Anything in the Name of the Tsar

As I've said before, Our Lady at Fatima spoke of the errors of Russia, not simply the errors of Communism.

Let me add a quick note: I am not here saying that Communism is not an error, that the Fatima secret does not refer to Communism as among the errors of Russia, or in any way trying to rescue the reputation of the murderous Soviet regime. Not at all.

Again, our touchstone for truth, our way of testing to see what is erroneous and what is real is the teaching of the Church, and the Church has condemned, fought, and often overcome Communism.

However, I reiterate: Our Lady spoke of the errors (plural) of Russia (not the Soviet Union). To presume that the errors of Russia referred to in Fatima must only refer to Communism, one must overlook the way that "anything in the name of" also characterized tsarist rule in Russia.

And perhaps the easiest way to make the point that there was something dramatically wrong with pre-revolutionary Russia is simply to point to Rasputin.

Mistaken in his own lifetime for a holy man, Rasputin slept his way through Russian high society, held enormous sway over Tsarina Alexandra because she believed him the only person who could heal her son of hemophilia, and before he died, had so hollowed out the Russian government through his control of the royal family that the revolutions of 1917 followed.

How did such a man not just gain access to the ruling classes, but to the imperial family itself? How did such a strange figure become so immensely consequential in Russia?

"Anything in the name of."

The tsarina would do anything in the name of her son's health. The tsar would do anything in the name of his wife. And under the absolutist rule of the tsar, the whole of Russia would do anything in the name of the tsar...until they'd suffered beyond endurance, and turned to do anything in the name of eating; anything in the name of survival; anything in the name of changing the status quo.

It should be a matter of fascination for historians that the Russian Orthodox hierarchy wasn't able to serve as an immune system against Rasputin's ascent. Indeed, his place in the royal family exposes another toxic element of the pre-revolutionary period: There was a lot of occultism extant in Russia at the time. In "Occultism as a Response to a Spiritual Crisis," Dr. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, professor emeritus of history at Fordham University, writes:

The occultism of prerevolutionary Russia is important, firstly because aspects of the most popular doctrines—Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Anthroposophy—became embedded in the wider culture; secondly because occultists
who emigrated after the Bolshevik Revolution gained European and American admirers who disseminated their ideas; and thirdly because ideas drawn from the above doctrines were recycled (with some modifications) in the 1960s and after in both the Soviet Union and the West. ...

And a few more notes, working from the teachings of the Church.

• Tsarism, like the royal absolutism of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in England, claimed for the secular monarch authority over the sacred, over the Church, in a way that the Catholic Church has made clear is illegitimate.
• Further, such centralization of power in, essentially, a despot leads to the creation of a national church, an ecclesial community that quickly attaches to its membership criteria of patriotism, and membership in a particular ethnicity or nation.
• That means that on both theological and political grounds, any sort of communion with the bishop of Rome, let alone abiding under his authority as the Vicar of Christ, becomes difficult to impossible for nationalist churches or ecclesial communities.

It was just such vesting of all power in a single figure in Nazi Germany; just such a fascination with the occult; just such an ethno-nationalism and a co-opting of Christianity (or purported Christianity) into the service of narrow nationalist interests that characterized the Third Reich. The errors of Russia certainly had spread to many nations, and certainly caused the destruction of many nations.

But the rot didn't stop with World War II. Rather, World War II was both caused by the errors of Russia and helped launch the errors of Russia into geo-politics as the ordinary means of policy and statecraft. More on that to follow.

The Central Error of Russia

The heart of the errors of Russia, and the error behind all the errors that would spew forth into the world, causing WWII and then being spread across the globe by WWII, was diagnosed by the creator of Hobbits, Ents, and Middle-Earth.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a rare genius. Among his greatest achievements is the core moral theme at the heart of The Lord of the Rings: do not do evil so that good may come of it.

Or, to put it another way, always refuse to do "anything in the name of."

Saruman was willing to do "anything in the name of" bringing about the rule of the wise in Middle-Earth, and so he became a fool.

Denethor was willing to do "anything in the name of" victory over Sauron, and so he destroyed himself and almost destroyed his line.

Character after character is tempted to take up the One Ring, the Master Ring, the Ring of Power, and usually, they are tempted to do so for some particular good. Gandalf was tempted to take it to do good. Galadriel, the same. Sam, to establish the garden to end all gardens.

Again and again and again, the characters of Lord of the Rings are tempted to take up the ultimate weapon in order to serve a good cause, home, family, justice, the common good. They are tempted to do evil so that good may come of it, tempted to accept any cost in the name of a particular good.

They are tempted by the oldest temptation in the world, in other words, and by the temptation that undergirds all ideologies and excuses that led to WWII.

