British author blasts the new atheists, "secular inquisition"

by Carol Olson
Ignatius Insight

Yeah, yeah, yeah—yet another hyper-reactionary papal apologist whining and complaining about how the Pope is being treated:

It’s worth asking why otherwise fairly intelligent thinkers get so dementedly exercised over the pope and the Catholic Church. What exactly is their beef? What are they objecting to? Very few (if any) of the pope-hunters were raised Catholic, so this isn’t about personal vengeance for some perceived slight by a priest or nun. And despite their current lowdown, historically illiterate attempt to equate a priest fondling a child with a state’s attempt to obliterate an entire people – under the collective tag ‘crime against humanity’ – the truth is that some of these pope-hunters don’t really think child abuse is the worst crime in the world. In 2006, Dawkins criticised ‘hysteria about paedophilia’ and said that, even though he was the victim of sexual abuse at boarding school, he would defend his abusive former teachers if ‘50 years on they had been hounded by vigilantes or lawyers as no better than child murderers’. Yet now he wants to put abusive priests on a par with genocidaires.

But what do you expect from a brainwashed pope-worshiper who refuses to acknowledge The Truth about Benedict the Cover Upper and the Vile Vatican Filled With Old, Perverted Men?

The reason this crusade is so hysterical is because it is not really about the pope at all – it is about the New Atheists themselves. The contemporary pope-hunting springs from a secularist movement which feels incapable of asserting a sense of purpose or meaning in any positive, human-centred way – as the great atheists of old such as Marx or Darwin might have done – and which instead can only assert itself negatively, in contrast to the ‘evil’ of religion, by posturing against the alleged wickedness of institutionalised faith. It is the inner emptiness, directionless and soullessness of contemporary secularism – in contrast to earlier, Enlightened and more positive secular movements – which has given birth to the bizarre clamour for the pope’s head.

Secularism is in crisis. In Enlightened times, progressive secular movements, those which eschewed the guidance of God in favour of relying on mankind to work out what his problems were and how to solve them, were all about having a positive view of humanity. Their vision was both terrifying and extremely liberating: that man alone could master the complexities of life on Earth and improve it for himself and future generations. Today, however, we live in misanthropic, deeply downbeat times, where mankind is looked upon as a greedy, destructive, unreliable force whose behaviour and thoughts must be governed from without.

Well, sure, what else could you expect from an ultra-right-wing, atheist-hating Romanist?

This is what drives their war against religion: an instinct for ridiculing those who still, unlike contemporary secularists themselves, have an overarching outlook on life and a strong belief system. That is really what they find so alien about the Catholic Church in particular – its beliefs, its faith, its hierarchy. An atheism utterly alienated from the mass of humanity and from any future-oriented vision can only lash out in an extreme and intolerant way against those who still seem to have strong beliefs: the religious, or the ‘deluded ones’, as the New Atheists see it.

Pah-leaze! Stop the papal propaganda already!

No doubt some will accuse me of ‘defending paedophile priests’ in contrast to the New Atheist campaign on behalf of ‘powerless victims’. In truth, my only concern, as an atheistic libertarian—

Uh. What? What?? You're not a Catholic? You're a former Catholic? And an atheist? Really?

Yes, really, he most certainly is all of that. Brendan O’Neill, the editor of spiked, is a former Catholic and an "atheistic libertarian" who has been sticking his neck out on this subject for a while now and who deserves some kudos and thanks for good Catholics, in my estimation. There's no doubt all all that O'Neill and Catholics disagree about a whole host of very significant issues, but his analysis of the ongoing media furor—"witch-hunt", he calls it—is all the more powerful because O'Neill is not trying so much to defend the Catholic Church (although he is doing so), but because he is trying to save a form of rational, reasonable atheism, and he sees the attacks by Dawkins, Hitchens, and Co. as being anything but rational and reasonable. And he's right. Is he right about there being a viable form of rational, reasonable atheism to be lived in today's world? Well, that would be a fascinating topic for a conversation over a pint, but for the time being it is worth noting that non-Catholics—non-theists!—are capable of some excellent insights and cool reasoning about all of this. Again, bravo to Mr. O'Neill, to whom I tip my hat, once again.

La crisis de la pederastia en la Iglesia en 1.001 palabras

Y la respuesta de Benedicto XVI


ROMA, domingo 25 de abril de 2010 (ZENIT.org).- El New York Times (NYT) publica (12/3/10) que en 1980 la archidiócesis de Múnich y Freising, siendo Joseph Ratzinger obispo, acogió y finalmente reincorporó a un sacerdote acusado de abusar sexualmente de niños. El cura perpetró más tarde nuevos abusos y fue procesado. Como se ha demostrado después, quien tomó la decisión de readmisión no fue Ratzinger sino el vicario general: la reasignación tuvo lugar en septiembre de 1982, cuando Ratzinger ya estaba en Roma .

Por las mismas fechas (5/03/10) se intenta implicar al hermano de Ratzinger, pero la acusación no se sostiene.

La respuesta de Benedicto XVI

Benedicto XVI (19/03/10) escribe una carta a los católicos de Irlanda sobre los abusos a niños y jóvenes por parte de clérigos, destapados por los informes Murphy (julio 2009) y Ryan (mayo 2009). Irlanda es el segundo país tras Estados Unidos donde se investiga a fondo.

En la misiva, Benedicto XVI apunta 8 causas de este desastre: 1) inadecuada respuesta a la secularización, 2) descuido de prácticas sacramentales y devocionales (confesión frecuente, oración diaria y retiros anuales), 3) tendencia a adoptar formas de pensamiento y juicio sin referencia suficiente al Evangelio; 4) tendencia a evitar enfoques penales de las situaciones canónicamente irregulares; 5) procedimientos inadecuados para determinar la idoneidad de los candidatos al sacerdocio y a la vida religiosa; 6) insuficiente formación humana, moral, intelectual y espiritual en los seminarios y noviciados; 7) tendencia social a favorecer el clero y otras figuras de autoridad y 8 ) preocupación fuera de lugar por el buen nombre de la Iglesia y para evitar escándalos.

A las víctimas dice: "Habéis sufrido inmensamente y eso me apesadumbra en verdad. Sé que nada puede borrar el mal que habéis soportado. (...) Es comprensible que os resulte difícil perdonar o reconciliaros con la Iglesia. En su nombre, expreso abiertamente la vergüenza y el remordimiento que sentimos todos. Al mismo tiempo, os pido que no perdáis la esperanza". A los sacerdotes y religiosos que han abusado de niños: "Debéis responder de ello ante Dios todopoderoso y ante los tribunales debidamente constituidos". A los obispos: "No se puede negar que algunos de vosotros y de vuestros predecesores habéis fallado, a veces gravemente, a la hora de aplicar las normas, codificadas desde hace largo tiempo, del derecho canónico sobre los delitos de abusos de niños. Se han cometido graves errores en la respuesta a las acusaciones".

Benedicto XVI propone cinco medidas: 1) un año de penitencia, 2) redescubrir el sacramento de la Reconciliación (la confesión), 3) fomentar la adoración eucarística; 4) una Visita Apostólica (una inspección) en algunas diócesis, seminarios y congregaciones religiosas; 5) una misión para todos los obispos, sacerdotes y religiosos. En otras palabras: hacer limpieza.

Más cargos aún

El 24/03/10,NYT apunta directamente a Benedicto XVI como responsable de un caso, cuando era todavía cardenal: el de Lawrence Murphy, que abusó de niños sordos en los 70 en Milwaukee y no fue condenado ni por la justicia ordinaria ni por el arzobispado. Como se ha visto después, la falta de diligencia en el castigo del malhechor fue culpa del propio arzobispado local: el caso no llegó al Vaticano hasta los 90. El sesgo de la noticia periodística puede explicarse por errores de traducción y porque el artículo bebe de dos fuentes: los abogados que han denunciado al Arzobispado (uno de ellos, Jeffrey Anderson, tiene litigio abierto contra la Santa Sede) y el arzobispo retirado de Milwaukee Rembert Weakland, en activo cuando sucedió todo.

El 2/2/10 Associated Press lanzó otra acusación contra Benedicto XVI, cuya pruebas se demostraron falsas. El 9/4/10 volvió a la carga NYT con más acusaciones, con igual suerte.

En resumen, las acusaciones contra la Iglesia son tres: 1) algunos sacerdotes católicos abusaron de niños, 2) muchos obispos lo ocultaron, y 3) Benedicto XVI es personalmente responsable. Con datos en la mano, el n. 1 es lamentablemente cierto en una ínfima minoría del colectivo; n. 2 se afirma en determinados prelados y n. 3 es rotundamente falso.



