The true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty – a genuine WWII hero

He (center left) was the Irish Oskar Schindler, risking his life to save the lives of 6500 POWs, Jews and other enemies of the Nazis.

Fascinating 7-minute audio presentation

Rent the full length movie on-line 

An Irish Vatican priest hides allied PoWs from the Germans occupying Rome, during World War Two. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (Gregory Peck) is under threat from the Chief of the Gestapo (Christopher Plummer) who orders the priest captured or killed if he is seen outside the protection of the Vatican walls.

• Directed by: Jerry London
• Runtime: 2 hours 18 minutes
• Studio: ITV Global Entertainment Ltd

Wrong! World-wide abortion is indeed a holocaust – with a scope and consequences much greater than any other, in history.

Abortion Holocaust – Man’s inhumanity to man – WWII Holocaust

Seen at JewishJournal.com

Michelle Duggar, along with her husband Jim Bob, are the stars of the TLC reality show 19 Kids & Counting, which has been on television for eleven seasons.  She is the mother of 19, does not believe in abortion, is openly pro-life, and not shy about sharing her opinion and religious beliefs.  I do not know her, but am sure she is a perfectly lovely woman.

However, to compare abortion to Hitler’s attempt to eradicate the Jewish people is offensive to me as a woman, as a Jew, and as an intelligent human being.  I didn’t really have an opinion on Mrs. Duggar until now, but will share that I think she is unaware and uneducated on the subject of the Holocaust. Shame on her for making such a hurtful statement.

The Holocaust was the systematic mass murder of six million Jews during World War ll.  Not only were Jews persecuted, but also Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, Priests and Pastors who would not accept the Nazi ideology, the disabled and handicapped. Eleven million people were murdered during the Holocaust.

It was heartbreaking to hear what Mrs. Duggar said.  How is it possible that people are so uneducated about this time in history?  How is possible that a seemingly lovely woman would say such an idiotic thing in order to push her own personal agenda? How is it possible that those who lost their lives during the Holocaust are disrespected in this way?

Editor’s note: I am offended at the way s person who claims to have experienced the horrors of the historical WWII holocaust and who also claims to be a woman, a Jew, and an intelligent human being – can possibly fail to acknowledge other, similar events – clear and blatant examples of man’s inhumanity to man – on a massive scale – occurring in today’s world – right before her eyes.

This constitutes the height of political/cultural hubris and elitism – and a new low, for the human race.

With already 50 million plus world-wide deaths from abortion – and counting – there is no excuse.

Shame on you, Ms. Angel!

Been there before: “Creeping totalitarianism” – a lesson from the recent past.

Over Ninety Percent of Austrians Voted for Adolph Hitler’s Takeover

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

This is my eye-witness account

There are 800,000 trees planted in Israel that represent the 800,000 Jews saved by the Catholic Church. None have been planted as a tribute to Protestants.

During the war, the New York Times twice said the Church was “a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent”; Albert Einstein also singled out the Church during the war. After the war, Golda Meir praised the work of the Church, as did the ADL, the World Jewish Congress, and scores of other Jewish organizations.

Link

Evidence for Pope Pius XII being a good guy is overwhelming

Krupp explained that Pope Pius used the Holy See’s global network of embassies to help smuggle Jews out of occupied Europe. In one such instance, the Vatican secretly asked for visas to the Dominican Republic– 800 at a time – to aid Jewish rescue efforts. This one initiative alone is estimated to have saved over 11,000 Jewish lives between 1939 and 1945.

Closer to home, the convents and monasteries of Rome—neutral territory during the war—were used as hiding places for Jews.

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Israeli diplomat praises Pope Pius XII for saving thousands of Jews during the Holocaust

Apparently breaking with a taboo among critics of the Catholic Church and of Pope Pius XII – who reigned during the Second World War and the Holocaust – Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican has recognized that the pontiff did actually save thousands of Jews during the years of Nazi predation.