Nazism? A system built around doing anything in the name of the Volk, the German people, the Fuhrer; anything in the name of power, of strength, of appetite. In the end, this led to slaughter, to extermination of scapegoats, of the weak. Anything in the name of Germany turned into a willingness to destroy Germany.

Communism? A system built from Marx's ideology, an ideology with an absolute faith in historical processes in place of God, a system looking to the Revolution to do atheistically what Judaism and Christianity look for in the day of the Lord. And at the heart of the expectation of the Revolution as the day when all wrongs shall be made right, all injustices corrected, all inequities remedied, is the essential willingness to do anything in the name of justice. Anything in the name of the Revolution. From there flowed every other evil of Communism enacted in Russia--anything in the name of Lenin, for he was the bringer of the Revolution. Anything in the name of the Party, for they bring the Revolution. Anything in the name of Comrade Stalin, for he is synonymous with the Party. Anything in the name of the Soviet Union, for that is the place where Communism has been made real, the Revolution has occurred, where all is just, because it must be just, because the Revolution has occurred...

But don't stop there. Look also at Tsarism. Of that, more tomorrow.

The Church Could Have Averted WWII

So in 2016-2017, I did a bunch of reading, research, and writing about Fatima. It was the 100th anniversary of the apparitions, it was timely, and it was interesting.

As I was doing this work, one thing came into clear focus for me: World War II was an optional event.

I mean, living in the world that World War II created, it can easily be mistaken (by American eyes like mine) an inevitable, apocalyptic clash in which the Allies took on the forces of Anti-Christ, goodness won, and a free world was reborn. The world was saved, and blessed are we if we have leaders as great as those who then strode the earth.

But I realized that's not the view of the world given by Our Lady of Fatima.

Rather, the second part of the secret of Fatima indicates that World War II was avoidable if her requests were heeded, if the Church reacted in a timely fashion, making the First Saturdays of reparation and the consecration of Russia. If the requested devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart had spread, then the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would have come before the start of World War II. Indeed, there never would have been a war. Millions of lives could have been saved. An ocean of suffering could have been avoided.

Studying Fatima further, I even encountered the turning point in history, the year when the Church could have redirected the world away from war, according to Our Lady of Fatima. As Fr. Apostoli's excellent book Fatima for Today lays out, drawing on Sr. Lucia's own writings, the apparitions of Fatima didn't just come in 1917. There were the apparitions of the angel of peace, the angel of Portugal in 1916, and there were a number of subsequent apparitions to Sr. Lucia--as of course there had to be.

When you read the 1917 secret, look at it as though for the first time, as though we didn't know anything more than the events up to July 1917. You'll notice that she promises she will come again (emphasis added):

... If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. ...

Our Lady did not ask for the consecration of Russia in 1917, nor did she then ask for the first Saturdays of reparation. 1917 was not the turning point toward or away from World War II.

When, then?

She came in 1925 to ask for the First Saturdays, and for the first time explained what they entailed. The Church could not have responded to this request until then. And Our Lady came to ask for the consecration of Russia in 1929.

And then she and Jesus both came to Sr. Lucia in 1930, complained that "they"--the hierarchy--were not listening. They said that the consecration would be made, but it would be made late.

And here we have the crucial year, the hinge, the turning point. 1929-1930. Perhaps the progress toward war could still have been arrested till the predicted unknown light shone in the sky Jan. 25-26, 1938. Perhaps we had our chance for several years.

But these are the crucial years when we could have averted WWII.

And that forced me to another conclusion: The errors of Russia can't have merely been the errors of Communism. More on that tomorrow.

The Avengers and the Errors of Russia

I just finished watching The Avengers for the umpteenth time, and was struck once again by how Marvel's story people are somehow writing celebrations of the culture of life. Nick Fury refuses a direct order from the shadowy Council that oversees S.H.I.E.L.D because it's an unjust, wrongful order--to nuke Manhattan in a desperate attempt to stop the Chitauri invasion.

It's a classic Cold War move. Mutually Assured Destruction (MADD) rather than accepting defeat. We would rather cast fire upon the earth and perish with our enemies rather than accept subjugation.

And of course, on some level, I understand the instinct. Human beings are certainly capable of such wrath, tempted to it. I have been furious at bullies in my past, furious to the point of not caring what the consequences were so long as I was able to land a punch.

But the Council's choice--the Cold War choice--was born out of the heart of the errors of Russia, out of the error that undergirds most all of the other errors.

Do anything in the name of a good cause.

Do anything in the name of defending freedom, of protecting planet Earth, of winning over the alien invader.

