Showing posts with label Jews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jews. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Making Sense of Benedict’s Jewish Policy – Forward.com

Making Sense of Benedict’s Jewish Policy – Forward.com

John Allen

By this stage, outsiders trying to make sense of Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to Jewish-Catholic relations might be forgiven for wondering if the pontiff suffers from an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia.

After all, this is the pope who made a point of visiting a Cologne synagogue in 2005 on his first foreign trip, and Auschwitz on his second, only later to revive a controversial Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews. More recently, this is the pope who rehabilitated a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop and who announced that Pope Pius XII (whose alleged “silence” during the Holocaust remains a bone of contention between Jews and Catholics) is a step closer to sainthood, only to visit Rome’s Great Synagogue on January 17 to express his “esteem and affection” for Judaism, and to pledge that the “faces, names, tears and desperation” of Holocaust victims must never be forgotten.

We see that John Allen is as slavishly devoted as ever to the party line, but he is right after all considering Holy Father's ultimate concern in his policy that, "Benedict’s top priority is internal, directed at the inner life of the Catholic Church. His aim is to restore a strong sense of traditional Catholic identity, in order to inoculate the church against infection by radical secularism." However, there are others, in Israel, who view things a little bit differently, like this Jewish paper which views Benedict's maneuvers as essentially hostile. We've seen a lot of negative reaction to Benedict's various changes and some of his public acts which don't bode well for an integralist Catholic viewpoint, like changinig the Good Friday prayers to make the Jews and the traditionalists happy at the same time. The prayer actually called for the conversion of the Jews, and a loud minority were, not suprisingly, unhappy with the prayer and their views were reported far and wide. Fact is, most Jews don't care about Benedict's activities, they don't go to services either. Why don't we spend more time talking to those Jews and get them to come to Mass, permanently!

Vatican Blames Israel for Driving Christians Out of the Area

January 20, 2010

A Vatican synod being convened by Monsignor Nikola Eterovic will address an internal document addressing the plight of the dwindling Christian minority in the rapidly growing Islamic population in the Mideast. 150 bishops are expected to attend the synod which will be held on October 10-24.

The internal Vatican documents pertaining to the meeting place the ongoing Israel-PA (Palestinian Authority) conflict at the heart of regional instability and conflict, adding “radical terrorism” over recent years exploited the conflict towards advancing political Islam in countries including Egypt.

Israel’s “ongoing occupation” is blamed for restricted access to houses of worship in those areas, hampering religious life. In Iraq, the report states all Iraqis became victims but the small and weak Christian population was among the principal victims.

The Vatican believes the solution remains in the hands of “the stronger countries, to settle the conflict between Israel and the PA.

A Vatican statement added “Violence is in the hands of the strong and weak alike, the latter resorting to whatever violence is within reach in order to be free.”

When asked if the Vatican document was referring to yishuvim throughout Yehuda and Shomron and ongoing construction in the eastern capital, Eterovic explained that while the Vatican was not making policy decisions, it does adhere to and accept the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, which in this case, support the Roadmap Plan and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The bishop added that while many of the 17 million Christians living between Iran and Egypt have fled, the numbers of Christians in the region has grown due to the influx of manual laborers, Christians, in a number of Arab countries, some that had a minimal or no Christian presence prior to their arrival.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Rabbi Schneier of New York Says Tridentine Mass a Liabillity

The famous Rabbi made the following statement to "Radio Vatican" concerning the visit of Pope Benedict to the Synagogue: "I personally don't have to read any books about the Holocaust: I am the evidence."

[Kathnet] Rabbi Arthur Schneier stood in his East Park Synagogue in New York and welcomed Pope Benedict there in 2008 during his USA trip. Upon the coming visit of the Pope he is contacted and participates in an interview with Radio Vatican about some problematic issues of the catholic-roman Dialogue:

"The Tridentine Mass is a real liability. [It's amazing how insensitive the Rabbi is to the beliefs of others] We live today in a global world and must co-exist as religions -- therefore one needs respect for another. And Jesus was finally, a Jew. That was and is still ever a liability. And that is the question in tandem with Pope Pius XII. I believe, the best solution would here be, once again to basically go through the archives. The the Church is eternal, would it make any difference to wait a few more years!" [He's referring to the desire of Israeli Authorities to have access to Vatican archives, here.]