Las consecuencias

Algunos piden juzgar al Papa por encubrimiento, y aprovechan para suspender al catolicismo en su conjunto. Otros de funesto recuerdo ya habían intentado, tiempo atrás usar los delitos de unos pocos para desacreditar a toda la institución. Algunos abogados intentan sacar provecho. No han faltado voces amigas del Papa desde el judaísmo, desde el agnosticismo y, en general, desde ambientes intelectuales.

El Vaticano ha puesto sobre la mesa la información que tiene. Tal ejercicio de transparencia ha llegado al extremo de que el fiscal del Vaticano hable sobre los casos de abusos en una documentada entrevista. La Santa Sede ha publicado los reglamentos por los cuales se juzgan estos casos y abundante documentación.

Dentro de la Iglesia, ha habido partidarios de la ruptura y partidarios de la renovación. Ruptura: 1) algunas voces reclaman una revisión del celibato y de la moral católica, aunque expertos y opinadores incluso no católicos han denunciado con datos la inexistencia de tal vinculación causa-efecto. 2) exponentes antirromanos de cierta edad han reclamado la dimisión del Papa o una reforma.

Renovación: muchos han aplaudido el posicionamiento de Benedicto XVI de tolerancia cero, petición de perdón y penitencia y conversión. Muchos católicos han salido de la perplejidad buscando la verdad de los hechos. La operación limpieza iniciada años atrás ha retomado impulso: desde la carta a Irlanda han dimitido dos obispos irlandeses, un americano, un alemán, unnoruego y un belga. El liderazgo interno de Benedicto XVI es mayor ahora: se percibe Benedicto XVI como parte de la solución, y no parte del problema.

Además de la Iglesia, pocos han priorizado la protección de las víctimas y las medidas para acabar con la pederastia. Es una lástima, tanto más cuando se constata que es un problema transversal: afecta más gravemente a muchos otros colectivos sociales. Países como Alemania, ya lo afrontan globalmente. Algunos articulistas han apuntado a la culpa que en la extensión del fenómeno haya podido tener la revolución sexualde los sesenta y su simpatía declarada hacia la pedofilia.




Zenit Link: http://www.zenit.org/article-35118?l=spanish
Por Marc Argemí, creador del blog http://bxvi.wordpress.com/

The Resurrection Puts Everything Together Again

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | The Resurrection of the Lord | April 4, 2010

http://ignatiusinsight.com/features2010/schall_easter_apr2010.asp

The events of recent weeks—the enormous concentration of power now vested in the Executive Branch of our Government, the effective lack of checks and balances, the cost of it all—sometimes make the truths of faith seem irrelevant. This sense of helplessness is exponentially increased for many when they realize that those who call themselves Catholics have played a central role in bringing about this increasing absolute rule among us. We might be somewhat consoled if this were a system imposed upon us by some alien or demonic power. But, at bottom, it is the result of free choices of presumably otherwise normal citizens. We also might console ourselves that it may not be as bad as it looks were it not for the suspicion that it is in fact much worse. We just do not want to know.

Catholics could have prevented this radical political turning, but in fact many were and are supportive, indeed enthusiastically so. The key issues of the faith are no longer considered to be basic public issues. The teaching authority of the Church, even when it is clear, is ignored or relativized. We are encouraged to "move on." Generally, this admonition means accepting or accommodating ourselves to what are now taken to be settled facts no matter what they are.

We are becoming like Jews and Christians in Muslim lands. If we politely agree to have no effect in the public order, if we submissively pay the taxes to support this new system, we will be allowed to survive after a fashion. We can have a private, not a public presence.

Easter, the commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ, goes on, of course, no matter in what the social or political order in which we find ourselves. The teaching of Easter is needed if we would make ultimate sense of our lives. Intellectual history, in one sense, is a desperate effort to find a sensible alternative explanation to Christian revelation. The modern mind is, in a way, embarrassed that it has not come up with such an alternative that makes as much ultimate sense as the Resurrection. But, of course, this teaching is the consequence of a fact that happened not of our own making. We might, in some sense, say that it was prophesized to happen, but that does not change the astonishing fact.

Various theories are proposed to explain why the Resurrection "cannot" be true or could not have happened. We have historical analyses seeking to demonstrate that Christ did not exist. Or if He did, He was only human. The evidence of His resurrection is called unreliable. The Apostles dreamed it up after the fact.

Then we have the scientific theories, all of which strive to prove that this doctrine is incoherent, that it lacks evidence that can be repeated or tested in a laboratory.

We have psychological theories which reduce the objective order to wishes or dreams. Volumes have been filled with endeavors to "prove" that this event could not have happened, did not happen, or may not happen.

The truth of the Resurrection, however, is seen as a critique of the actual public order, which it is. The fact and teaching of the Resurrection of Christ and of our own as a result are, none the less, teachings independent of the historical time or place we now live. They belong to the order of things that will happen whether we believe it or not. Nothing—no political or social order—will be more important than the understanding of our being implied in resurrection. This reality teaches us what each of us is. The Creed says that "we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."

We can rightly assume that the teaching of the resurrection of the body is a minority opinion. We can also suspect that few see any relation between how we live our lives and what this doctrine is about. It has been the abiding task of the teaching Church to relate doctrine to practice. Things will not "go" rightly if we do not live rightly. We will generally not live rightly if we do not think rightly.

We are given intelligence in order that we might understand what we are. We are given freedom in order that, understanding what we are, we might choose to be what we are. This combination of reason and liberty results in the possibility of our choosing to reject what we are.

Why would we reject what we are? We would do it if we did not want to be what we are intended to be. We can only choose this rejection if we think we can come up with something better. We are inclined to think this way when we suspect that the kind of being and end that we are given interferes with something we think we want.

We will thus reject what we are in order to establish a way of life and explanation that depends on nothing but ourselves. "As man grows up and becomes emancipated, he wants to liberate himself from this submission and become free and adult, able to organize himself and make his own decisions, even thinking he can do without God," Benedict XVI recently observed. "Precisely this state is delicate and can lead to atheism, yet even this frequently conceals the need to discover God's true Face" (L'Osservatore Romano, English, March 17, 2010).

Paradoxically, the rejection of God can be, in another sense, a seeking for the Face of God. The very rejection of God implies that we search for an alternative that includes the rejection of what is said to be the Christian God. This alternative will never be complete. The celebration of Easter always implies an understanding of what we are and of what the world is that makes more sense than the alternatives when we see them spelled out and lived out. The resurrection will seem preposterous until we think about it.

We might propose an alternate "creed." Thus, "I do not believe in God; He did not 'create' the heaven and the earth. Christ did not rise again. Man will not be risen again either. He will not be judged. He will complete his life at the end of his days however it happens. Nothing will be heard of him again. His existence meant nothing to anybody including to himself or to a 'God.' His highest aspirations are to be left alone in the Cosmos for the fleeting moments of his existence."

The resurrection of the body puts things together again. It restores our face to the Face of God as we see in Christ. What strikes us about the Apostles, those curious men, was that after the Resurrection of Christ, they rushed to "see," to "hear," to "touch." They even "smelled" the fish being grilled on the seashore. They "tasted" it. They did not begin from some theory. Whatever theory they may have had ahead of time, they doubted. Their own "theory" began with what they saw and heard.

We do not know what percentage of human beings who will come into existence on this planet are already dead having been initially judged, awaiting the judgment that puts it all together. Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. He, having been crucified, died, was buried, and rose again. He told us that we were made to follow Him.

Nothing better has been proposed to us. It is not a myth. It is based on the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Our minds keep coming back to this fact if we would know what we are. The world is composed of those who know what they are and those who are afraid to know what they are if it involves even their own resurrection.

Yet, in nothing else is there hope. This is what Easter is about.