Do anything in the name of goodness, even embracing evil, even becoming evil.

It's an ancient temptation; the first temptation, in fact. Take the forbidden fruit in order to be like God. It looks tasty, and much to be desired for the wisdom it promises. Take that which God has forbidden, and set aside that God which has permitted. Take, and eat, and seize divinity for yourselves!

The thing is that if Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life, they would have also gained knowledge of good and evil, for experience is the best of teachers. They would have also gained divinity, for Adam's life had come through the breath, the Spirit of God being breathed into his nostrils, and the Trinity indwelt Adam and Eve through the sanctifying grace animating their souls till original sin. Adam is listed in the genealogy of Christ as the Son of God, and so he would have remained--indeed, even entered into glory--had he remained faithful (see Lk 3:38).

The devil tempted them with what they already had in their grasp, and they fell.

So, too, is it with the temptation today of doing anything in the name of a particular good.

We have faced much evil and suffering these past 400 years, since the apparition of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the request for the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart. The Church and the world have seen unprecedented slaughters, and acts of terrible inhumanity, fueled by the extraordinary technological achievements of the modern age. Far too many Stark Industries have built far too many weapons of mass destruction. And far too many people have fallen to the lies that undergird our current crises.

"Are you willing to give 110%?"
"Are you willing to do whatever it takes?"

Thank God for the sane and healthy ordinary folk for whom these are simple motivational slogans. Thank God for the many for whom there are lines they will not cross, evil deeds they will not do, compromises they will not make.

Thank God for fairy tales, and the warnings they convey, of stories about deals made with Rumpelstiltskin, or with Ursula the Witch, of the dangers of love potions and the price that crones will ask for their magic. Thank God for stories warning that your first-born child is all too often the price of professional advancement, of power, of wealth, of following the left-hand path to gain the golden calves of this world.

These are the errors of Russia, the errors that spread out from Russia, weaponized and contagious in WWII, prophesied at Fatima in 1917 and again in 1930, when Jesus and Mary lamented that the consecration would be made late.

These are the errors of Russia. Look at Communism, with its complete faith in historical processes grinding their way through human lives to a revolution that would solve everything, that would establish justice in the world through the dictatorship of the proletariat, the slaughter of the "oppressors," and in whose name every evil could be and was justified. Look at Tsarism, in which one man is given autocratic rule of a country, where he and his family turn to spiritualism and ultimately the demonic deceptions of Rasputin--anything in the name of the heir; anything in the name of the Tsar's rule, anything in the name of the Tsar.

Then look at the way war was waged during World War II. Look at the ethos that began with Stalin and Hitler, with any evil done in the name of the leader of the Communist Party and any evil done in the name of the Fuhrer, the volk, the German people. Look at the ethos that spread to the Allies throughout the war--anything in the name of victory, including Japanese internment camps, the firebombing of cities, and ultimately the Manhattan Project's terrible fruits. Look at how that ethos governed the waging of the Cold War--MADD is the doctrine and ruthless the war, and the waging of it. Any manipulation of the facts in the name of Communism or stopping Communism; any weapon to hand; anything in the name of--not even victory, for in the event of a nuclear war, there was no expectation of victory. No--anything in the name of no surrender.

Anything--and so it was spy versus spy; intelligence service versus intelligence service; the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, seized and eaten again and again and again, for we sought salvation in knowledge, in intelligence, in gnosis, in secrets and the Inner Ring, in blunt instruments of government policy (Ian Fleming's description of James Bond) doing anything in the name of Queen and country in order to stop the Soviet agents from doing anything in the name of the Revolution and the Party.

The same errors at the roots, the same bad first premises skewing our worldviews and our understanding for the last several hundred years--all for the lack of a consecration of France, and a late consecration of Russia.

An ideological infection that began in France in the 1600s and spread to the world bore terrible fruit, especially in 1917, in 1929-1945, and has continued to bear fruit ever since then.

The remedies? They exist; they are powerful; they have been used to a certain extent, but we must take them up in our turn and hasten the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart as much as possible. The sooner the Queen of Heaven wins her victory, the better.

For the wise, there are more complicated tools at hand--revising our understanding of history to spotlight and help us fight particular errors.

For all of us, there is devotion to the Immaculate Heart. Possible ways to live this:

• living a good, ordinary Christian life
• receiving the Sacraments regularly
• attending Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation
• performing the works of mercy
• the First Saturdays of reparation
• Marian consecration
• the daily Rosary for peace in the world
• other Marian devotions, such as the Miraculous Medal, the scapulars (especially the Brown, the Green, and the Blue)
• enthroning a statue or another image of Our Lady in your home, especially of her showing her Immaculate Heart
• leading devotions in your parish
• Marian processions
• studying Mariology

A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting "in order to be seen by men").

