michael Hesemann stated that it is obvious that any public protest by the Pope when the train departed could have triggered the resumption of the arrests.
In addition, Hesemann explains that Pave the Way has on its Web site the original SS order to arrest 8,000 Roman Jews, who were to be sent to the work camp at Mauthausen -- to be held as hostages -- not the death camp in Auschwitz. One may speculate that the Vatican may have felt they could negotiate their release.
We have learned that it was also Bishop Hudal who was acknowledged by the Vatican as actively participating in helping some Nazis war criminals escape arrest after the war's end.
Because of his political position, Bishop Hudal was persona-non-grata at the Vatican and in fact, was chastised in writing by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini (later Pope Paul VI), for even suggesting that Vatican help any Nazi escape arrest.
Gary Krupp, President of Pave the Way, further commented that "Pave the Way has devoted vast resources in order to obtain and post publicly all of this information for historians and scholars. Curiously, none of the most outspoken critics of Pope Pius XII, has bothered to either come to the open Vatican Archives (completely opened since 2006 up to 1939) for original study, or even accessed our restricted free Web site, according to sign in sheets in Rome and our registration records."
Krupp further commented that he has the sincere hope that the scholarly representatives of the Roman Jewish community, research original materials only steps from their homes.
"I believe they will find that the very existence today of what Pope Pius XII called 'this vibrant community' is because of the secret efforts of Pope Pius XII to save every life," said Krupp. "Pius XII did what he could, while under the threat of invasion, death, surrounded by hostile forces and infiltrated by spies."
Elliot Hershberg, chairman of Pave the Way Foundation, added: "In the service of our mission, we are committed to try to bring some resolution to this controversy, which affects over 1 billion people.
"We have used our international connections and trust to obtain and post on our free restricted Web site over 46,000 pages of original documents, original news articles, video eyewitness, and scholarly interviews in order to spoon-feed this documentation to the historians and scholars.
"The international publicity from this project has yielded new documentation almost weekly, which show how we have moved to eliminate the academic logjam that has existed since 1963."
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| 15/09/2011 16:24 |
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| | | OFFLINE | Post: 110 | Registrato il: 30/06/2011
| Utente Junior | |
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TERESA BENEDETTA, 02.11.2008 13:34:
Hello,
I am very glad I met Guiseppe Denora and his wife during this year´s Raduno of The Amici di Papa Luciani. He told his story and it was very moving and impressive. Even though I hardly speak Italian, I could understand him very well.
I pray for JPI to be beatified soon.
![[SM=g27821]](https://im0.freeforumzone.it/up/0/21/4173150.gif)
[Modificato da Giselle 1 15/09/2011 16:24] |
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