"Siblings all, in our common home"

"[He and Stein shared their] Jewish origins, the Catholic faith, a vocation to religious life [as well as the reality that Stein's and Czerny's maternal grandmothers were roughly the same age and] and came to a similar end."

"My mother's family -- both parents and two brothers -- were also Catholic but shared the Jewish origins that the enemy abhorred."

"My maternal grandmother Anna, my grandfather Hans and my uncles Georg and Carl Robert were all interned in Terezin, where Hans died."

"My grandmother and uncles were transported to Auschwitz. From here my uncles were sent to labour camps and eventually murdered there."

Michael Czerny, 76, Vatican Cardinal

Cardinal Czerny at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum   Vatican News

 

Marking the 80th anniversary of the gas chamber killing of Jewish-born Catholic convert Edith Stein, Cardinal Michael Czerny, another convert from Judaism, celebrated a Mass close to the former Auschwitz death camp while recounting the story of his own family's Jewish origins. Cardinal Czerny's grandmother died of typhus in 1945, but it is unknown where she was buried, though she died in Auschwitz.

A cardinal closely associated with Pope Francis's pontificte, and a Jesuit who ministered in El Salvador, Cardinal Czerny is head of the Vatican office responsible for the pontificte's priority portfolio of migration, the environment, development and social justice. A Canadian citizen born in Czechoslovakia, Cardinal Czerny accompanied Pope Francis on his visit to Canada meant as a penance for the Church's historic role in operating aboriginal residential schools.

But in Poland he was there to commemorate the anniversary of the day that Carmelite nun Edith Stein was put to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Mass was held in the nearby Carmelite convent in Owiecim, the Polish town that gave the camp its name, though not its ghastly purpose. The cardinal delivering an address, spoke of the nun's background and its intersection with his own -- who with his relatives came from Brno, in former Czechoslovakia.

Born in Breslau in 1891, Stein was a German Jew. The town renamed and part of Poland now, was where Stein's conversion to Catholicism took place in 1922, joining the Carmelite order in Cologne, later transferred to the Netherlands following the intensification of Nazi attacks in 1938. Arrested in 1942 following the Hitlerian order that Jewish converts be arrested, she was sent to Auschwitz.

She was canonized by John Paul II as a martyr in 1998, made a patron saint of Europe the year that followed. They saw fit for whtever reason to leave the Judaic faith, but they could not leave their Jewish ethnic heritage behind; born Jews they would die Jews; her death hastened by a Nazi genocidal program of relentless determination to expunge Europe of its Jews. There was no shortage of victims in the vast numbers of Jews annihilated.

 

The 80th anniversary of the death of Edith Stein, Sr Teresa Benedicta is marked 9 August  Vatican News

"So Auschwitz links the witness and relics of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross with my grandmother’s story and spirit, wherever her remains may lie. For me it is very moving to celebrate Edith Stein’s 80th anniversary and, at the same time and place, the 77th of Anna Löw, to mourn my grandmother and honour her, to think of her reunited with all our family and also with St Teresa Benedicta."

"Through their intercession, we pray for peace in Ukraine and throughout the world, “Never again one against the other, never, never again!... never again war, never again war!” And may those whose personal and family histories are both Jewish and Christian, contribute to the necessary dialogue between our faiths so as to live as fratelli tutti, siblings all, in our common home."

Cardinal Mchael Czerny, Auschwitz, Poland

Indigenous Guests at the Vatican

"We are in 2022 and our history is being stored and shown in other countries where nobody understands."

"These items, those artifacts ... those are ours. Those belong in our communities."

"They belong to people. They belong to generations."

Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier, retired chief, Okanese First Nation, Saskatchewan

Assembly of First Nations delegation lead Regional Chief Gerald Antoine says he hopes the delegation can forge a new relationship with Pope Francis and the Catholic Church after the visit to the Vatican   CBC

 

A delegation of Canadian Indigenous representatives travelled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis last week. While on the way they anticipated seeing pieces of their own history on display at the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum in Vatican City. The museum has on display for the very few who may have access to its treasures, collections of Indigenous artifacts. Artifacts that, in fact, were collected, but possibly not ever before displayed publicly.

Chief Walker-Pelletier spoke of observing the objects in the museum, spurring thoughts of artifacts in her opinion, speaking truth to life, history and the communities of Indigenous people. She had strong feelings of the venerable artifacts reflecting her peoples' history being in the possession of the Vatican. She was part of the delegation as a former pupil within the residential school system, most of which were operated by groups within the Roman Catholic Church in Canada.

In her opinion, if the Roman Catholic Church is committed, as it says it is, to truth and reconciliation, it would divest itself of Indigenous-Canadian artifacts, returning them to those for whom it has personal meaning and in whose possession they would be honoured, placed on public display and used as teaching materials, as proud symbols of the past.

"That's one of the things the Pope needs to look at, how does he reconcile and bring back the artifacts", she said. According to Indigenous curators and experts, they have been unsuccessful in obtaining access to objects, unknown in quantity, held in the possession of the Church. The Vatican's collection began at the behest of a pope who had planned on holding a world exposition in 1925.

In preparation for that event, a message was sent out to missionaries around the globe with instructions to collect and send aboriginal cultural and religious items to the Vatican. A request that resulted in over 100,000 objects and works of art being sent to the Vatican for display during that exposition, and held by the Vatican ever since. The Pope in 2019 planned on placing many more objects on display, those of Indigenous people among them. 