Terrible names for children... and my comments on them

My comments on a list of baby names that are becoming terrifyingly common, found at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-03/next-years-hot-baby-names/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL2

GIRLS

1. ABITHA – Abitha for Humanity? Forgot the T in Tabitha?
2. AMABEL – Amabel. You’re a bell, we’re all bells.
3. AMARYLLIS – No. Just no.
4. ARAMINTA. Sounds like the capital of a 3rd world country.
5. AVITA – not to be confused with “Evita”
9. CALLA – Hey ma, can you iron my calla on dis shirt?!
11. CALYPSO – great, name your daughter after the witch-whore who tried to seduce Odysseus
12. CARYS and CERYS – sound like computer software
14. CLEA – middle name “Patra”
16. CYRA and SIRI – another 3rd world capital
17. ELIZABELLA – No. You cannot do this.
18. ELODIE – I met someone named Elodie and I think it is foreign, so it is OK as it is actually a name.
19. FABLE – when you’re not sure if you had a daughter, or if it was just a dream
20. HOLLAND – no there was absolutely no marijuana involved in this decision
24. LARK – Lark? I’m gonna go on a lark here…
26. LEONIE – As in Sierra Leone? Get her some blood diamond earrings.
31. MAELLE – Another made up name which is not acceptable.
33. NOLA – New Orleans, Louisiana?
35. PERSEPHONE – better hope Hades doesn’t come up from the underworld and kidnap her
37. REMEMBER – We had a good name for our daughter, remember….?
38. RHEYA – sounds like some disease
39. ROMILLY - No
41. SAFFRON –It would be funny if she married Jerry Rice.
44. TAMSIN – Tamsin? Sounds like a name some Bombay man gives to his pet dog
45. TIERNEY – the last name of an old Irish woman.
46. VEGA – Vega… one of the badguys from Street Fighter
47. VERITY – she will never be able to tell a lie.
49. VIRTUE – wow she has a lot to live up to!
50. XANTHE – isn’t this a product used in shampoo?



BOYS

51. ACE – Sounds like his father is the kind who won’t accept that 2nd place little league trophy. I hope their insurance includes adolescent psychiatry
52. ALCOTT – last name, sorry.
53. ARCHER – like Robin Hood?
56. BEAU – I bet he won’t speak a word of French
57. BECKETT – yuck, obviously a Red Sox fan…
58. BENNETT – last name
59. BLAZE – wow, he can team up with Holland and have some fun times in Amsterdam.
60. BRECCAN – Breccan? Sounds like… either some kind of Native American snack or an old Irish village
61. CALLUM – sounds like a chemical
65. CAVAN – destined to drive a Dodge Caravan
66. CORMAC – good luck not getting made fun of
68. DHANI – name of a midly successful NFL linebacker
69. DJANGO – good luck again
71. GERMAN – well I hope he is at least German!
72. HAITIAN – $100 says this kid is white
73. HUXLEY – a brave new name
74. JAX – because
76. LAZARUS - did he crawl out from behind a stone?
78. LENNON – imagine if people gave their kids normal names
80. LONAN - Loner
82. MAGNUS – watch this kid be an effeminate, skinny ballet dancer
83. NASH - Ville
86. PHILOMON – the correct spelling is Philemon.
87. PIERS – instead of docks
88. POE – Poe child….
89. RALEIGH - Durham
91. ROAN – isn’t this an adjective for a red cow?
94. TARQUIN – great, name your child after the hated dictators of Rome
100. WYLIE - Coyote


God help us all...

Barcelona Invites Pope to Consecrate Gaudí Church

Cardinal Notes Benedict XVI's Appreciation for Art

BARCELONA, Spain, FEB. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The archbishop of Barcelona is affirming that Benedict XVI expressed interest in an invitation to consecrate the Sagrada Familia Church in that city, though he has not yet confirmed.

The church, designed by Antoni Gaudí, has been under construction since 1882 and is not expected to be completed until 2026.

However, this September, a portion of the building's completed interior is set to be opened for worship and tours.

Barcelona's archbishop, Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, invited the Pope to consecrate the church before it is opened for use.

He reported this Wednesday in a press conference at his episcopal palace, which was held for the beatification of Venerable José Tous y Soler, a Capuchin priest and founder who died in 1871 in Barcelona.

The cardinal stated that "the Holy Father was interested in the invitation because of what the Sagrada Familia is and signifies as a church of the universal genius of architect Antoni Gaudí, whose cause of canonization is under way."

He added that this church, named after the Holy Family, also has special significance "given the extreme importance the family has for the Holy Father, since the good of persons, of society and of the Church are directly related to the protection, defense and promotion of the family."

The Sagrada Familia is a religious monument which has been declared patrimony of humanity. It draws some 3 million visitors every year.

The archbishop of Barcelona clarified that "there is still no confirmation of this trip of the Pope to Barcelona to dedicate or consecrate the Sagrada Familia, as it depends on the Holy Father's calendar of trips."

The cardinal noted that the Pontiff "gives much importance to art, to beauty as a way to God."

He recalled, for example, Benedict XVI's Nov. 21 meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, and his address to them that was "very rich in content and very affectionate."

Cardinal Martínez Sistach noted that the Pope affirmed on that occasion that "artists speak to humanity's heart." He asked them to be, through their art, "witnesses and heralds of hope for humanity."

Blair Saw Catholic Ban as "Ridiculous"

Comments on Requirement for UK Envoy to Holy See

LONDON, FEB. 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Tony Blair overturned British government policy to ban Catholics from representing the nation to the Holy See because he considered the ban "the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

This is what the former prime minister -- now himself a Catholic -- reveals on a documentary to be aired Wednesday by the BBC Northern Ireland.

In the documentary, titled "Our Man in the Vatican," Blair recounts his surprise at learning in 2005 of the policy, when the ambassador post became vacant.

"I said, 'It's the Vatican, the Pope, he's a Catholic. You mean we actually as a matter of policy ... say you can't have a Catholic?' I said, 'What is this? It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,'" Blair said, as reported by the BBC.

"Can you imagine we say for years and years and years the one category of person we shouldn't have as ambassador to the Holy See is someone who shares their faith?" he added. "I don't think that is very sensible -- not in this day.

"Quite apart from being discriminatory, how stupid is it?"

Formal diplomatic links between England and the Holy See were first established in 1479; in fact, the ambassador position before the Holy See is the oldest in the United Kingdom's diplomatic service.

However, when England's relationship with the Vatican went sour under Henry VIII, ties were broken and were not restored until 1914.

Rational

The BBC noted how in 1917, a Foreign Office memorandum stated Britain's Holy See representative "should not be filled with unreasoning awe of the Pope."

The Blair administration's selection of Francis Campbell, still the British ambassador, finally broke that trend.

Now, the embassy is considered a "vital part of the UK’s overseas network," as explained on the embassy's site. "The mission works jointly with the Holy See on international development, interfaith and climate change. But those examples are replicated many times over in ecumenism, conflict prevention, disarmament and human rights, not to mention the value of the Holy See as a global listening post.

"In an era when religion has once more emerged in international relations, the Vatican is key to the continuing policy debate on the proper boundary between faith and politics. The Vatican is a key stabilizing influence in the global faith/politics debate and helps keep discussion rational."

Faith and politics

Campbell's role as ambassador will be unique this year as he prepares for Benedict XVI's trip to Great Britain in September.

The Holy Father already caused a stir in England when he told the nation's bishops Feb. 1 that some legislation designed to protect equality imposes "unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs," and sometimes "actually violates the natural law."

British government is considering the Equality Bill, defended as protection from discrimination due to sex or sexual orientation.

Critics caution that it could restrict the Church from selecting staff or even priests who live according to Church teaching and morality.

Source

New Prague Bishop Endured Communist Prison

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, FEB. 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A bishop who was forced to work in a factory instead of as a priest, and who endured time in a Communist prison, has been named the archbishop of Prague.

Bishop Dominik Duka of Hradec Kralove, 66, succeeds Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, 77, who has retired for reasons of age.

Dominik Duka was born in 1943. He entered the Dominican Order, making his temporary profession in 1969, and receiving priestly ordination the next year.

For five years he worked in several parishes in Prague, and made his perpetual vows in 1972.

Three years later, he was deprived of authorization to exercise his priestly ministry, and was forced to work in a car factory in Plzen for almost 15 years (until 1989).

Meanwhile, he worked in secret within his congregation as master of novices and professor of theology.

He was imprisoned in Plzen between 1981 and 1982, according to the biography issued by the Vatican press office.

After the fall of Communism, he was elected president of the Federal Conference of Major Superiors and, from 1992 to 1996 was vice-president of the Union of European Conferences of Major Superiors.

From 1990 to 1999 he was a professor in the faculty of theology of Palacky University in Olomouc. On June 6, 1998, Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop of Hradec Kralove.

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28359?l=english

Vatican Secret Archives Documents Going Online

Pave the Way Foundation Proposal Approved


By Jesús Colina

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See is planning to publish on the Internet, free of charge, several documents from the Vatican Secret Archives in relation to World War II.

The initiatives is partially in response to a petition from Pave the Way Foundation, an organization dedicated to bridging gaps between religions.

The foundation proposed making digital files of, and later publicizing, some 5125 descriptions and copies of documents from the closed section of the Vatican archives, from the period of March 1939 to May 1945.

Gary Krupp, the foundation's president and founder, told ZENIT that "the 'Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs a la Seconde Guerre Mondiale [Acts and Documents of the Holy See relative to the Second World War],'" which were "previously published and mostly ignored," will "shortly be available for worldwide scrutiny and study online, free of charge."