The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.

It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it ...

Some rules apply in every case:
- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."
- charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ." Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1755-1756, 1789).

A Good God is Everywhere — And Provides for Everything with Love

The best recounting of the sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe I've ever read.  Excerpts:

...The Nazi commandant calls the first name, second, third, fourth. Franciszek Gajowniczek hopes hard that he would live to see 42… live to hold his children close again…seventh, eighth, ninth names…”

He’s only a few years older than I am. And he’s only one name away from seeing the sun rise tomorrow. We turn at Bobby Johnson’s corner.

“And then they barked the tenth name: Franciszek Gajowniczek. And Gajowniczek — he falls to the ground. Near starving, he peels back every shred of dignity and he flat out begs, ‘No, I am married! I have children! I am young! I beg of you!’

The kids are quiet.

“And behind Gajowniczek, a man breaks rank… And he steps forward so all can see his face —- Maximillian Kolbe — a Christian. A Christian who was known to give up his food rations to those less hungry than he was. A Christian known to give his blanket to those not as cold as he was. Maximilian Kolbe, he was known to these incarcerated Jews as the Christ of Auschwitz… and he steps forwards silently, takes off his cap, and before the commandant he says,

“Let me take his place. He has a wife and children. I am not married. I am not a father. He is young. I am old. Take me.” I turn around so that I can see the kids’ faces. “Maximilian Kolbe was only 6 years older than Gajowniczek — 47.”

Hope turns from me, looks out the window. Rain drops start to splat the windshield loud.

“And Gajowniczek, laying there on the dust on a July morning, he would later say, ‘I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on.’

And Kolbe, he was dragged off to a wire box like a dog kennel with the nine other men, left to starve.”

This is always the part of the story that gets hard, when the lump grows too large in my throat. The children say nothing and I push the words past the stinging in my throat.

“Kolbe spent the next 14 days singing hymns and praying with those nine other men, as one by one, all of them starved to death… And only one month prior to Kolbe being dragged off to starve, on June 15, 1941, — Maximilian Kolbe had written this to his mother:

‘Dear Mama, I am in the camp of Auschwitz. Everything is well in my regard. Be tranquil about me and about my health, because the good God is everywhere and provides for everything with love.’”

I had memorized that line of the letter. Because if a man in the midst of one the most hideous scenarios known in the history of the world could write a line like that — not from a bad day at the office or a hard day with the kids, but from the death stench of Auschwitz — how can anyone deny this ultimate iron-clad testimony : A Good God is everywhere — and provides for everything with love...

Her kids' reaction here. A reaction from the man whose life he saved. Excerpts:

...Gajowniczek later recalled:

'I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me - a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.

For a long time I felt remorse when I thought of Maximilian. By allowing myself to be saved, I had signed his death warrant. But now, on reflection, I understood that a man like him could not have done otherwise. Perhaps he thought that as a priest his place was beside the condemned men to help them keep hope. In fact he was with them to the last.'...

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr for charity, pray for us!

Non Abbiamo Bisgno, Mit Brennender Sorge, Divini Redemptoris: Papal Condemnations of Communism and Fascism

No, the Popes were not silent in the face of Nazism or Communism. From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...Pope Pius XI did not fail to raise his voice against the totalitarian regimes that were being imposed in Europe during his pontificate. Already on 29 June 1931 he had protested against the abuse of power by the totalitarian fascist regime in Italy with the Encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno[155]. He published the Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, on the situation of the Catholic Church under the German Reich, on 14 March 1937[156]. The text of Mit Brennender Sorge was read from the pulpit of every Catholic Church in Germany, after having been distributed in the greatest of secrecy. The Encyclical came out after years of abuse and violence, and it had been expressly requested from Pope Pius XI by the German Bishops after the Reich had implemented ever more coercive and repressive measures in 1936, particularly with regard to young people, who were required to enrol as members of the Hitler Youth Movement. The Pope spoke directly to priests, religious and lay faithful, giving them encouragement and calling them to resistance until such time that a true peace between Church and State would be restored. In 1938, with the spreading of anti-Semitism, Pope Pius XI affirmed: “Spiritually we are all Semites”[157].

With the Encyclical Letter Divini Redemptoris[158], on atheistic communism and Christian social doctrine, Pope Pius XI offered a systematic criticism of communism, describing it as “intrinsically perverse”[159], and indicated that the principal means for correcting the evils perpetrated by it could be found in the renewal of Christian life, the practice of evangelical charity, the fulfilment of the duties of justice at both the interpersonal and social levels in relation to the common good, and the institutionalization of professional and interprofessional groups...