Last year the Inuvialuit Regional Corp. requested that a rare kayak made by Inuvialuit be returned to them. Embroidered gloves from a Cree community, a baby belt from a Gwich'in community, moccasins from British Columbia, masks, wampum belts, pipes and rugs were all on display for the visiting Indigenous people. 

 

Originally, such heritage objects were removed from Indigenous hands when the Canadian government outlawed cultural practices in 1875, through the Indian Act. Ceremonial objects along with other items of cultural importance were seized, sold, given to museums, or destroyed.

 

 Pope Francis welcomed a delegation of Canada's First Nations to the Vatican. They asked to revoke centuries-old papal decrees used to justify the seizure of Indigenous lands in the Americas by colonial powers. (Vatican Media/Catholic Press Photo)

The Vatican Facilitating Peace

"This move does not promote the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct and bilateral negotiations."
Israeli Foreign Ministry

"Yes, it's a recognition that the state exists."
Reverend Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman

"We appreciate that the Vatican's basic intention is to promote Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, but believe that this diplomatic recognition will be unhelpful to that end."
"[The treaty is] counterproductive to all who seek true peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
Abraham Foxman, The American Jewish Committee

"This is a very important recognition as the Vatican has a very important political status that stems from its spiritual status."
"We expect more EU countries to follow."
Nabil Shaath, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas senior aide

In this May 25, 2014 file photo, Pope Francis is welcomed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas upon his arrival to the West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Photo: AP)

Official recognition of the "state of Palestine" is now affirmed by the Vatican through a treaty concerning the actions of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory. The Palestine Liberation Organization, which is what Fatah, the leading Palestinian political party that now governs the West Bank through the Palestinian Authority, was given official diplomatic standing with the Vatican. And now that diplomacy has given recognition to a Palestinian 'state'.

Pope Frances appears to be ignoring history and reality in that early 20th Century Palestinians were originally Jews living in "Palestine", which was originally part of Judea. The name Palestine is attributed to Herodotus in the 5th Century B.C.; there were no Arabs living there originally, and Arabs have been relative late-comers to Palestine; Arabs from Egypt and Jordan co-opted the name as their own for historical legitimacy.

In Israel, all religions and all ethnic groups have rights and protection. In the Palestinian Territories Christians are persecuted and loathed, intimidated and threatened. Jews present there must be given armed protection by the military. Pope Frances must obviously have his own reasons for the decision he has made to legitimize the 'state of Palestine'. As a man of peace, it is rather surprising that he has failed to cite the need for Palestinians to recognize the State of Israel as a precursor to living side by side with it, as another state.

It appears that the Vatican is prepared to 'go along to get along', having welcomed the United Nations General Assembly's decision in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. It chose since then to refer to the 'state of Palestine'. But the treaty now negotiated between the Holy See and the 'Palestinian state' gives official recognition by the Vatican in exchange for what? a guarantee that Christians will henceforth be respected and sheltered and given equal status in the new state?

This revelation is most certainly a victory for Mahmud Abbas, set to visit the Vatican. Bearing in mind the Pope will be welcoming a president of the PA who has overstayed his welcome, his status not now one of a duly elected parliamentarian given a long-overdue election has not been called to validate him as president, as the choice of the Palestinian people. Should such an election be called it is questionable whether he would remain president, since a majority of Palestinians support Hamas.

Is Pope Frances prepared to welcome the Hamas leadership to the Vatican? Does he, as head of the Roman Catholic Church feel that engaging in treaties with a terrorist organization whose mandate is quite specific in promising to destroy Israel does justice to the Holy See's message of universal love and peace?

The 2012 UN vote in recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, represents in their entirety land that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. This was one of the many wars that were imposed upon Israel, with collective Arab armies marching with the intention of destroying the State of Israel.

What other country of the world would be expected by the international community to surrender land it captured that historically formed part of its original existence, which it had defended from surrounding states determined to eradicate it from the geography? Would Russia accede to such a notion, or Pakistan?

Concern Noted

In this photo taken on Nov. 30, provided by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis meets with refugee children in Istanbul. AP Photo

"We feel anxiety and concern for the future, that the Islamophobic paranoia that has already been spread among Western public opinion is being used as a pretext for massive pressures, intimidation, discrimination, alienation, and actual attacks against our Muslim brothers and sisters living in the West."
Mehmet Gormez, Turkish Minister of Religious Affairs, Istanbul

And thus did Pope Francis hear the riposte to his plea for peace among Muslims and Christians. Christians are being oppressed and slaughtered across the Muslim world. Muslims are being verbally slurred by those who suffer the consequences of not being Muslims, who are appalled at the violence being meted out to both nominal Muslims ('moderates') and non-Muslims alike.

In the spirit of moral equivalence so beloved of the bad actors of the world, one must equate Islamist physical violence unto death with the penchant of civilized people who deplore such violence and voice their condemnation of it in what the perpetrators take to be offensive verbiage. You murder mine and I will slander you; the former reprehensible act equal to the latter hurt feelings of censure.

How does a civil and civilized intelligence respond to such moral chicanery? Perhaps by using the more descriptive word of Islamofascism? Equally repugnant to those swift to decry the insensitivity of victims in portraying the world's self-declared foremost religion of peace by those who clearly do not understood the sacred mission of jihad which pious Muslims are meant to revere and commit to.