Ambassador Mordechai Lewy affirmed on June 23 that “as of the raid of 16 October 1943 and the days following in the ghetto of Rome, the monasteries and orphanages of the religious orders opened their doors to Jews, and we have reason to believe that this occurred under the supervision of the highest authorities of the Vatican, who were aware of these measures.” The diplomat spoke at a ceremony in which a Catholic priest, Gaetano Piccinini of the order founded by Don Orione, was post-humously awarded a medal honoring him as numbering among righteous Gentiles.

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Great WWII story of Irish priest assigned to the Vatican who frustrated the Nazis.

He was Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a tall (6ft 2ins) humourous-looking Irish man from Kerry. He had tousled hair that stood up like a brush’s bristles, eyes which twinkled through his thin-rimmed glasses and a fixed cherubic smile. Almost Father Ted material.

O’Flaherty made it his practice to stand on the steps of St Peter’s every evening, overlooking the great square in his black and red Monsignor’s robes, reading – or seeming to read – his breviary. People would come up to talk and keep him informed of escaped prisoners who needed hiding places.

Having served in the Vatican since the Twenties, he had contacts and friends in high places throughout Rome. Furthermore, the Vatican’s neutral territory included not only the rambling warren of St Peter’s but 150 other properties, monasteries, convents and religious houses scattered through the city. All possible hidey-holes.

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God Bless Bob Hope.

This 10 minute video is worth watching … from start to finish. It not only provides remarkable insights into the personality of Hope himself, but also the stars who worked with him, and the soldiers he traveled the world to entertain.

They just don’t make them like this anymore (and that’s a real shame!)

Watch the video

Thanks for the memories, Bob!

Submitted by Doria2

Four Modern Day Martyrs, But Only Three To Be Beatified By the Church

Soon-to-be beatified priests, along with fellow martyred Lutheran pastor, were ‘shining lights on our common ecumenical path.’

LUBECK, Germany (CNS) — As the Nazi executioner beheaded three Catholic priests and a Lutheran pastor, one after another in a matter of minutes, their blood flowed together, creating a powerful symbol for ecumenism in northern Germany.

On June 25, the three Catholic martyrs of Lubeck — Fathers Johannes Prassek, Eduard Muller and Hermann Lange — will be beatified in the historic city’s Sacred Heart Church, a stone’s throw away from the Lubeck Cathedral, the ministerial home of the Rev. Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, their Lutheran counterpart. Rev. Stellbrink will be honored in a special way that day as well.

The four were executed in Hamburg Nov. 10, 1943. All had been found guilty of disseminating anti-Nazi material — such as the homilies of Cardinal Clemens von Galen of Munster — and other “treasonous” activities.

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One minute of prayer can change the world.

Someone has said that if Christians really understood  the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless.

Did you know that during WWII there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped  what they were doing every day at a prescribed hour  for one minute to collectively pray for the  safety of England, its people and peace?

There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America. If you would like to participate: Every evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time (8:00 PM Central) (7:00 PM Mountain) (6:00 PM Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, and for a return to a Godly nation.

If you know anyone else who would like to participate, please pass this along. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.

Please forward this to your praying friends.

Submitted by Doria2

The witness of the Catholics of Nagasaki shows God’s providence in the darkest of times.

The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 was considerably more powerful than the one dropped three days earlier on Hiroshima, where 140,000 of the city’s 255,000 inhabitants were quickly killed. However, technical and weather-related difficulties confined the Nagasaki count to 35,000 dead. Of the 12,000 Catholics in the Urakami district, 8,500 were killed.

Many of those not killed, as in the case of Takashi Nagai’s two young children, were spared simply because, by anticipation of the firebombing that came on nearly all the large cities of Japan, they had gone to the countryside; others were serving in the military. Of those who died in the bombing, some were actually worshiping in St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Besides these immediate deaths, an estimated 200,000 people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima died from the effects of atomic radiation. Of those who survived, a high percentage lost family members or suffered permanent disabilities.