See also Summi Pontificatus on the brotherhood of all humanity.

Quadragesimo Anno: Response to the Great Depression

From the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...At the beginning of the 1930s, following the grave economic crisis of 1929, Pope Pius XI published the Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno[152], commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. The Pope reread the past in the light of the economic and social situation in which the expansion of the influence of financial groups, both nationally and internationally, was added to the effects of industrialization. It was the post-war period, during which totalitarian regimes were being imposed in Europe even as the class struggle was becoming more bitter. The Encyclical warns about the failure to respect the freedom to form associations and stresses the principles of solidarity and cooperation in order to overcome social contradictions. The relationships between capital and labour must be characterized by cooperation[153].

Quadragesimo Anno confirms the principle that salaries should be proportional not only to the needs of the worker but also to those of the worker's family. The State, in its relations with the private sector, should apply the principle of subsidiarity, a principle that will become a permanent element of the Church's social doctrine. The Encyclical rejects liberalism, understood as unlimited competition between economic forces, and reconfirms the value of private property, recalling its social function. In a society in need of being rebuilt from its economic foundations, a society which itself becomes completely “the question” to deal with, “Pius XI felt the duty and the responsibility to promote a greater awareness, a more precise interpretation and an urgent application of the moral law governing human relations ... with the intent of overcoming the conflict between classes and arriving at a new social order based on justice and charity”[154]...

Holocaust, Catholicism, and the Jews

First Things pulls together some significant information.  Excerpts:

...The recent news that Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa has been recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial is a welcome, and a much-deserved, honor. Dalla Costa, the archbishop of Florence during World War II, “played a central role in the organization and operation of a widespread rescue network,” said Yad Vashem in its November announcement. He “recruited rescuers from among the clergy, supplied letters to his activists so that they could go to heads of monasteries and convents entreating them to shelter Jews, and sheltered Jews in his own palace...”

Dalla Costa’s honor coincides with the publication of two important new books that explore different dimensions of the Second World War, one distressing, the other inspiring.

The first is Complicity in the Holocaust by Robert P. Ericksen, a bleak portrait of capitulation and collaboration during the Nazi era. It is painful (but necessary) reading, for it reminds us how easily and shockingly prominent individuals, including self-professed Christians, fell sway to the radical evils of racism, anti-Semitism and nationalism. The one significant drawback of Ericksen’s book is its partial and often one-sided examination of the Churches. His evaluation of the Catholic Church, for example, is so dark and sweeping that, at one point, he suggests the Holy See—if not Catholicism in general– was naturally inclined toward fascism.

He also repeats some (now quite outdated) errors about Pius XII. For a corrective to this view, one should read “Fascism and Catholicism,” a brilliant wartime essay (1941) by Dietrich von Hildebrand, the great German Catholic philosopher and early opponent of Hitler, who, tellingly, is missing from Ericksen’s narrative, as is von Hildebrand’s praise of Pope Pius XII.

The second work which helps balance the deficiencies of Ericksen’s otherwise valuable volume is The Catholic Bishops of Europe and the Nazi Persecutions of Catholics and Jews by Vincent Lapomarda, S.J., which recounts the courage and compassion of prominent Catholic prelates who resisted Nazism. Father Lapomarda, who heads the Hiatt Holocaust Collection at Holy Cross college, is the author of a previous acclaimed study, The Jesuits and the Third Reich, which established how many members of the Society of Jesus—who took a special oath of fidelity to the pope—actively opposed Hitler and his crimes.

Against the literature which depicts the wartime Church as almost entirely passive or collaborationist, Lapomarda’s work proves that Catholic resistance to Nazism—even amidst collaboration and betrayal—was extensive, and often heroic. In a country-by-country analysis of Catholic resistance in Nazi-occupied lands, Father Lapomarda compiles the many interventions made by the Catholic hierarchy for persecuted Jews during the wartime era, and makes clear (as he did in The Jesuits and the Third Reich) how these rescue measures had the support of the Vatican. This was recognized at the time, even if it is sometimes forgotten or denied today.

When Jean Cardinal Verdier, the archbishop of Paris and outspoken opponent of Nazism, died in 1940, the New York Times commented: “Cardinal Verdier like Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII, was the especial champion of persecuted Jews. Besides extending monetary and material aid to Jewish refugees finding sanctuary in his archdiocese, he also called on all Christians ‘to pray that the evils that the Jews are now suffering shall cease.’ This appeal was made in April, 1933, and was followed by many similar ones.” (New York Times obituary, April 9, 1940.)...