To jihadists, death equals martyrdom. Their own death, that is, while perpetrating atrocities taking the lives of other, innocent people who happen not to believe as they do. To non-Muslims death equals the cessation of life, of being and of loving, of worshipping a merciful god that does not command one to kill in obedience to his stricture to expand the population of the surrendered faithful.

Turks abhor Islamophobia, but the Turkish government incites its population toward anti-Semitism, a strange disconnect of the moral mind which decries one as a dread pathology, the other as a natural reaction. In Turkey, full religious liberty for any religion other than Islam is not permitted, as is the case in many if not most Islamic nations.

Pope Francis prays in Istanbul's Blue Mosque   AFP PHOTO / OSSERVATORE ROMANO/HO

To the Pope, in honour of his high station and in reflection of his numerous faithful followers in Christ, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers generously offered a pact of a kind that they would commit to combat jihadism in their country, if the Pope promised to condemn "Islamophobia" in his. Pope Francis may very well do so, and mean it as well.

It is highly unlikely that Turkey will do anything to dissuade jihad, since as devout Muslims sliding well into fanatical Islamism, they verily do believe in and honour jihad.

Selling the Vatican Short?

"Mr. Savoie started his speech by comparing the 3,000 deaths from 9/11 to the over 3,000 daily deaths that result from abortion."
"'Why', he wondered out loud, 'were we so stunned and bewildered by the 3,000 deaths on 9/11 when we're so silent about the 3,000-plus deaths that occur each day in North America from abortion?"
Knights of Columbus December 2009 newsletter, Canada

"We want to appoint diplomats who are skilled, capable and ready to represent our country."
"We have now a candidate who has crossed that line. He is someone who has taken is personal opinions and used inappropriate comparisons."
"In this case, the message is the messenger. And they're sending a messenger who has said things that are totally unacceptable. Mr. Savoie caries with him the baggage of his comments and his participation in very highly charged politics -- the politics of abortion. That's why he is not well suited to be a candidate to be the ambassador."
NDP Member of Parliament Paul Dewar

"We're confident in Mr. Savoie's ability to do his job capably and objectively. He's highly accomplished. He's got a wealth of experience in a number of sectors and he was appointed to advance the government of Canada's interests, values and positions at the Holy See."
"Mr. Savoie is entitled to his personal beliefs."
"The government's position on abortion is clear. We have no intention of reopening the debate."
Adam Hodge, press secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

A former leader with the Knights of Columbus will be Canada's ambassador to the Vatican. Franco Origlia, Getty Images

At first blight it does seem that Mr. Savoie, who has in the past held leadership roles with the Knights of Columbus, including as deputy supreme knight and assistant to the supreme knight for Canadian affairs and who has spoken publicly to thousands participating in the anti-abortion March for Life on Parliament Hill, might be a good fit for the Vatican's rigid position on birth control and abortion. On the other hand, linking the 9/11 terrorist deaths with abortion procedures does go a giant step too far.

It's a pity that in naming Mr. Savoie as an appointee to Canada's Vatican mission, government-to-government at the Holy See, the decision was made to pass over candidates from within the professional diplomatic corps of the public service. Granted, there may be times when reaching outside the public service to identify a candidate whose breadth of experience may make them suitable for the position to be filled may work very well.

On this occasion, it seems that someone failed to exercise good judgement based on a meticulous examination of the record of the candidate being studied and finally named to the appointment. And that's a pity, because for once it's hard not to agree with Mr. Dewar in his opposition to a governing Conservative initiative.

Mr. Savoie may have done an excellent job in his former position as a senior executive of New Brunswick Power, but his personal views and his public involvement and his outrageously odious comparisons of a terrorist act equating with a women's decision to terminate a pregnancy in a free and democratic society are unsavoury and antediluvian. A partial match, but no cigar, folks.

Mr. Savoie's sanctimonious neurotic fixation on denying women the right to choose for themselves whether they are prepared to deliver a full-term baby rather than terminate an unwanted foetus reflects his Roman Catholic sensibilities, but does not produce in him a fitting Canadian representative to the Vatican, nor does it reflect prevailing public opinion on the matter, let alone the government's stance.

Vatican Swiss guards march prior to a swearing-in ceremony, at the Vatican, Tuesday, May 6, 2014.
(Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Breaking With Tradition

"A divorcee who takes communion is not doing anything wrong. There are some priests who are more papist than the Pope."
"It is an issue we are discussing in the Vatican, because a divorcee who takes communion is not doing anything wrong."
Pope Francis -- Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio

"We would neither confirm nor deny that -- this was a private telephone call made by the Holy Father and we would not divulge the details."
Vatican spokesman

"One of the most wonderful things in my life has just happened -- receiving a telephone call from none other than Papa Francesco. We're Catholics, we believe in God, and though we don't go to Mass every Sunday, every evening we thank the Lord for our family and our work."
Julio Sabetta, pastry chief, Argentina

ALESSANDRO BIANCHI/REUTERS

An Argentinian woman concerned that if she took communion she would be "violating Church rules", wrote to Pope Francis to inform him she had been refused communion by her local priest. The priest "told me that every time I went home, I was going back to living in sin", explained Jacqui Lisbona.