He explained that these documents will be available on the Web site of his foundation as well as that of the Vatican.

This project is part of the mission of the foundation, a non-sectarian organization that works to remove obstacles between religions, foster cooperation and to end the misuse of religion for private agendas.

The organization's president, who is from New York but of Jewish decent, stated, "In the furtherance of our mission we have recognized the papacy of the war time Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) as a source of friction impacting over one billion people."

A plot

"Controversy abounds on whether he did enough to prevent the slaughter of Jews at the hands of the Nazis," Krupp affirmed.

He continued: "Our research has revealed that five years after Pius XII's death, the KGB hatched a plot to discredit their enemy, the Roman Catholic Church, called 'Seat 12.'

"A dirty trick, which condemned Pope Pius XII for his 'silence' during the Holocaust in the form of Rolf Hochhuth's fictitious 1963 play 'The Deputy.' The result was the worst character assassination of the twentieth century."

Based on his foundation's research, Krupp stated that in 1964, Pope Paul VI asked a team of three Jesuit historians, Father Pierre Blet, Father Burkhart Schneider, and Father Angelo Martini, to "conduct intensive research to identify relevant documents from the war years from the closed section of the Vatican Secret Archives."

He added: "A few years later Father Robert Graham joined the group. The first volume was published in 1965, the last in 1981."

Krupp explained that in 1999, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, at that time the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, called for a special commission of Jewish and Catholic scholars to come together to study these documents.

"This positive advance unfortunately ended July 21, 2001 in failure," he added, "partly because the scholars simply did not read the languages of the collection."

"They issued a list of 47 questions and demanded the opening of the yet un-catalogued archives" from the 1939-1958 period, the foundation president said.

He stated that his foundation "sought to gain permission to digitize this collection, making it broadly available for study" so as to further "our mission to publicly disclose as many documents as possible to help to move this obstacle between Jews and Catholics into the light of documented truth."

Black legend

Krupp explained that "this effort is simply to show clear evidence of Pope Pius XII's efforts to mitigate suffering during the war and that the 'black legend,' which besmirched his name, is simply not true."

He added that this initiative is "not meant to be a substitute for the full access" to the archives, "but will absolutely show the unique efforts of Pope Pius XII and the dangers he was forced to operate under a direct threat from the Nazi regime."

"Ironically," he said "the Vatican Secret Archives [from the period prior] to 1939 were opened over two years ago," and they showed that "65% of Pacelli's ministry has simply been ignored by the critics who call for the war years to be opened."

On behalf of the foundation, the president expressed gratitude to the Pope's Secretary of State and the Libreria Editrice Vaticana "for their confidence in us by allowing us this unprecedented privilege."

He continued: "We sincerely hope that international historians will carefully scrutinize these records. We expect the digitization process of over 9000 pages will take about four weeks to complete [at which time] we will announce their posting on Internet."

In the meantime, the foundation already has thousands of documents and eyewitness videos available on their Web site for study.

Krupp concluded by requesting that "French, Italian and German scholars consider helping us by translating documents into English and forward this work to Pave the Way Foundation so that we can make the information available to more scholars for research."

He added, "We also would like to receive any comments, positive or negative, relative to the content of these documents."

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Pave the Way Foundation: http://www.ptwf.org

The BBC and Anti-Catholic Bias

Director Mark Thompson Defends Its "Rounded" Approach


By Edward Pentin
www.Zenit.com

ROME, FEB. 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is not known to be one of the Catholic Church's closest friends.

Although it has a worldwide reputation for high quality programming, the vast state-funded broadcaster has often been accused of treating the Church and the Catholic faith unfairly at best, and maliciously at worst.

Many examples back up this accusation, beginning with a number programmes over the past 10 years that have been blasphemous and highly offensive to Catholics.

In 2003, the BBC broadcast -- to a large international audience -- a documentary entitled "Sex and the Holy City," which intentionally misrepresented the Church and its teaching on condoms and AIDS. Two years later, it aired "Jerry Springer the Opera," a blasphemous and very offensive programme that ridiculed Jesus and the faith in general. Earlier, the BBC had spent £2 million ($3.13 million) on a program called "Popetown" -- an animated series set in the Vatican that mocked the Church and included plotlines about bestiality. Due to protests, it was banned in Britain but broadcast overseas and sold in Britain on DVD.

The BBC has also been accused of failing in other areas when it comes to Catholicism. The persecution of Catholics in the Middle East or Asia is rarely covered or warranted adequate attention; the immense good work that Catholic priests, religious and laity do around the world is generally passed over; and the Church's invaluable contribution to Western culture tends to be disparaged in favour of focusing on the sins of Church members in the past.

The BBC has also been blamed for more subtle instances of anti-Catholic bias. Discussion panels, news reports and web articles tend to focus on the sensational; they also often comprise contributions from secular figures or dissenting Catholics but hardly ever from orthodox Catholics who will properly convey the Church's teaching.

The corporation's treatment of clergy not infrequently involves interrogations by disparaging and dismissive presenters who seem to view them as guilty until proven innocent. Stephen Glover, a non-Catholic British newspaper columnist, wrote how a BBC television interviewer, quizzing English Archbishop Vincent Nichols in 2007, "treated him like a member of some extreme sect, interrupting him continually, and sneering at him as though he were a half-wit."

Bias

Most of this bias is attributed to a predominantly secular mindset in the corporation that embraces, or is sympathetic to, the culture of death, whether it be abortion, radical feminism, the homosexual agenda, euthanasia, or unethical science such as embryonic stem cell research. "The BBC," Glover once wrote, "represents a materialist, mechanistic consensus which has rejected God, and deludes itself that science is capable of providing a complete explanation of existence."

Even one of the BBC's most accomplished journalists, Andrew Marr, admitted the difficulty the corporation has in offering unbiased coverage. "The BBC is not impartial or neutral," he told a secret summit of BBC executives in 2006. "It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

At that same meeting, one veteran BBC executive was reported in the British press as saying there was "widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness" and that much of this mentality is "so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it." It was also reported that "nearly everyone" at the summit agreed the Bible could be thrown into the bin on a comedy show, but not the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

Denial

The BBC's managers are, of course, quick to publicly reject most allegations of anti-Catholic bias. Last week, Mark Thompson, the corporation's director-general -- essentially its editor-in-chief -- gave a speech at Rome's Pontifical University of the Holy Cross on the theme "Broadcasting and Civil Society." Disappointingly and perhaps revealingly his speech didn't specifically mention religion at all but rather focused on how well the BBC is performing as an independent state broadcaster, and how a forthcoming review promises to deliver better quality programmes.

But during the question and answer session afterward, he admitted some anti-Catholic bias "may be the case" in relation to news coverage, although as far as the corporation's religious broadcasting was concerned, he said the BBC tries and generally succeeds in giving "a rounded picture."

He then gave examples of BBC documentaries and live coverage of the Church, from the funeral of Cardinal Basil Hume, the former archbishop of Westminster, to the exposition in Britain of the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux. Asked if he believed the BBC tends to favour an ideology at odds with the Church's teaching, he replied: "No, I really don't," and recalled another programme, this time on the Passion shown at Easter in 2008.

Mother's advice

This wasn't the first time he'd had to confront such criticism. Speaking on the theme of religious broadcasting at a London lecture in 2008, Thompson, who is a Catholic, recalled how his mother shook her head when told her son had been appointed director-general. "The BBC is anti-Catholic and anti-God," she told him in no uncertain terms.

But such anti-God labels, he explained to the audience in London, were "not just too sweeping; they are not even directionally true." He said that naturally, inside the BBC are many people "who take a strongly sceptical view of religion," but you'd also find "thousands of people for whom religion plays a central role in their lives." He accepted that coverage of religion as "faith and lived experience" rather than as a story or controversy was "unusual" but noted there is more interest in "high profile" religious affairs programming than there was 25 years ago.

And yet on his watch, BBC television coverage of religious affairs has fallen, from 177 hours in 1987-88 to 155 hours in 2007-08. This week the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod, is debating whether the BBC marginalises Christianity, treating it like a "freak show" or a "rare species" to be studied on a nature programme.

Marginalization

At last week's lecture, Thompson said he didn't address religion specifically because he didn't want to put it into a special category, preferring instead to include religion in his comments on history, knowledge and culture. Yet such a vision risks sidelining it further, and is perhaps one reason why the BBC rarely airs programmes aimed at a particular faith but instead lumps them together into a relativist muddle.

As one priest asked after hearing Thompson's speech: Why not have programmes dedicated to each religion, for example one made up of a group of Catholic theologians discussing the role of works in justification, or another of Muslim scholars debating the interpretation of the Koran?