The Way to Heaven

The way of the cross.  Excerpts:

...On August 15, the Imperial Rescript which put an end to the fighting was formally promulgated, and the whole world welcomed a day of peace. This day was also the great feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is significant to reflect that Urakami Cathedral was dedicated to her. And we must ask if this convergence of events—the ending of the war and the celebration of her feast—was merely coincidental or if there was here some mysterious providence of God.

I have heard that the second atomic bomb, calculated to deal a deadly blow to the war potential of Japan, was originally destined for another city. But since the sky over that city was covered with clouds, the American pilots found it impossible to aim at their target. Consequently, they suddenly changed their plans and decided to drop the bomb on Nagasaki, the secondary target. However, yet another hitch occurred. As the bomb fell, cloud and wind carried it slightly north of the munitions factories over which it was supposed to explode and it exploded above the cathedral. 

This is what I have heard. If it is true, the American pilots did not aim at Urakami. It was the providence of God that carried the bomb to that destination.

Is there not a profound relationship between the destruction of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Nagasaki, the only holy place in all Japan—was it not chosen as a victim, a pure lamb, to be slaughtered and burned on the altar of sacrifice to expiate the sins committed by humanity in the Second World War?...

The man writing this was a survivor who lost family and friends in the bombing of Nagasaki. The whole piece is shocking and beautiful and redolent with mystery.

"Nothing More Relativistic Than Fascism"

Relativism does not lead to tolerance.  I call Benito Mussolini to the stand:

Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition.

Young Frankenstein

No, not the Mel Brooks movie--the real thing.  Warning: if you have a weak stomach, this piece from 2006 will be a little too much.  Excerpts:

It’s the hidden side of medical research. A massive industry harvesting pieces of dead children for experiments, or transplanting into animals. IAN WISHART discovers the University of Auckland has imported body parts from American babies for a research project, and asks some hard questions...

Jews for Pius XII

From a past issue of First Things:

...The New York Times is amused by the fact that Pope Pius XII has at least one Jewish defender. He is Mr. Gary Krupp, a retired medical-equipment dealer and the president and cofounder of the Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF), a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve relations among different religions. In 2000, Pope John Paul II honored Krupp for his charitable efforts by naming him a Knights commander of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St . Gregory the Great.

In the last few years, Mr. Krupp has devoted himself to defending the reputation of Pope Pius XII. Mr. Krupp used to accept the common allegations against Pius XII, but after taking the time to study the evidence, he concluded that the wartime pope has gotten a bad rap. The Pave the Way Foundation’s website, www.ptwf.org, contains its research on the wartime pope and includes many primary-source documents.

Reporter Paul Vitello portrays Krupp as an eccentric and loose cannon whose work is dismissed by mainstream scholars. In fact, in the last decade, many new books have been published in Europe that defend Pius XII. Unfortunately, the work of these scholars in Italy, Germany, and France is largely unknown in the United States (and apparently to the staff of the New York Times).

As for Gary Krupp, is he really the only Jew who has a favorable opinion of Pius XII? Since the late 1990s, a number of Jewish scholars and writers have defended the pope’s reputation. They include Prof. William D. Rubenstein, who tore apart John Cornwell’s biased and unreliable Hitler’s Pope in these pages; our friend Rabbi David Dalin, who wrote The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany (2002); Prof. Jacques Adler of Australia; Michael Tagliacozzo (who escaped the Nazi roundups of Jews in Rome and now lives in Israel); Serge Klarsfeld, the Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter; Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher and Jewish atheist; and Great Britain’s Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and a world-renowned authority on the Holocaust.

Earlier Jewish authors who defended Pius XII include: Leon Poliakov; Pinchas Lapide, the author of Three Popes and the Jews (1967); Jenö Levai, who testified as an expert witness at the trial of Adolf Eichmann and then wrote the book Hungarian Jewry and the Papacy: Pope Pius XII Did Not Remain Silent (1968); and David Herstig, the author of the German-language book Die Rettung (“The Rescue,” 1967). In 1963, when German playwright Rolf Hochhuth first turned Pius XII into a villain with The Deputy, Dr. Joseph L. Licthen, the late interfaith director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote a persuasive monograph, “A Question of Judgment: Pope Pius XII and the Jews,” which can be found on the Internet. Clearly, Gary Krupp has company...

Pius XII Was An Awesome Philosemite

Yet further evidence.  Excerpts:

The Jewish New Yorker who has made it his life’s work to clear the name of Pope Pius XII of being anti-Semitic believes the wartime pontiff actually went undercover to save the lives of Jews in Rome.

Gary Krupp came across the evidence in a letter from a Jewish woman whose family was rescued thanks to direct Vatican intervention.