She had married a divorced man, though they were both Catholic. Under existing church law divorce and re-marriage are simply not recognized. Jacqui Lisbona could not take communion because she had married a divorced man and because they were prohibited from marrying in church and arranged instead for a civil ceremony; twice a sinner.

The couple has been married for 19 years. They have two teenage daughters. This was not by any means the first time Pope Francis had directly responded personally to an appeal from an individual whose soul was in a troubled state. On this occasion, the pontiff telephoned Ms. Lisbona at her home on Easter Monday where she lived in the central region of Santa Fe, Argentina.

Her husband happened to answer the telephone from the individual who introduced himself as "Father Bergoglio", apologizing that it had taken him so long to get around to calling after he had received the letter from the troubled woman. Under church law, unless a marriage is annulled, Catholics who remarry are seen to be living in sin, committing adultery, and thus refused communion.

But this pope has stated that divorced and separated couples should not be excluded from church events, raising hopes that he may take it upon himself to overturn the ban on divorcees receiving communion. Priests should "ask themselves how to help (divorced couples) from feeling excluded from the mercy of God", he has previously stated.

This man is a long-overdue breath of fresh air battling absurd constricting social/religious convention in a fusty institution that has too long been infested with corruption and sanctimony.

Praising Evil

"The fruit is good. The fruit is extraordinarily good. It is excellent."
"Can we say the tree is bad then? Purely from a logical standpoint, I would say no. I absolve Father Maciel. I do not judge him."
Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect, Congregation for Religious, Vatican City

Pope John Paul II gives his blessing to father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ order, in this file photo. John Paul and his top advisers, like a succession of papacies beforehand, turned a blind eye to evidence that Maciel was a con artist, drug addict, pedophile and religious fraud. Sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church mar John Paul's reputation.  Photograph by: Plinio Lepri, The Associated Press

 

This was Pope John Paul's prefect in 2008, of the Congregation for Religious, speaking to Legion priests of a man he had absolved of his sins. That man who was so glowingly praised was revered as the founder of the Legion of Christ order, a pious man, an exemplary organizer, an astute businessman on behalf of the Roman Catholicism. This man was Father Marcial Maciel.

Who also incidentally was a well-known drug addict, child molester, a man of faith in good standing in the Vatican who was known to sexually abuse his seminarians, and a man who fathered three children; so much for the valour of celibacy. He founded the order in 1941, and seven years later the Holy See was in receipt of documentation from Vatican-appointed envoys and bishops in Mexico and Spain perturbed by the legitimacy given his ordination.

The documents spoke to Marcial Maciel's "totalitarian" characteristics, and of the 'spiritual violations' of the young seminarians in his care. The documents make clear that the Holy See was well advanced in its awareness of the man's drug, sexual abuse, and financial improprieties by 1956, when an investigation was ordered and he was suspended for a two-year period to give him the opportunity to seek drug-abuse counselling.

Still, the Vatican did nothing to remove him from office. He had had ample time and inclination to manoeuvre trusted Legion priests loyal to him into key Vatican offices, and he cultivated close relations with Vatican cardinals, Mexican bishops and Catholics of the wealthy social set. The orthodoxy of the Legion priests and Marcial Maciel's own capability in attracting new vocations and donations cemented the Holy See's patience with the man.

In 1994, John Paul gave praise to Maciel, describing him as an "efficacious guide to youth". John Paul's elite advisers were fierce in their support of the man, comfortable in believing that accusations levelled against him were "calumnies" attempting to blemish a saintly man. The Vatican archives are rife with documents citing praise of Maciel from influential bishops; they were leaked online in 2012 by some of his Mexican victims.

Two years from the time the Vatican eventually sentenced Marcial Maciel to a lifetime of penance and prayer for his sexual abuse forced on his seminarians, he was still being praised; when Cardinal Angelo Sodano in 2008 second in authority to the Pope, gave high praise to his spirit and the "humility" he had graced the situation with, in stepping aside.

Turning the Screws on the Vatican

"...Anyone bringing attention to the problem [of sex abuse] is moving toward solving it."
"Unfortunately they weakened it by throwing in the whole kitchen sink. Those are culture war issues. Sex abuse isn't a culture war issue -- it's a sin and a crime."
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Amazing what happens within the confines of the United Nations. Time and again the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other Muslim lobbying groups within the United Nations attempted to have a resolution passed by UN members condemning "defamation of religion", a thinly veiled attempt to pass an international law that would defend Islam from any kind of criticism.

As written, the motion's proposed aim was to prohibit any expression that would "fuel discrimination, extremism and misperception leading to polarization and fragmentation with dangerous unintended and unforeseen consequences". A suggestion that human rights activists, other religious groups, free-speech activists and a number of Western countries condemned as an international 'blasphemy law'.

The Islamic bloc and most of the developing world remains in support of the resolution, with Western democracies in opposition. The Islamic bloc has attempted time and again to manipulate the UN's Human Rights Council to move on the issue, but has been unable to get beyond opposition aware of what lies behind the move. Now here is the Human Rights Council hounding the Roman Catholic Church on its most basic, historical tenets of orthodox Christian values.

Under the pretext of concern over abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests whose wholesale predation on those vulnerable to the high regard of the clergy led to their being sexually abused, the Council has turned its focus on critiquing the Vatican's 'attitudes' toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion, urging it to amend canon law, making sex education mandatory in the process.