More…

Archives Show Church Excommunicated Nazis

NEW YORK, APRIL 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- An interreligious group trying to discover the facts regarding Pope Pius XII and his efforts to help Jews during World War II has announced the discovery of documents showing how the Church excommunicated Catholics who joined the Nazis.

The New-York based Pave the Way Foundation said that its representative Michael Hesemann found a large series of documents from 1930 to 1933.

The documents indicate that any Catholic who joined the Nazi party, wore the uniform or flew the swastika flag would no longer be able to receive the sacraments.

This policy set three years before Hitler was elected chancellor made clear that the teachings of the Church were incompatible with Nazi ideology.

“The documents clearly show an ideological war between the Catholic Church and National Socialism already in the pre-war decade,” Hesemann explained. “The German bishops and the Roman Curia considered the Nazi doctrine not only as incompatible with the Christian faith, but also as hostile to the Church and dangerous to human morals, even more than Communism.”

Among the documents is a handwritten letter from a leading member of the Nazis, Hermann Goering, requesting a meeting with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius XII), which was flatly refused.

There are also documents asking for a removal of the excommunication, which was also denied.

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Editor’s note: The abortionists have already killed at least five times more people than were killed in WWII. When is the Catholic Church going to start excommunicating the Pelosis, the Cuomos, the Leahys, the Durbins, the Kennedys, and the like?

WWII Vatican Documents now available on-line

View them (.PDF format)

Most are not in English.

Investigating the papacy of Pope Pius XII

The Pave the Way Foundation, in cooperation with the Vatican, is making an unprecedented effort to translate and make publicly available on the internet, all the documents relevant to the papacy of Pius XII and his wartime activities.

According to Gary Krupp, of the Pave the Way Foundation:

“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.”

Visit the site

HAARETZ: Editorial in defense of Ven. Pius XII

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.

Read the article

Also, read the comments below the article.

Carroll Exploits Holocaust, Lies Again About Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII

Among Carroll’s lies:

1. “The case against Pius XII is well established: He knew early on of Hitler’s plan for the Final Solution of the ‘Jewish problem,’ and never raised his voice against it.”

Wrong. Carroll’s falsehood is flat-out debunked in many places (see my list below), including the book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope by Rabbi David Dalin. Even before he was pontiff, Pius XII, as Cardinal Pacelli, branded the Nazis as “false prophets with the pride of Lucifer” (Dalin, p. 65).

Pius’ “pro-Jewish” policies angered the Nazis so much that Hitler actually planned to kidnap and imprison the pontiff. Records from a July 1943 meeting reveal that Hitler openly discussed invading the Vatican. After the war, Nazi General Karl Otto Wolff testified that he had received orders to “occupy as soon as possible the Vatican and Vatican City.” (Wolff talked Hitler out of the plan in December 1943.) (Dalin, p. 77)

Meanwhile, the memoirs of Adolf Eichmann detail that the Vatican “vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting the interruption of such action” (Dalin, p. 84).

And in a December 25, 1941, editorial, the New York Times wrote,

The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas… he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all… the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism… he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace.

Additionally, a August 6, 1942, headline in the Times read, “Pope is Said to Plead for Jews Listed for Removal from France.”

In his book, Three Popes and the Jews, Israeli diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide has asserted, “The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.” Lapide adds that this “figure far exceeds those saved by all other Churches and rescue organizations combined.”

Jewish historian and biographer Sir Martin Gilbert has documented that Pope Pius was one of the first to publicly condemn Nazi atrocities and speak out on behalf of Europe’s Jews. Gilbert has also asserted, “Hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved by the Catholic Church, under the leadership and support of Pope Pius XII” (Dalin, pp. 13-14).

The truth is that Pius XII spoke out several times against the Nazi regime. Carroll is lying. (For more specific examples, see the sources I’ve listed below.)

2. “[I]n October 1943, more than a thousand Jews were rounded up in the Roman Ghetto at the foot of Vatican hill, within sight of the pope’s windows, and still [Pope Pius XII] did nothing. That is a fact. Those Jews died in Auschwitz.”