“It is an unusual letter, written by a woman who is alive today in northern Italy, who said she was with her mother, her uncle, and a few other relatives in an audience with Pius XII in 1947.” Next to Pope Pius during the meeting was his Assistant Secretary of State, Monsignor Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.

“Her uncle immediately looks at the Pope and he says, ‘You were dressed as a Franciscan,’ and looked at Montini who was standing next to him, ‘and you as a regular priest. You took me out of the ghetto into the Vatican.’ Montini immediately said, ‘Silence, do not ever repeat that story.’”

Krupp believes the claim to be true because the personality of the wartime Pope was such that he “needed to see things with his own eyes.”

“He used to take the car out into bombed areas in Rome, and he certainly wasn't afraid of that. I can see him going into the ghetto and seeing what was happening,” says Krupp.

Krupp and his wife Meredith founded the Pave the Way Foundation in 2002 to “identify and eliminate the non-theological obstacles between religions...”

The rest of the article has more evidence of Pius XII's wartime efforts to save Jewish lives. Pave The Way Foundation has a page dedicated to Pius XII here.

Sarandon, the Pope, and the Nazis

A brief rundown of her initial comments and reactions.  Excerpts:

...the Oct. 15 remarks she made about how she had given a copy of the book “Dead Man Walking” to the pope. Sarandon hastened to add that the pope to which she had given the book was Blessed John Paul II, “not this Nazi one we have now,” meaning Pope Benedict XVI.

It’s been well-documented that Pope Benedict was registered into the Hitler Youth while a teen in his native Germany, but he never went to meetings, and his lack of participation resulted in hardships for his family. But you can’t let context get in the way of a good quip.

But pushback against Sarandon has emerged from both Catholic and Jewish circles, condemning the remarks and demanding an apology...

Who Was Hitler?

An interesting and slightly odd video.

I don't like all of his tactics, but it's worth a view, no matter what you think of what he's doing or how he's doing it.  Why?  Parts are quite well done, parts are interesting glimpses into modern trends (such as an alarming lapse in historical memory), and parts are examples of a particular method of argumentation and exposition common in certain circles.

I'd welcome comments and thoughtful critiques in the comboxes.

Survivors of the Atom Bombs

No, Virginia, humans do not have the power to wipe all life from earth...if God has other plans (as we've already discussed).  Excerpts:

On 6 August 1945, the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ, an American bomber dropped an atomic bomb that detonated 1,900 feet above Hiroshima, Japan. The blinding explosion killed everyone in a one-mile radius from “ground zero”—an estimated 80,000 men, women, and children.

On this date, a miracle occurred of which few have heard. The only survivors within that one mile radius were eight Jesuit priests. These eight men, like the eight that survived the Great Flood, walked away from the atomic blast and lived into old age without radiation poisoning...

The story reminds us Noah’s salvation in the ark, the deliverance of Daniel in the lion’s den, and, most of all, the preservation of Anania, Azaria, and Misael in the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar.

Nagasaki, the home of two-thirds of Japanese Catholics, suffered the second atomic bomb on 9 August 1945. This city which had become the “Japanese capital of Catholicism” was obliterated. However, the Franciscan Friary established by Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe in Nagasaki remained undamaged...

John Paul II, Modern Man and Servant of the Everlasting Man

Weigel arguing for John Paul II's place as man of the 20th century.  Excerpts:

...If one believes that politics is not an independent variable in human affairs--if (as so many have argued in these pages) politics is a function of culture, and at the heart of culture is cultus, religion, what we cherish and what we worship--then a serious case can be made for Pope John Paul II as the man who most singularly embodies humanity's trials and triumphs in the twentieth century.

One facet of the "culture first" case for John Paul II's preeminence is institutional. The Roman Catholic Church has arguably been the most influential religious community of the past ten decades in shaping the world the twenty--first century will inherit; the Catholic Church has been decisively formed for the next century by John Paul's authoritative interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, the most important religious event of this century; therefore John Paul II can be considered the twentieth century's seminal figure. Moreover, his teachings will be institutionally developed and carried into the future, unlike another great Slavic moral witness with a plausible claim to being the man of the century, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. In making that case, of course, it has to be remembered that a great reforming Pope and his accomplishments are not an individual achievement. John Paul II emerged from the heart of the Church and the priesthood, and he cannot be understood apart from that.