What incredible hubris. Particularly coming from Council members whose own record of human rights infractions are notorious. To take this uncalled for and illegal overture in the pretense of challenging the Church's record on maintaining the scandalously immoral behaviour of priests in-house, and simply shuffling them about to other parishes where they were free to continue their abuse rather than turn them over to civil authorities to stand trial for criminal action speaks of malice aforethought.

As though if the UN Human Rights Council couldn't get its way over acceding to the attempts of the Islamic bloc, then the West would pay and regret its recalcitrance. And the victim in this malicious little tale of nasty group behaviour is the Catholic Church and more specifically, the Vatican. The attack on Church doctrine conflated with child sex abuse is about as inconstant and wretchedly abusive as the Council can get.

In that sense, it doesn't quite equal the special treatment apportioned regularly to the State of Israel, a tiny country whose credentials within the United States are held with great distaste by the Islamic Bloc and the nonaligned nations that curry favour with the Bloc. The arrogance of the Council has veered from victimizing one of the world's favourite targets, to making a scapegoat of the world's foremost religion.

"It seems as if the document was prepared before the committee meeting, where the Vatican gave detailed responses on various points that weren't reported in this concluding document or seem to not have been taken into consideration", Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who had headed the Vatican delegation at its January 16 session in Geneva responding to the Council's questions; said, clearly amazed by the tone of the report.

This was the day-long interrogation in January of the Vatican by the Council through its implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Syria, whose regime has so far slaughtered ten thousand children, and brutalized other Syrian children through torture and rape, was last year elected by UNESCO to UN Human Rights Committees.

Archbishop Tomasi, in defence of the Vatican's record, commented that the call to reconsider abortion ran counter to the UN treaty's objective to protect the life of children before and after birth. Robert Dennis, vice-president of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association, commented that the UN panel watered down its own advocacy of child sexual abuse victims in criticizing the Church for its doctrines on homosexuality, abortion and contraception.

In the very act of criticizing core Catholic doctrine and demanding that the Church take action to alter its doctrine, the Council effectively bypassed the serious issue of headlining the decades of covering up of the sexual abuse of children by clergy in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. 

The report represented a "shocking display of ignorance and highhandedness" in the opinion of Austen Ivereigh, co-ordinator of Catholic Voices, a church advocacy group. Predictable enough that the faithful would defend themselves. Predictable enough that the UN's Human Rights Council is a sham and a disgrace to the name it holds.

"Repair My House"

"[Beaten] by this savage world, that doesn't give work, doesn't help, doesn't care if there are children in the world who are dying of hunger..."
"[Christians, forego] vanity, arrogance and pride(because it is bad for us. It is the cancer of society and the enemy of Christ..."
"Today is a day of tears. Such things go against the spirit of the world."
Pope Francis

Pope Francis prays at the tomb of St Francis as part of his pastoral visit in Assisi on October 4, 2013. Pope Francis visits Assisi for the first time today to honour the saint whose name he adopted for a papacy aimed at promoting peace and helping the poor, the Vatican said. The pope will attend the feast of St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) on that day, praying at the tomb of a saint who is widely loved in Italy. AFP PHOTO POOL / CROCCHIONI (Photo credit should read CROCCHIONI/AFP/Getty | Getty

This is precisely why this world of ours has been termed a vale of tears. The hundreds of desperate people anxious to migrate to a better place on Earth where their lives would be spared, their children's lives would hold promise, they might live in peace and security and see a better day dawn for themselves, and instead their cold, lifeless bodies are being dredged up from the ocean that claimed them when their boat burned and sank as they sought liberty and security.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio who would become the modest Pope Francis was a humble man of kindly disposition before being elevated to the Papacy and is no different now than he was then. His vows of chastity, poverty, godliness he urges in part upon others; to think of those who have little and to share the goods of the Earth with them. He is a pastoral socialist; as God himself has no need in nature to perpetuate himself or to acquire goods and wealth, nor then has he.

Self-abnegation is his forte, and he urges that his fellow faithful of the Cross within the Holy See do as he does, and therein lies the message of Christ, for this man. He is stricken with the tragedy of the shipwreck of migrants off the island of Lampedusa, declaring a day of national mourning within the Roman Catholic Church.

ASSISI, ITALY - OCTOBER 03: A Franciscan friar walks barefoot along the road between the towns of Assisi and Santa Maria Degli Angeli prior to Pope Francis' visit on October 3, 2013 in Italy. The residents of Assisi have been busy all week preparing for the arrival of Pope Francis, the first Bishop of Rome to take the name of Assisi's most famous son. Pope Francis is due to venerate the tomb of San Francesco of Assisi at the crypt of the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis to

And following in the tradition of the saint whose name he has taken for his own, his pilgrimage to Assisi was that of a supplicant, prostrating himself before the memory of one whom he emulates, thinking of himself no superior to a mendicant, begging to be able to fashion the world around him as did St.Francis who recognized his own humanity in the animals that surrounded him as a manifestation of the oneness of life, they no less worthy of recognition than any human.