The truth is that Pius took immediate and decisive action as soon as he heard of the roundup. According to the research from Rabbi Dalin, Pius personally protested to Germany’s ambassador Ernst von Weizsacker and demanded that the Nazis stop the arrests. Pius himself gave sanctuary within the Vatican to hundreds of homeless Jews. He also asked that convents and churches throughout Italy shelter Jews.

Michael Tagliacozzo, “the foremost survivor on the October 1943 Nazi roundup of Rome’s Jews” and “a survivor of the raid himself, ” said Pius’ actions helped rescue 80 percent of Rome’s Jews. Said Tagliacozzo,

“Pope Pacelli was the only one who intervened to impede the deportation of Jews on October 16, 1943, and he did very much to hide and save thousands of us.” (Dalin, p. 83)

And in the June 21, 2009, edition of Carroll’s own newspaper, the Boston Globe, Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, is quoted,

“It is wrong to look for any affinity between [Pius] and the Nazis. It is also wrong to say that he didn’t save Jews. Everybody who knows the history of those who were saved among Roman Jewry knows that they hid in the church.”

Read more of Dave Pierre’s article at NewsBusters.Org

NOTE CONCERNING VATICAN DECREE ON THE HEROIC VIRTUES OF PIUS XII

VATICAN CITY, 23 DEC 2009 (VIS) – Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. today issued the following note concerning the signing of the recent decree on the heroic virtues of Servant of God Pope Pius XII.

“The Pope’s signing of the decree ‘on the heroic virtues’ of Pius XII has elicited a certain number of reactions in the Jewish world; perhaps because the meaning of such a signature is clear in the area of the Catholic Church and of specialists in the field, but may merit certain explanation for the larger public, in particular the Jewish public who are understandably very sensitive to all things concerning the historical period of World War II and the Holocaust.

“When the Pope signs a decree ‘on the heroic virtues’ of a Servant of God – i.e., of a person for whom a cause for beatification has been introduced – he confirms the positive evaluation already voted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. … Naturally, such evaluation takes account of the circumstances in which the person lived, and hence it is necessary to examine the question from a historical standpoint, but the evaluation essentially concerns the witness of Christian life that the person showed (his intense relationship with God and continuous search for evangelical perfection) … and not the historical impact of all his operative decisions”.

“At the beatification of Pope John XXIII and of Pope Pius IX, John Paul II said: ‘holiness lives in history and no saint has escaped the limits and conditioning which are part of our human nature. In beatifying one of her sons, the Church does not celebrate the specific historical decisions he may have made, but rather points to him as someone to be imitated and venerated because of his virtues, in praise of the divine grace which shines resplendently in them’.

“There is, then, no intention in any way to limit discussion concerning the concrete choices made by Pius XII in the situation in which he lived. For her part, the Church affirms that these choices were made with the pure intention of carrying out the Pontiff’s service of exalted and dramatic responsibility to the best of his abilities. In any case, Pius XII’s attention to and concern for the fate of the Jews – something which is certainly relevant in the evaluation of his virtues – are widely testified and recognised, also by many Jews.

“The field for research and evaluation by historians, working in their specific area, thus remains open, also for the future. In this specific case it is comprehensible that there should be a request to have open access to all possibilities of research on the documents. … Yet for the complete opening of the archives – as has been said on a number of occasions in the past – it is necessary to organise and catalogue an enormous mass of documentation, something which still requires a number of years’ work.

“As for the fact that the decree on the heroic virtues of Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII were promulgated on the same day, this does not mean that from now on the two causes will be ‘paired’. They are completely independent of one another and each will follow its own course. There is, then, no reason to imagine that any future beatification will take place together”.