Speaking with Thompson later on, he appeared open to having an honest dialogue with the Church and to listening to ideas on how to improve coverage. The main purpose of his visit was to meet the Holy Father and Vatican officials to discuss the Pope's visit to Britain later this year.

A hopeful sign, though how genuinely serious BBC management takes the Church remains very much open to doubt.

Should any reader wish to propose ideas to Mark Thompson on how to improve coverage of the Church on the BBC, e-mail me and I'll send you details on how you can drop him a line.

Chilean Maternal Mortality Study Undercuts Pro-Abortion Claims

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. and Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) Preliminary findings by a prominent biomedical researcher examining the dramatic decrease in maternal mortality, over the past fifty years in the Latin American nation of Chile, appear to undercut claims by global abortion lobbyists that liberal abortion laws are necessary to reduce maternal mortality rates.

According Dr. Elard Koch, an epidemiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Chile, Chile's promotion of "safe pregnancy" measures such as "prenatal detection" and accessibility to professional birth attendants in a hospital setting are primarily responsible for the decrease in maternal mortality. The maternal mortality rate declined from 275 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1960 to 18.7 deaths in 2000, the largest reduction in any Latin country.

Because Chile is a nation that protects unborn life in its penal laws and constitution, the decline is therefore not attributable to access to legal abortion. In fact, the preliminary study shows, maternal mortality in Chile declined over the last century regardless of whether abortion was legal or illegal. Chile tightened its restrictions on abortion in the late 1980s.

According to Dr. Koch, "From 1960 onwards, there has been a breakthrough in the public health system and primary care" in Chile, with resources devoted to the development of "highly trained personnel, the construction of many primary health centers and the increase of schooling of the population.” Education appeared to be a primary factor in the country’s improved maternal health. Chile today touts a maternal health record comparable to those of developed nations.

Statistics released the World Health Organization (WHO) support such conclusions. In South America, according to WHO, Chile boasts of the lowest rate of maternal mortality, whereas Guyana, which significantly liberalized its laws in the mid-1990s citing concern over maternal deaths, has the highest.

Indeed, perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of the decline of maternal death rates in the developed world, a peer-reviewed article by Irvine Loudon appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000 confirms that the “sudden and dramatic decline in maternal mortality rates, which occurred after 1937, took place in all developed countries and eliminated the previously wide country-level differences in national mortality rates. The main factors that led to this decline seem to have been successive improvements in maternal care.”

As with Chile today, these strides in the developed world occurred at a time before access to abortion had been liberalized. Thus it appears that improving access to quality maternal health care, rather than permissive abortion laws, is what drives reductions in maternal death during pregnancy and delivery.

Maternal health experts such as noted obstetrician Donna Harrison, MD, point out that introducing abortion in a developing world setting without first improving basic maternal health care increases the risk of maternal death since health systems cannot adequately respond to complications from invasive surgical procedures such as abortion. Indeed, nations such as South Africa, which has one of the continent’s most liberal abortion regimes, has seen an increase in maternal deaths attributable in part to complications arising from legal abortion.

Dr. Koch presented his initial findings at the inaugural meeting of the International Working Group for Global Women's Health Research last month in Washington, DC.

The Obama Spell Is Broken

Unlike this president, John Kennedy was an ironist who never fell for his own mystique.

Wall Street Journal Online

By FOUAD AJAMI

The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.

The nation's faith in institutions and time-honored ways had cracked. In a little-known senator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver the nation out of its troubles. Gone was the empiricism in political life that had marked the American temper in politics. A charismatic leader had risen in a manner akin to the way politics plays out in distressed and Third World societies.

There is nothing surprising about where Mr. Obama finds himself today. He had been made by charisma, and political magic, and has been felled by it. If his rise had been spectacular, so, too, has been his fall. The speed with which some of his devotees have turned on him—and their unwillingness to own up to what their infatuation had wrought—is nothing short of astounding. But this is the bargain Mr. Obama had made with political fortune.

He was a blank slate, and devotees projected onto him what they wanted or wished. In the manner of political redeemers who have marked—and wrecked—the politics of the Arab world and Latin America, Mr. Obama left the crowd to its most precious and volatile asset—its imagination. There was no internal coherence to the coalition that swept him to power. There was cultural "cool" and racial absolution for the white professional classes who were the first to embrace him. There was understandable racial pride on the part of the African-American community that came around to his banners after it ditched the Clinton dynasty.

The white working class had been slow to be convinced. The technocracy and elitism of Mr. Obama's campaign—indeed of his whole persona—troubled that big constituency, much more, I believe, than did his race and name. The promise of economic help, of an interventionist state that would salvage ailing industries and provide a safety net for the working poor, reconciled these voters to a candidate they viewed with a healthy measure of suspicion. He had been caught denigrating them as people "clinging to their guns and religion," but they had forgiven him.

Mr. Obama himself authored the tale of his own political crisis. He had won an election, but he took it as a plebiscite granting him a writ to remake the basic political compact of this republic.

Mr. Obama's self-regard, and his reading of his mandate, overwhelmed all restraint. The age-old American balance between a relatively small government and a larger role for the agencies of civil society was suddenly turned on its head. Speed was of the essence to the Obama team and its allies, the powerful barons in Congress. Better ram down sweeping social programs—a big liberal agenda before the people stirred to life again.

Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industry—these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.

And then there was the hubris of the man at the helm: He was everywhere, and pronounced on matters large and small. This was political death by the teleprompter.

Americans don't deify their leaders or hang on their utterances, but Mr. Obama succumbed to what the devotees said of him: He was the Awaited One. A measure of reticence could have served him. But the flight had been heady, and in the manner of Icarus, Mr. Obama flew too close to the sun.

We have had stylish presidents, none more so than JFK. But Kennedy was an ironist and never fell for his own mystique. Mr. Obama's self-regard comes without irony—he himself now owns up to the "remoteness and detachment" of his governing style. We don't have in this republic the technocratic model of the European states, where a bureaucratic elite disposes of public policy with scant regard for the popular will. Mr. Obama was smitten with his own specialness.

In this extraordinary tale of hubris undone, the Europeans—more even than the people in Islamic lands—can be assigned no small share of blame. They overdid the enthusiasm for the star who had risen in America.

It was the way in Paris and Berlin (not to forget Oslo of course) of rebuking all that played out in America since 9/11—the vigilance, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the sense that America's interests and ways were threatened by a vengeful Islamism. But while the Europeans and Muslim crowds hailed him, they damned his country all the same. For his part, Mr. Obama played along, and in Ankara, Cairo, Paris and Berlin he offered penance aplenty for American ways.

But no sooner had the country recovered its poise, it drew a line for Mr. Obama. The "bluest" of states, Massachusetts, sent to Washington a senator who had behind him three decades of service in the National Guard, who proclaimed his pride in his "army values" and was unapologetic in his assertion that it was more urgent to hunt down terrorists than to provide for their legal defense.

Then the close call on Christmas Day at the hands of the Nigerian jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab demonstrated that the terrorist threat had not receded. The president did his best to recover: We are at war, he suddenly proclaimed. Nor were we in need of penance abroad. Rumors of our decline had been exaggerated. The generosity of the American response to Haiti, when compared to what India and China had provided, was a stark reminder that this remains an exceptional nation that needs no apologies in distant lands.

***

A historical hallmark of "isms" and charismatic movements is to dig deeper when they falter—to insist that the "thing" itself, whether it be Peronism, or socialism, etc., had not been tried but that the leader had been undone by forces that hemmed him in.

It is true to this history that countless voices on the left now want Obama to be Obama. The economic stimulus, the true believers say, had not gone astray, it only needed to be larger; the popular revolt against ObamaCare would subside if and when a new system was put in place.

There had been that magical moment—the campaign of 2008—and the true believers want to return to it. But reality is merciless. The spell is broken.

Mr. Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is the author of "The Foreigner's Gift" (Free Press, 2007).

Nothing Novel Seen in New Pius XII Documents

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28224?l=english

L'Osservatore Romano Gives Context of Two Texts From 40s

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Two more documents regarding Pope Pius XII and his handling of the Third Reich and the Holocaust have resurfaced, refueling allegations that he was silent and bringing historians to his defense.

The Vatican's semi-official daily, L'Osservatore Romano, today took up the news generated by researcher Giuseppe Casarrubea, who has analyzed two documents found in an English archive.

The Italian press is reporting Casarrubea's presentation of a brief document from Oct. 19, 1943, and a letter of Nov. 10, 1944.

The first document reports on a meeting between Pius XII and U.S. diplomat Harold Tittmann. Though the meeting took place just three days after the deportation of Roman Jews, the document makes no mention of that tragedy.

It does speak about the Pope's concern to keep Rome in peace.

Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, retired prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, who entered Pius XII's diplomatic service in 1953, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa today that although the Pope did not raise his voice in face of the deportation, he dedicated himself to concrete actions.

In the interview, cited by L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal said the Holy Father's activity on behalf of the Jews would not have been possible should relations with the Germans have grown tense.

"In that tragic period, the Pope was concerned that the Germans leave Rome in peace and respect its sacred character," Cardinal Silvestrini explained.

"And this was not an option against the Jews. On the contrary. Precisely that attitude of prudence made it possible to act in an effective and concrete manner in favor of the Jews and many others who were persecuted. Every gesture of protest or rebellion with a lot of publicity would have been counterproductive," the L'Osservatore Romano article stated.

"At the same time the Pope mobilized so that Catholic churches and institutions would receive the greatest possible number of Jews," Cardinal Silvestrini said. "But an explicit protest would have caused more damages than advantages."

Cardinal Silvestrini recalled how Pius XII was no stranger to German affairs, having been nuncio in Munich and in Berlin from 1917 to 1929: "He knew what Nazism was."

A time to speak

The other document, a letter of Nov. 10, 1944, makes reference to a dialogue between British ambassador Francis D'Arcy Osborne and Pius XII on the massacres of Jews in Hungary. Osborne urged a public condemnation of the tragedy.

The Holy Father noted how the Apostolic See was receiving continual appeals to denounce the crimes of Stalin in the Baltic countries and in Poland.

In this regard, however, the ambassador suggested silence, to protect public opinion of the allies.

For both situations, Pius XII chose his customary prudence.

Cardinal Silvestrini explained that "Pius XII considered what happened to the Dutch bishops as a warning not to be repeated."

He observed: "Holland's episcopate wrote a letter condemning 'the cruel and unjust treatment of Jews.' That document was read in Dutch churches in July of 1942.

"The intentions were excellent, but the results were disastrous."

"Precisely in the country in which the priests had denounced the Jewish persecutions most harshly, there were more deportations than in any other state of Western Europe," Cardinal Silvestrini said. "In face of the Shoa the Allies kept silent as did all the others, but only Pius XII is called to account. The others are never up for discussion."

Much-maligned pontiff

By Dimitri Cavalli, Haaretz.com

Some things never go away. The controversy over Pope Pius XII's actions during World War II was recently reignited when Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree affirming that his predecessor displayed "heroic virtues" during his lifetime. When the pope visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on Sunday, Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome's Jewish community, told him: "The silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done."

This was not the first time the wartime pope, who is now a step closer to beatification, has been accused of keeping silent during the Holocaust, of doing little or nothing to help the Jews, and even of collaborating with the Nazis. To what extent, if any, does the evidence back up these allegations, which have been repeated since the early 1960s?

On April 4, 1933, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican secretary of state, instructed the papal nuncio in Germany to see what he could do to oppose the Nazis' anti-Semitic policies.
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On behalf of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli drafted an encyclical, entitled "Mit brennender Sorge" ("With Burning Anxiety"), that condemned Nazi doctrines and persecution of the Catholic Church. The encyclical was smuggled into Germany and read from Catholic pulpits on March 21, 1937.

Although many Vatican critics today dismiss the encyclical as a light slap on the wrist, the Germans saw it as a security threat. For example, on March 26, 1937, Hans Dieckhoff, an official in the German foreign ministry, wrote that the "encyclical contains attacks of the severest nature upon the German government, calls upon Catholic citizens to rebel against the authority of the state, and therefore signifies an attempt to endanger internal peace."

Both Great Britain and France should have interpreted the document as a warning that they should not trust Adolf Hitler or try to appease him.

After the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected pope, on March 2, 1939. The Nazis were displeased with the new pontiff, who took the name Pius XII. On 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."

During the war, the pope was far from silent: In numerous speeches and encyclicals, he championed human rights for all people and called on the belligerent nations to respect the rights of all civilians and prisoners of war. 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.)

In early 1940, the pope acted as an intermediary between a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler and the British government. Although the conspiracy never went forward, Pius XII kept in close contact with the German resistance and heard about two other plots against Hitler. In the fall of 1941, through diplomatic channels, the pope agreed with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that America's Catholics could support the president's plans to extend military aid to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis. On behalf of the Vatican, John T. McNicholas, the archbishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, delivered a well-publicized address that explained that the extension of assistance to the Soviets could be morally justified because it helped the Russian people, who were the innocent victims of German aggression.

Throughout the war, the pope's deputies frequently ordered the Vatican's diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. Up until Pius XII's death in 1958, many Jewish organizations, newspapers and leaders lauded his efforts. To cite one of many examples, in his April 7, 1944, letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Bucharest, wrote: "It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews ... The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."

The campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure because his 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. 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.

Dimitri Cavalli is an editor and writer in New York City. He is working on books on both Pope Pius XII and Joe McCarthy, the late manager of the New York Yankees.

Haitian diary

To All,

I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.

Port au Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnal house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were either incompeyent or outright anti american. Most are French or French speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization full of little OBamites and communisrts that openly speak against America) These two organizations exemplared their parochialism by:

USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.

Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people trapped in the rubble.

Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldnt release a drop of it to the resuers.

No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents.

No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter everyone was trying to use it.

I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. " You dont know what your president wants! The military isn’t in charge here, we are!"

If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the French and the Liberal left.

If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is alweays screaming about the injustice of American society.

Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn't need democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. The French run the UN treat us the same as when we were a colony, at least Papa Doc ran the country.

Oh, and as a last slap in the face, the last four of us had to take US AIRWAYs home from Phoenix. They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job. Pass that on to the flying public.

Nick Brockhausen

via email

Matthews' remark exposes complexity of 'transcending race'

By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer – Thu Jan 28, 5:09 pm ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/ap_on_an/us_forgetting_blackness_analysis

Five little words — "I forgot he was black" — have exposed a contradiction in the idea of a post-racial nation.

The comment came from MSNBC host Chris Matthews after President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech Wednesday.

"He is post-racial, by all appearances," the liberal host said on the air. "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he's gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and past so much history, in just a year or two. I mean, it's something we don't even think about."

The staunch Obama supporter meant it as praise, but it caused a rapid furor, with many calling the quote a troubling sign that blackness is viewed — perhaps unconsciously — as a handicap that still needs to be overcome.

Apparently, Matthews forgot to ask black people if they WANT to be de-raced.

"As a black American I want people to remember who I am and where I come from without attaching assumptions about deficiency to it," said Dr. Imani Perry, a professor at Princeton's Center for African American Studies.

Although she thought Matthews was well-intentioned, she found his statement troubling, because "it suggests that if he had remembered Obama's blackness, that awareness would be a barrier to seeing him as a competent or able leader."

"The ideal is to be able to see and acknowledge everything that person is, including the history that he or she comes from, as well as his or her competencies and qualities, and respect all of those things," Perry said.

That's a very different vision of "transcending race" — a consistent theme of Obama's political history — than one in which race has disappeared altogether.

"It's important for us to remember that everyone has a race," Blair L.M. Kelley, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University. "When you say we're going to transcend race, are white people called on to transcend their whiteness?"

"When (black people) transcend it, what do we become? Do we become white?" she asked. "Why would we have to stop being our race in order to solve a problem?"

Matthews didn't get that far down the post-racial road on Wednesday night. But his comments instantly exploded online, especially on Twitter. Ninety minutes later, he clarified his comments on the air.

"I'm very proud I did it and I hope I said it the right way," Matthews said, noting that he grew up in the racially fraught 1960s.

"I walked into the room tonight, you could feel (racial tension) wasn't there tonight and that takes leadership on his part, to get us beyond those divisions, really national leadership," Matthews said.

"I felt it wonderfully tonight, almost like an epiphany. I think he's done something wonderful. I think he's taken us beyond black and white in our politics."

Plenty of people supported Matthews on Thursday, saying his sentiments, although poorly worded, reflected the view that all Americans are now equal.

But for many blacks, it was hard to forget the word "forgot."

Kevin Jackson, a black conservative and author of "The BIG Black Lie," hews to the same philosophy as the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — that people should be judged on their merits, not their color.

Yet Jackson does not want his blackness to be forgotten.

"Absolutely not," he said. "Because we have an amazing history."

He pointed out that if Don Imus had made the same comment as Matthews, "everybody on God's green earth would be out to hang him by his you-know-what."

Sophia Nelson, a black attorney, former lobbyist and founder of PoliticalIntersection.com, which focuses on politics, race and gender, said she has been offended by people calling her articulate and intelligent: "That's saying that people who look like me normally aren't those things."