But a deeper argument can and should be explored here. John Paul II is not the emblematic figure of the twentieth century simply because his teachings and witness, which have had such a demonstrable impact on the history of our times, will be institutionally extended into the future, unlike the teachings of Churchill, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, FDR, or Reagan. No, John Paul II is arguably the iconic figure of the twentieth century because his life has embodied, personally and spiritually, the human crises with which Churchill, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, FDR, and Reagan (not to mention Watson and Crick, Heisenberg, Fermi, and Freud) were all engaged in their distinctive ways. And his teaching, which has emerged from a profound philosophical and theological reflection on those crises, has demonstrated the resilience, indeed the indispensability, of religious conviction in addressing the crisis of contemporary humanism. The twentieth century, which began with the confident assertion that a maturing humanity had outgrown its "need" for religion, proved that men could indeed organize the world without God. It also proved that, in doing so, men could only organize the world against each other, bringing humanity to the brink of catastrophe on more than one occasion.

Finally, if one believes that the Christian movement bears the truth of the world's story, then John Paul II looms very large indeed...

The LiveAction and Lying Debate

Why I'm Catholic has this magnificent overview post of the debate that has erupted in the Catholic blogosphere over the morality of LiveAction's tactics in their investigations of Planned Parenthood.  Interesting stuff.

Funny note: one of the consistent articles of evidence used by the people for the tactics used is the mammoth campaign of deception waged by Pope Pius XII to save Jews during World War II.  For more on that, see here or Hitler, the War, and the Pope,  The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany, and Before the Dawn: Autobiographical Reflections by Eugenio Zolli, Former Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Debt and Decline

laid out by Mark Steyn.  Excerpts follow:

...Decline starts with the money. It always does. As Jonathan Swift put it:

A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
’Tis like the writing on the wall.

According to the cbo’s 2010 long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the U.S. government will be paying between 15 and 20 percent of its revenues in debt interest—whereas defense spending will be down to between 14 and 16 percent. America will be spending more on debt interest than China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, Turkey, and Israel spend on their militaries combined. The superpower will have advanced from a nation of aircraft carriers to a nation of debt carriers.

What does that mean? In 2009, the United States spent about $665 billion on its military, the Chinese about $99 billion. If Beijing continues to buy American debt at the rate it has in recent years, then within a half-decade or so U.S. interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. This year, the Pentagon issued an alarming report to Congress on Beijing’s massive military build-up, including new missiles, upgraded bombers, and an aircraft-carrier R&D program intended to challenge American dominance in the Pacific. What the report didn’t mention is who’s paying for it. Answer: Mr. and Mrs. America.

Within the next five years, the People’s Liberation Army, which is the largest employer on the planet, bigger even than the U.S. Department of Community-Organizer Grant Applications, will be entirely funded by U.S. taxpayers. When they take Taiwan, suburban families in Connecticut and small businesses in Idaho will have paid for it. The existential questions for America loom now, not decades hence. What we face is not merely the decline and fall of a powerful nation but the collapse of the highly specific cultural tradition that built the modern world. It starts with the money—it always does. But the money is only the symptom. We wouldn’t be this broke if we hadn’t squandered our inheritance in a more profound sense.


It’s interesting to learn that “anti-fascism” now means attacking the British Empire, which stood alone against fascism in that critical year between the fall of France and Germany’s invasion of Russia. And it’s even sadder to have to point out the most obvious fatuity in those “anti-fascist groups” litany of evil—“the British Empire’s association with slavery.” The British Empire’s principal association with slavery is that it abolished it. Before William Wilberforce, the British Parliament, and the brave men of the Royal Navy took up the issue, slavery was an institution regarded by all cultures around the planet as as permanent a feature of life as the earth and sky. Britain expunged it from most of the globe.

It is pathetic but unsurprising how ignorant all these brave “anti-fascists” are. But there is a lesson here not just for Britain but for the rest of us, too: When a society loses its memory, it descends inevitably into dementia...

The Christian "King's Speech"

An interesting review from the Catholic Herald on "The King's Speech."  An excerpt:

...“Bertie”, as he was known to his family (but not, incidentally, to Logue), was shy, unconfident, ill-educated, in delicate health and with a severe speech impediment. But he was also honourable, dutiful and courageous – qualities that more than compensated for his defects. With his very stable and happy family life, and his insistence on sharing in the country’s hardships (he had a line drawn around the inside of the baths at Buckingham Palace as an indication of the small amount of hot water to be used) he set exactly the example of kingship needed during the war.

He was also, like his daughter, our present Queen, whose sense of duty is so like her father’s, a Christian monarch. As “Defender of the faith”, in his speech of September 3 1939 at the outbreak of war, he was able to tell his people quite sincerely that we “reverently commit our cause to God” and that “with God’s help we shall prevail”, concluding “May He bless and keep us all.” In an equally memorable speech of December 25 1939, quoting the poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, he concluded with the words: “May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all...”