“It is, then, clear that the recent signing of the decree is in no way to be read as a hostile act towards the Jewish people, and it is to be hoped that it will not be considered as an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church. Rather we trust that the Pope’s forthcoming visit to the Synagogue of Rome will be an opportunity for the cordial reiteration and reinforcement of ties of friendship and respect”.
OP/DECREE PIUS XII/LOMBARDIVIS 091223 (660)

D-Day soldier priest was “tougher than he looked”

Watch the video. Read the story.

Dear Friend of Pope Pius XII

June 4, 2009

Dear Friend of Pope Pius XII:

I am appealing to you for help in promoting the Beatification of Pope Pius XII. Several months ago, Pius XII was proclaimed Venerable by a committee of cardinals and bishops. The next step will take place as soon as a miracle has been received and approved by His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.

It is imperative that you, the faithful who are interested in the beatification of Pius XII, pray and notify the Vatican as soon as a miracle is recorded.

Two months after Pius XII’s death on October 9, 1958, the following prayer was circulated among the faithful:

O Jesus, eternal High Priest, who didst deign to raise Thy faithful servant, Pius XII, to the supreme dignity of Thy Vicar on earth and to grant him the grace to be a fearless defender of the faith, a valiant champion of justice and peace, zealous in proclaiming the glory of Thy Most Holy Mother, a shining example of charity and all virtues, deign now to grant us, in view of his merits, the graces we ask of Thee; so that, made certain of his efficacious intercession with Thee, we may one day see him raised to the honors of our altars, Amen. —

Imprimatur: Petrus Canisius, Vic. Gen. Civit. Vatic. Die 8 Dicembris 1938.

The Catholic Church saved 860,000 Jews from the Holocaust thanks to Pope Pius XII. He was not “silent.”

As Papal Nuncio to Germany (1917-1929), then Vatican Secretary of State (1930-1939) and Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), he spoke out against the evils of his age: racism, ethnic and religious hatreds, nationalism, militarism, war crimes and atrocities against non-combatants. Sir Francis Osborne, a non-Catholic British diplomat in the Vatican from 1936 to 1947, had this to say (The Times of London, May 20, 1963):

“…Pius XII was the most warmly, humane, kindly, generous, sympathetic (and, incidentally, saintly) character that it has been my privilege to meet. Without the slightest doubt, he would have been ready and glad to give his life to redeem humanity from its consequences. And this quite irrespective of nationality or Faith.” … I know. I met him in St. Peter’s Basilica in July 1957.

Pope Pius XII will be remembered for his heroic leadership, his peace-making efforts and his commitment as the defender and protector of the victims of war and hatred which drenched Europe in blood during World War II.

He was a moral beacon to mankind. His voice was heard around the world. It was the “Voice” of a tireless world leader whose contribution to humanity during the Holocaust is incontrovertible.

It is time for Catholics to refute the careless innuendoes and unfounded accusations that have been leveled against Pope Pius XII, whose aspirations toward truth and goodness and his extraordinary World War II achievements are one of the great events of our times.

Affectionately,

Sr. Margherita Marchione, Ph.D.

Link to more Pope Piux XII Info 

Submitted by Doria2

Daley tells Cardinal George to “buzz off”

Willam Daley evidently thinks that abortion, infanticide, and the wanton destruction of human embryos are paltry little issues about which the Catholic Church should remain silent, and in his Tribune op-ed piece he pretty much tells the Cardinal to sit down and shut up about it.

“Cardinal Francis George recently said this invitation is an embarrassment to Catholics because the president disagrees with church doctrine on abortion and stem-cell research. But I believe Cardinal George’s stand is an embarrassment to Chicago Catholics and furthers the divide among the church, its members and the rest of America.”

By William M. Daley
Midwest Chairman JP Morgan Chase & Company
Published in the Chicago Tribune 
April 3, 2009 

Click here to read the “article”

Follow up:

            
Mayor Richard Daley said much the same last week, when he was asked about it.
               

JP Morgan and Chase evidently felt the same way about Hitler, the Nazis, and their atrocities during WWII, as William Daley does about Obama’s anti-life policies  today:

Click here for the details