Pope Francis caresses a person during his visit at the Serafico Insitiute for disabled children, in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. Pope Francis made a pilgrimage Friday to the hillside town of Assisi and the tomb of his namesake, St. Francis, the 13th-century friar who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and minister to the most destitute. St. Francis was famously told by God to "repair my house." (AP Photo/Gian Matteo Crocchioni, Pool)

At the Serafico Institute, a local charitable institution treating seriously disabled children, Pope Francis lingered, and there he personally greeted each of the children gathered in the institutes's chapel. Kissing some of the over one hundred children, leaning close to hear a whispered greeting, and making the sign of the cross to bless the foreheads of those incapable of speech themselves.

He suffered himself to come unto the children.

Pope Francis blesses a child during his visit at the Serafico Insitiute for disabled children, in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. Pope Francis made a pilgrimage Friday to the hillside town of Assisi and the tomb of his namesake, St. Francis, the 13th-century friar who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to embrace a life of poverty and minister to the most destitute. St. Francis was famously told by God to "repair my house." (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool)

In the chamber where St.Francis is said to have made his declaration when he dedicated his life to living as he imagined Christ would have himself lived and might have wanted him to do so as well, Pope Francis spoke to a gathering of the poor, people who were, he observed, challenged "by this savage world, that doesn't give work, doesn't help, doesn't care if there are children in the world who are dying of hunger."

A child photographs Pope Francis during his meeting with poor people in the Archbishop residence in Assisi, Italy, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013. The Pope delivered his speech in the "Stanza della Spoliazione" the famous room where St. Francis stripped off his rich clothes and gave them back to his father and from then on lived a life of poverty dedicated to Christ. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, pool)

Word of mouth leading to the eventual inscribing of such events for posterity aided St. Francis in attaining his stature as a giant of humanity and ombudsman for the poor and the downtrodden, a messenger with the voice of God speaking in modest syllables and parables of the living truth. His yearning successor has at his disposal an estimated one thousand journalists accredited for this visit, from around the Globe.

His word is their news scoop for the day.

ITALY-POPE-VISIT-ASSISI

Pope Francis (2ndL) arrives in the St Francis Basilica as part of his pastoral visit at Assisi on October 4, 2013. Pope Francis visits Assisi for the first time today to honour the saint whose name he adopted for a papacy aimed at promoting peace and helping the poor, the Vatican said. The pope will attend the feast of St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) on that day, praying at the tomb of a saint who is widely loved in Italy. AFP PHOTO POOL / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)

Ecclesiastical Culture Change

"Leaders of the Church have often been Narcissuses, gratified and sickeningly excited by their courtiers. The court [around the pope] is the leprosy of the papacy.
"The court [around the pope] is the leprosy of the papacy." The Holy See's "Vatican-centric vision neglects the world that surrounds it.
"I do not share this vision and will do everything to change it."
Pope Francis

Sept. 30, 2013: In this picture provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis stands with cardinals during a consistory at the Vatican. (AP/L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO)

Stark denunciation. Pope Francis' view of the entitled behaviour of those with whom he is surrounded and whose values and priories and view of themselves and their position within the Church he objects to and plans to change. Clearly, this pope is different, far different from his predecessors. Does this reflect his Jesuit inheritance? The courtiers representing the finest the Church has to offer from the international community of the worshipping faithful do not meet his standards of faith and humanity.

He has appointed a special commission of eight cardinals, whose values within the Catholic Church he does trust. He trusts them to evaluate a situation that has its stark short-comings, and to recommend changes in the traditions that have served the Holy See for so long a period, to transform it into a community of elite faithful worthy of their status within the Church, and judged representative by Francis to serve their God meaningfully.

"They are not courtiers but wise people who are inspired by my same feelings. This is the start of a church with an organization that is not only vertical but also horizontal", said Pope Francis of those who will advise him on how he might reform the Vatican administration. Among their number is Sean O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, cardinals Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, Laurent Monsegwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich & Freising.

Their presence is a reflection of the far-flung influence of the Church and recognition of where its growth and influence is the most robust. They will represent a kind of parallel cabinet expected to interact with the Vatican bureaucracy of long-standing, known as the Vatican Curia. What appears to have led to the abdication of former Pope Benedict was the revelation that within the Curia infighting and corruption was rife.

The opaque and suspect operation of the Vatican Bank, mysteriously sinister events linked to it, including inexplicable and unexplained death, remains a rankling sore that must also be healed. Pope Francis is prepared to lead the Vatican bank toward transparency and accountability. Founded in 1942, named the Institute for Works of Religion, its published earnings last year revealed publicly, were valued at $120-million; over four times more than in 2011.

Another first took place at the Vatican very recently, one that must surely have caused many within the Holy See to catch their breath in amazement, and perhaps tinged with wry regret among many.  La Stampa's Vatican Insider reported that Pope Francis paid host to his close friend Rabbi Abraham Skorka from Argentina for several days at his Vatican residence:
"Never before in the history of Christian-Jewish relations have a Pope and a Rabbi celebrated their friendship by living in the Vatican together for several days, sharing all meals, including on two Jewish festivals and the Sabbath at which the Rabbi said prayers in Hebrew, and discussing what more they can do together to promote dialogue and peace in the world."