She said Matthews' comment showed the same unconscious bias as those by Vice President Joe Biden when he was still a senator that Obama was "clean" and "articulate," and Sen. Harry Reid's saying that Obama was more electable because he was light-skinned and lacking a "Negro dialect."

"Matthews was saying exactly what he meant," Nelson said. "He forgot he was black because he's so articulate and so compelling."

Another common interpretation of Matthews' comment was that if he forgot Obama was black during his speech, it must be part of his thinking the other 23 hours of the day.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, said Kelley, the North Carolina State professor.

"Obama is forcing people to see blackness," she said, "in a way they haven't had to in the past."

___

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He can be reached at jwashington(at)ap.org or http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington.

Pius XII and objectivity

Carl Olson | Ignatius Insight | Friday, January 22, 2010

I was reading a couple of articles this morning about responses to Pope Benedict's recent visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome, and was struck by this, from The Catholic Herald:

Although Rabbi Rosen was critical of the way in which certain crisis situations had been dealt with by the Curia (and believes the Pope must take responsibility for this) he says it is unfair to perceive Pope Benedict's pontificate as a step backwards. He says, however, that it was easy to see how even educated people come to that conclusion, citing the beatification of Pius XII, the Lefebvrists and the liberation of the older form of the Latin Mass among other instances, but these would ultimately not affect the substance of the dialogue. He says that not one of these was an initiative put forward by Pope Benedict.

Really? That is a remarkable statement, one I have a very hard time believing is accurate. (It bears resemblance to the claims that a beleaguered Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae because of nefarious conservatives in the Vatican.) And then this:

Rabbi Rosen says the issue of Pius XII goes back many years. "We should ask ourselves why it has taken so many years for the Vatican to approve his status of heroic virtues - surely out of caution and sensitivity to the Jewish community. Pius XII belongs to the most traumatic period in the history of the Jewish people and it is inappropriate to expect Jews not to be upset about the issue, that anybody who did not lay down his life in protest could be considered a saint is almost anathema to Jews."

He says that while it caused angst for some people, "it is not something which would torpedo the process for both parties. And on this period in history, we shall have to learn to agree to disagree. It's unfair to expect Jews to be objective about that period of their history just as its unfair to expect Catholics to be objective about popes."

First, this remark: "... it is inappropriate to expect Jews not to be upset about the issue, that anybody who did not lay down his life in protest could be considered a saint is almost anathema to Jews." One question that comes to mind immediately: "Is it better to die dramatically but foolishly, or to quietly go about saving lives and then be damned as an anti-Semitic 'do-nothing' in years to come?" The more I read about the criticisms of the "silence" of Pope Pius XII, the more I am convinced that they are quite often driven by the modern, obsessive belief that dramatic symbolic gestures are morally superior to mundane, concrete action. Put another, we live in age in which style and image tends to trump—often shamelessly—prudent action and moral rectitude. I get the impression that even if there is irrefutable proof Pius XII saved, say, 700,000 to 800,000 Jews, that would mean almost nothing because it did not include the appropriate level of eye-catching public demonstration and dramatic symbolic gestures. Sure, he might have saved a lot of lives, but he did too quietly! But, as Dimitri Cavalli summarizes in a short piece, "Much-maligned pontiff," published today in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz:

During the war, the pope was far from silent: In numerous speeches and encyclicals, he championed human rights for all people and called on the belligerent nations to respect the rights of all civilians and prisoners of war. 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.)

In early 1940, the pope acted as an intermediary between a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler and the British government. Although the conspiracy never went forward, Pius XII kept in close contact with the German resistance and heard about two other plots against Hitler. In the fall of 1941, through diplomatic channels, the pope agreed with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that America's Catholics could support the president's plans to extend military aid to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis. On behalf of the Vatican, John T. McNicholas, the archbishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, delivered a well-publicized address that explained that the extension of assistance to the Soviets could be morally justified because it helped the Russian people, who were the innocent victims of German aggression.

Throughout the war, the pope's deputies frequently ordered the Vatican's diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. Up until Pius XII's death in 1958, many Jewish organizations, newspapers and leaders lauded his efforts. To cite one of many examples, in his April 7, 1944, letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Bucharest, wrote: "It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews ... The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance."

In a much longer article published in the October 2000 edition of Inside the Vatican, in which he detailed Pius XII's opposition to the Third Reich's pogroms against the Jews, Cavalli wrote:

Many Catholics have been puzzled by the fact that many of the same Jewish organizations that condemn Pius XII today once never passed up an opportunity to praise him. What could have caused the vast shift in Jewish attitudes toward the late Pope?

Some Catholic writers point to the influence of Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 play, The Deputy, which presented the Pope as a cold-blooded Nazi collaborator who did nothing as six million Jews went to their death. However, allegations that the Vatican collaborated with the Nazis did not begin with Hochhuth. While Pius XII was still alive, anti-Catholic authors like Avro Manhattan (The Vatican in World Politics, 1949) and Paul Blanshard (American Freedom and Catholic Power, 1949) condemned his actions during World War II. Although Manhattan and Blanshard found isolated audiences in some Protestant and fundamentalist Christian circles, many Jews continued to have a favorable impression of the wartime Pope.

Other cultural shifts in society ensured that Hochhuth's demonic portrait would become accepted as conventional wisdom. Shortly after Hochhuth's play made its appearance, the movement known as the New Left marched across college campuses. The New Left was more than a political movement; it was also a cultural movement whose members seized influential positions in the universities, the media and the entertainment industry. The Catholic Church strongly opposed the New Left's social agenda of legal abortion, contraception and sexual promiscuity. Activists needed a weapon to undermine the Catholic Church's moral authority and influence. "The silence of Pius XII" provided such a powerful weapon, and it was used at every possible opportunity. What right would a Church that failed to oppose the mass murder of Jews have to teach morality to anyone? A few years ago, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized US Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders for her pro-abortion views. Dr. Elders responded by noting the Catholic Church's indifference toward both slavery and the Holocaust.

Which brings me back to the other remark by Rabbi Rosen: "It's unfair to expect Jews to be objective about that period of their history just as its unfair to expect Catholics to be objective about popes." If by that he means this is an emotionally charged topic, I understand and agree. But if he is insinuating it is not really possible to honestly assess the facts available to us, he is shortchanging both Jews and Catholics who are interested in the truth. It is, in fact, quite possible for Catholic to be objective about the actions of popes, who are not sinless, perfect, or flawless when it comes to governing. It is, however, rather difficult to be objective about what might have resulted if Pius XII had jumped in front of trains deporting Jews (the advice of Ed Bradley on "60 Minutes") or issued endless public statements. (Am I the only one who finds it hard to believe that the Catholic-hating Nazi leadership would change course because of papal announcements? After all, consider how Paul VI was attacked and denounced—by many Catholic priests, theologians, and lay people!—when he issued Humanae Vitae.)

What frustrates Catholics such as myself is that Pius XII is repeatedly condemned for "failing" to do what this or that critic thinks he could have and should have done while the same critics ignore the evidence for what he did do: quietly saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives. As Robert Lockwood remarked in an essay, "Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust":

Pulitzer Prize winning historian John Toland, no friend of Pius XII, summed it up: "The Church, under the Pope’s guidance…saved the lives of more Jews than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations combined…The British and the Americans, despite lofty pronouncements, had not only avoided taking any meaningful action but gave sanctuary to few persecuted Jews."

"Lofty pronouncements" saved no lives during the horror of the Holocaust. Action did so. Pinchas Lapide, Israeli consul in Italy, estimated that the actions of Pius II saved over 800,000 Jewish lives during World War II. If that were an exaggeration by half, it would record more Jewish lives saved than by any other entity at the time.

One can only hope Cavalli is correct: "The campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure because his 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. 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."

Nobel Nominee Killed in Haiti

Zilda Arns, an Expert in Reducing Infant Mortality

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, JAN. 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Zilda Arns, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of the International Pastoral da Criança, was killed Tuesday in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti.

The 75-year-old Brazilian pediatrician and aid worker was killed while walking the streets of Port-au-Prince alongside two soldiers. She was in Haiti studying the implementation of her program -- which is one of the world’s most successful at reducing infant mortality -- on the island.

Born to German immigrants, Arns was the 12th of 13 children. Her brother, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, retired archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, was one of five siblings who had priestly or religious vocations.

In a note, Cardinal Arns stated, "I received with sorrow the news that my very dear sister has suffered with the good people of Haiti the tragic effects of the earthquake."

He continued: "May God in his mercy receive in heaven those who on earth fought for children and the defenseless. It is not the moment to lose hope."

A mother of five and a widow since 1978, Arns dedicated her life to Christian charity. In 1983, shortly after she lost her husband, she started the pastoral care of children program at the request of the Brazilian bishops' conference.