Humility Personified

"I have to be ready even if I think that probably others could do it better. I will cross the river when I get to the bridge, and we are not there.
"My name is circulating but I am very careful to go beyond this sort of media expectation.
"It would be a great novelty, obviously, you know. I think that many others in other parts of the world are well prepared."
"There was a focus on Europe obviously for centuries, and centuries, and that some day, I think some day it is to be expected that a pope would come from Asia, would come from Africa, would come from America. It wouldn't be a surprise. Nowadays it wouldn't be a surprise. And obviously it could bring some new accent."
"And so, we have to do that in conscience. In a way, you don't vote against somebody. You vote for somebody that you believe is the best person for the role."
Cardinal Marc Ouellet

The cardinal has prepared himself, humbly and with respect for his fellow cardinals who may or may not elevate him to the highest office of the Roman Catholic Church. His name, after all, has been touted as a potential successor to Emeritus Pope Benedict. Of course there is the suggestion by the somewhat less immodest Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who testily advised it was time to elect a third-world pope, and he would be willing to break the mould.

It seems as though there is a silent, unspoken but generally agreed-upon covenant among the cardinals to avoid elevating yet another Italian. A position which the Italian cardinals, who predominate within the Holy See, do not quite share. They have been visibly and determinedly lobbying on their own behalf for the outcome of the ballot, being equally willing to retain honoured tradition.

Or possibly Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines. After all, it is in Asia, South America, Africa, where the Roman Catholic Church is growing.  The date for the conclave has not yet been set, they are awaiting the arrival of a number of cardinals not yet arrived. But it is imminent. If it begins on the tenth, the world may know by the 13th of March who the new pope is, when that tremblor is signalled through the gentle rise of white smoke.

As to the dinosaur that lumbers about the holy city, trampling on everyone's sensitivities, Cardinal Ouellete affirms with respect to the issue of sexual abuse in the priesthood that "This is a very painful question always and everything that was bad, you know is so regretful and the church has apologized many times. Who knows?" in fact, whether it has apologized sufficiently.

"We have learned from our mistakes", he said placidly to the question from CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge during the interview. The church, he said must always "listen carefully to the victims. But it is not a Catholic problem. It is a human problem. Most of the abuse occurred in families in general in society, and my hope is what was done by the Catholic Church, which is not yet perfect, but could be also of example for others in society."

Wh-wh-what?

Op-Ed: Exposé: the Vatican Welcomes Iran

Published: Sunday, November 25, 2012 7:49 PM  Arutz Sheva 7

Iran has a large diplomatic corps at the Vatican, considering that it is a Moslem country. And that is not all.

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

Hizbullah's officials, the Shiite terrorist group based in Lebanon, were hosted in Rome by the Vatican during the recent ceremony for the election of six new cardinals. Among the new cardinals is the Lebanese Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai.

As head of Lebanon’s Catholic Church, Rai recently sent his envoy, Father Abdo Abou Kassem, to Teheran to attend a conference in support of the Palestinian Arab Intifada and of a “Zionist-free middle east”. The conference was attended also by Hizbullah ideologue, Mohammad Raad, and by the Hamas’ leader Khaled Meshaal.

Cardinal Rai recently said in Paris that he supports Hizbullah's war against Israel: "Only when the international community exerts pressure on Israel to vacate the occupied Lebanese territory and Israel allows Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their homes, can Hizbullah be asked to hand over its arms because they will no longer be needed". It is not clear from the Cardinal's remarks to which Lebanese territory he was referring, since Israel, in compliance with the UN, had withdrawn from its Lebanon buffer zone years earlier. Rai said his statements reflected the policy of the Vatican.

The coming of an Hizbullah delegation in Rome these days is part of a strong friendship that the Vatican is building with Iranian authorities. It might also be an explanation why during his trip in Austria, Pope Benedict chose not to address the Iranian nuclear question in a key speech to world diplomats in Vienna, which is the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Organization for Culture and Islamic Relations just held their eighth meeting in Rome, under the joint chairmanship of the Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Iranian Mohammad Bagher Korramshad. The theme of the meeting was "The Catholic and Muslim cooperation to promote justice in the contemporary world".

An official note says that "the participants were pleased and honored to be received at the end of the meeting by Pope Benedict XVI, who greeted and encouraged them to continue on the path of authentic and fruitful dialogue".

A delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly also visited the Vatican in Rome. They met with top Catholic officials. “We held talks with the Vatican’s culture minister over the conditions and the popular uprisings in the region and the Vatican minister said that popular uprisings are inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran”, a member of the parliament’s Clerics Commission, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ebrahimi, told Fars News Agency.

Iran has a surprisingly large diplomatic corps at the Vatican (only the Dominican Republic has more diplomats accredited to the Holy See) who have a monthly meeting with the Pope's advisers. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a high-level delegation to Rome, headed by Mahdi Mostafavi, the president of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization in Tehran, a former foreign minister and one of Ahmadinejad’s trusted men and “spiritual advisers”, with whom he meets “at least twice a week”.

Last week, the Iranian embassy in Rome organised at the Salesian Pontifical University of the Vatican a cultural festival to celebrate the Iranian culture. Islamic Republic of Iran Cultural Attaché to Rome, Qorban-Ali Purmarjan, gave an address: "Throughout continuous centuries, it has been the strong will of the highly skilled artist Iranian with great tastes that have written the Glorious Qur’an in different beautiful Iranian and Arabic calligraphies, and today at this exhibition some holy verses of the Glorious Qur’an side by side with holy sentences by Prophet Jesus are put on display".

The President of the Pontifical University of Rome, Professor Nani, said that he "I had been longing to host such a glorious and highly cultural exhibition".