The program has one of the greatest success rates worldwide in reducing infant mortality rates. It currently has some 261,000 volunteers in Brazil (the majority women), who take care of more than 1.8 million children (from birth to 6 years of age), and 95,000 pregnant women, in more than 42,000 communities and 4,066 municipalities.

In a previous interview with ZENIT, Arns explained that the program teaches families "very simple things -- they are generally people with very little education -- but indispensable for the children's health: nutrition of pregnant mothers, breast feeding, oral hydration, vaccinations."

She continued: "We take care of the education of 1.6 million children from birth to 6 years of age. Moreover, every year we teach 32,000 adults, almost always mothers, to read and write."

Legacy

Due to the program's success, representatives from other countries visited Brazil to learn about its methods in order to develop a similar model for their own homelands. The International Pastoral da Criança network now includes 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean that have implemented the program.

She had been visiting Haiti to discuss plans about implementing the program in the poor communities there.

Arns also helped the bishops' conference develop a pastoral program for AIDS victims, which currently cares for 100,000 patients, supported by 12,000 volunteers from 579 municipalities in 141 dioceses of 25 Brazilian states.

In response to Tuesday's tragedy, the conference sent its secretary-general, Bishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, to Port-au-Prince.

In 1997, Arns received the Humanitarian of the Year prize from the Lions Club International. She was honored by Rotary International with the "Paul Harris" medal in 2001. The following year she was chosen by the Pan American Health Organization for the "Public Health Hero of the Americas" prize.

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28053?l=english

Priest Gives Proof of Pius XII's Aid to Jews

Gives Testimony of Pope's Anti-Nazi Actions

By Jesús Colina

ROME, JAN. 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- An Italian priest who helped Jews escape Nazi persecution during World War II is attesting that Pope Pius XII was a big player in this effort.

Father Giancarlo Centioni, 97, who served as a military chaplain for the National Security Volunteer Militia in Rome from 1940 to 1945, affirmed this in an interview with H2oNews today.

The militia, also called the Blackshirts, was organized by Benito Mussolini as a fascist paramilitary group in support of his movement.

Father Centioni affirmed, "Given that I was a chaplain for the fascists, it was easier for me to help the Jews."

While in Rome, he lived in the house of a group of German priests known as Pallottines.

These priests had instituted a group to aid the Jews called St. Raphael's Society.

The society, Father Centioni said, helped Jews to escape from Germany into Italy, and then later to Switzerland and Portugal.

In Germany the society was led by Pallottine Father Josef Kentenich, who is known for founding the Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt. He was later sent to the Dachau concentration camp for his opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

Allies

Father Centioni said that in Rome, the society's activity was based on 57 Pettinari Street under the direction of another priest, Father Anton Weber. Father Weber coordinated the action with Pope Pius XII and his secretary.

Money and passports were given to Jewish families for their escape, explained Father Centioni. These resources were provided by Father Weber who "received them directly from His Holiness' Secretary of State, in the name of and paid by Pius XII," Father Centioni said.

He continued, "I often brought money to Jewish homes. At least 12 German priests in Rome were allowed to help me."

Father Centioni stated that this network "began prior to the War" and "kept going" until after 1945, "because Father Weber had an intense relationship with the Vatican, with the Jews, and with a lot of people it was very strong."

He noted that two Jews who they helped hide later aided the society in return: Melchiorre Gioia, an author, and Erwin Frimm Kozab, a composer from Vienna who wrote songs and operas.

The priest recalled: "One we hid on Giuseppe Street, near Bari, and the other on 57 Pettinari Street. Later they assisted us quite a lot, giving us very explicit information."

Father Centioni affirmed that he helped hundreds of people, and they all knew who was behind the operation. "Pius XII helped them," he said, "through us and other priests, by means of St. Raphael's Society as well as the German Verbiti Society in Rome."

He described one incident in which he helped a man named Ivan Basilius, who turned out to be a Russian spy. "No one knew he was Russian or a spy," the priest said, only "that he was a Jew."

Trouble

Father Centioni recalled: "Unfortunately, the SS arrested him and he had my name written in his notebook.

"Therefore -- oh my -- the Holy See called me; His Excellency Bishop Hudal said to me, 'Tell me, why are the SS here to arrest you?

"'What did I do?'

"'You assisted a Russian spy.'

"'Me? How should I know? Who is he?' Then I fled.'"

The priest said that he had known Herbert Kappler, police chief of the Gestapo in Rome, who instigated the Fosse Ardeatine massacre, in which 335 Italians were murdered, including many civilians and Jews.

He said, "After the massacre was carried out in March [1944], I said to Kappler, whom I saw frequently, 'Why were the military chaplains not called to be present at the Fosse Ardeatine?'

"He replied, 'Because they would have been killed -- and they would have killed you as well.'"

Building evidence

Father Centioni and his testimony was discovered and analyzed, along with other testimonies, by the Pave the Way Foundation, which was founded by Gary Krupp, himself a Jew from New York.

An Italian lawyer, Daniele Costi, president of the foundation in her country, attested to the veracity of the interview.

The priest's narrative is further confirmed by the documentation accompanying an award given to him by the Polish government. As further corroboration of his testimony, Father Centioni cited expressions of gratitude he received from several Jews he aided, including some who were able to reach the United States with passports from the Vatican.

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On the Net:

Video Interview (in Italian): www.h2onews.org

Pave the Way Foundation: http://www.ptwf.org

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28048?l=english

Haitian Archbishop Killed in Earthquake

Pope Calls for Prayers, Emergency Aid

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, JAN. 13, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is appealing for aid for victims of the earthquake that devastated Haiti and killed the archbishop of the Port-au-Prince Archdiocese.

Archbishop Joseph Serge-Miot was reported dead after the Tuesday earthquake that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale.

Father Andre Siohan, a missionary of the French St. Jacques Society, e-mailed the Missionary International Service News Agency a few hours after the quake, which was centered less than 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, the country's capital.

"Nou atè nèt," the priest wrote, which means in Creole, "We are on our knees."

"I went to the city center this morning to visit the other religious communities," he said. "The area is completely devastated and there are thousands of victims."

"It is terrible," Father Siohan said.

The missionaries reported finding the lifeless body of the 61-year-old archbishop under the rubble. The Haitian-born prelate had been leading the archdiocese since 1997. The report noted that there was also no sign of the vicar general, Monsignor Seguiranno Benoit.

Emergency

Father Pierre Le Beller, another missionary of the society, told the news agency, "Our confreres, some seminarians, friends and neighbors of the Pacot area are currently sheltered in tents in the gardens of our house, damaged by the quake."

"We fear an extremely elevated number of injured," he said.

The missionary, who served 30 years in Haiti but is currently in France, explained that due to poor hospital services in the country, "the real emergency is that of treating" the wounded.

He continued: "The accounts are tragic, screams and crying can be heard among the injured.

"We ask ourselves how many people are trapped under the rubble. They told us that the cathedral collapsed, as also the national palace and the five-story U.N. building."

The missionary news agency reported that Father Le Beller had "difficulty continuing," as he spoke about the destruction of the Caritas Center that he personally founded for working with street children.

Father Siohan affirmed: "We are all well, but some of our seminarians are missing.

"Some are injured, but some are maybe dead."

The St. Jacques Society, founded in 1966 by Archbishop François Poirier, head of the Port-au-Prince Archdiocese at the time, has some 20 missionaries working in Haiti as well as 20 seminarians.

"Pray for us," Father Siohan begged.

Devastating

Today in his general audience, the Pope also called for prayers for victims of the "dramatic situation currently being experienced in Haiti."

"My thoughts go in particular to the population hit just a few hours ago by a devastating earthquake which has caused serious loss of human life, large numbers of homeless and missing people, and vast material damage," he said.

The Pontiff invited "everyone to join my prayers to the Lord for the victims of this catastrophe and for those who mourn their loss."

He continued: "I give assurances of my spiritual closeness to people who have lost their homes and to everyone who, in various ways, has been affected by this terrible calamity, imploring God to bring them consolation and relief in their suffering.

"I appeal to the generosity of all people so that these our brothers and sisters who are experiencing a moment of need and suffering may not lack our concrete solidarity and the effective support of the international community."

The Holy Father affirmed that the "Catholic Church will not fail to move immediately, through her charitable institutions, to meet the most immediate needs of the population."

This quake, which was followed by 12 aftershocks ranging between a magnitude of 5.0 and 5.9, was the strongest in that region since 1770.

Although the death toll is uncertain, it is estimated that some 3 million people were affected by the disaster. There is concern that the country's impoverished economy will leave the people without adequate emergency services.

Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28039?l=english