"What you have in Iran is a strong academic tradition, with both philosophical and mystical aspects — in many ways like Catholicism," says Father Daniel Madigan, a Jesuit scholar of islam, and a member of the Vatican's commission for religious relations with Islam.

When the Vatican acts, nations take notice. How should the West and Israel interpret the new Vatican friendship with the Iranian Holocaust deniers and enablers and their terror proxies who branded the dead bodies of Israeli soldiers?

The Vatican on Gaza: Israel is a Baby-Killer”

Not a word was heard from the Vatican all the years Sderot babies were in mortal danger. They began noticing the violence last week.

By Giulio Meotti, Italy Arutz Sheva 7

First Publish: 11/21/2012, 11:45 PM

Vatican - Jerusalem

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican Council for Culture, commenting on the war between Israel and Hamas, delivered a severe attack on the Jewish people: “I think of the ‘massacre of the innocents’. Children are dying in Gaza, their mothers’ shouts is a perennial cry, a universal cry”.

The Catholic Church high official equated Israel’s operation in Gaza against terror groups with the New Testament story of Herod’s slaughter of Jewish babies in his effort to kill Jesus.

Ravasi, who is one of the most popular Catholic cardinals and the director of the Church’s policy on culture, called Israelis baby-killers in a shameless form of anti-Semitism which subtly accuses the Jewish State of trying to murder the new Jesus, symbolized by the Palestinian people.

The Vatican official’s modern blood libel against Israel was delivered during the presentation of Pope Benedict’s new book about the life of Jesus. However, Ravasi's theme – the Jews as Herod, who killed all the innocent babies because his heart was set on killing Jesus – was much beloved by Medieval organizers of pogroms.

The vicar-general of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, William Shomali, said on Vatican Radio that “what is happening in Gaza now is a vicious circle of violence”. The auxiliary bishop then declared that “it’s difficult to know who started it”. How difficult?

A few weeks ago, in an interview with the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Shomali claimed that “hatred of Christians” is the Talmud itself. "The Talmud, the holy book studied by the ultra-orthodox, more highly venerated than the Bible itself, invites religious hatred, speaks badly of Jesus, and even worse of Mary and, in general, of Christians,” the bishop said, adding that “in Israeli schools, love for the other is not taught, but rather the destruction of the other”.

Talking to the Vatican News Agency, Michel Sabbah, Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem, said that the Gaza Strip for many years “has been living under the weight of an absurd embargo, which makes the daily lives of a million and a half of people inumane”.

Sabbah signed the recent appeal by more than one hundred Christian leaders who have asked the international community to support the recognition of the Palestinian State as a full member of the United Nations. Among the signers is the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna, a self professed anti-Semite who blessed the suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

As yet, no condemnation has come from the Pope of the barrages of rockets fired by terror groups on southern Israeli cities before Operation Pillar of Defense. The Church authorities, and Benedict XVI himself, raised their voices in condemnation of the violence that has broken out in the Gaza Strip only after Israel began bombing the installations of the terrorist movements in that territory. Not a word was heard before that.

During the Cast Lead operation in 2009, the Vatican officials called Gaza "a concentration camp". After the Nazi comparison did its work, the Jesus-killer motif has now returned to the Catholic Church.

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

Tags: Pillar of Defense

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Cardinal causes uproar with ‘Muslim scare’ video at Vatican

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Faithful attend a candlelight procession to mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council at the Vatican. (Reuters)

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By Reuters
VATICAN CITY

A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe.

The seven-minute clip, called “Muslim Demographics,” was the talk of an international gathering of bishops on Monday, two days after Cardinal Peter Turkson screened it during a free discussion period.

Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops over the clip.

“As we were arriving this morning I was asked several times ‘Who planned it? Whose was it? Who is behind it?” Father Thomas Rosica said at a briefing for journalists, who are not allowed to attend the synod sessions, the first since the screening.

He said the clip had sparked “the most animated” discussion so far at the three-week conference, and one bishop said he would rebut Turkson by presenting a report with contrary data.

The clip has brought Islam to the top of the agenda at the synod, attended by 262 bishops. “Islam is the buzzword,” Rosica said.

Turkson could not be reached for comment on why he chose to screen the video during the Vatican meeting, where the bishops are discussing ways of winning back lapsed Roman Catholics in developed countries.

The clip, which has been viewed over 13 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded by an anonymous user in 2009, combines dramatic music with skewed population statistics to make claims about various European countries such as “In just 39 years France will be an Islamic republic.” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU ]

Critics have pointed out that the fertility figures used in the video, which claim French women have an average of 1.8 children while French Muslim women have 8.1 children, cannot be genuine as France does not collect statistics by religion.

According to a study by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center there were 2.18 billion Christians in 2010, half of which were Catholics.

The total number of Muslims of all denominations was 1.6 billion and forecast to increase 35 percent to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to the research group.

The Holy See’s relations with Islam have not always been smooth. In 2006 Pope Benedict gave a speech in Regensburg which was perceived by some Muslims as an attack on Islam.

Asked about his reaction to the cardinal showing the video at the Vatican, Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, warned against a numbers war based on scare tactics by any side.

“I think that we should focus, Muslims and Christians, on our common challenges, rather than challenging each other in scary attitudes on who is going to increase or decrease in numbers,” Pallavicini told Reuters.

“It’s our shared responsibility as brothers and believers in the same holy God,” he said.