He goes on to take exception with the reconciliation with the SSPX and Bishop Williamson who he falsely accuses of denying the Holocaust, and says he doesn't need to read any books on it, because he lived it and then goes on to praise Pope Benedict for his historic, first ever for a Pope, visit to a Synagogue in the United States.

There's no way the world media would tolerate these kinds of impertinent prescriptions, inaccuracies and mendacities if the Shoa were on the other foot. Surely, if the Rabbi is evidence of the "Shoa", perhaps there is truth in what Bishop Williamson said after all.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Rabbi calls Israel's Treatment "Outrageous"

Haaretz

Israel's behavior toward the Vatican over the past 15 years has been "outrageous," one of the figures behind the 1994 establishment of diplomatic relations between Jerusalem and Vatican City told Haaretz last week. "Any [other] country would have threatened to withdraw its ambassador long ago over Israel's failure to honor agreements," Rabbi David Rosen said.

Rosen is to attend the meeting scheduled in Rome today between Pope Benedict XVI and a delegation from Israel's Chief Rabbinate, which is taking place at a time of crisis in the Vatican's relations with Israel and with Jewish leaders.

Rosen, a British-born former chief rabbi of Ireland who is the international director of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, said the Vatican agreed to diplomatic relations with Israel after Jerusalem pledged to recognize the legal status of Catholic institutions in Israel and exempt Vatican property in Israel from taxes. The process was to take two years, he said.
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"Fifteen years later, the state has not ratified an agreement recognizing the church's legal status," Rosen said. He said the Vatican wants its internal hierarchy recognized by Israeli law, which at present treats each Catholic church as a separate nonprofit organization.

Israeli bureaucrats wore down the Vatican by negotiating every tax clause separately instead of granting a general concession, as expected by the Vatican, Rosen said. He called claims that the Vatican wants Israel to cede territory to it "falsehoods" propagated by "xenophobes."

Last month Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon discussed the legal issues in Rome with Vatican officials. He later said the talks "broke down" and that there was a "crisis" in relations.

Meanwhile, some Israeli politicians and Jewish leaders were angered by the Pope's proclamation last month that Pope Pius XII is eligible for for beatification, despite evidence that he may have turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.

"Most people don't know that almost every current problem in Vatican-Jewish relations began not with Pope Benedict, but with his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who is now seen as a saint by Jews," Rosen said.

Link to original...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Pope to visit to synagogue Sunday, Patriarch of Jerusalem to join him :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)


How about cancelling that good-will trip to the synagogue?

Pope to visit to synagogue Sunday, Patriarch of Jerusalem to join him :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Two Protected Classes Go to War

We're rooting for the Jews in this struggle and we think they'll win, much to the simmering and infeffectual hatred of their homosexual opponents.

“Tolerance” Panel Causes Uproar at Orthodox Jewish University

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski


NEW YORK, January 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Canadian homosexual student at New York’s Yeshiva University has caused an uproar and precipitated a fierce backlash from students and school administration after he organized a panel discussion defending "tolerance" of homosexuals within the school and the wider Orthodox Jewish community.

According to the Yeshiva University student newspaper, The Commentator, the event was organized by the YU Tolerance Club, which was founded last year by Avi Kopstick of Toronto.

The panel discussion, titled “Being Gay in the Modern Orthodox World,” attracted about 700 supporters, many of whom, The Commentator reported, were from other universities, including NYU, Columbia, Queens College, and the University of Pennsylvania.

read further...

Monday, January 4, 2010

Tolerance for Diversity and Intolerance

Tiberias Haredi Jews want segregated bus lines so that "males and females may sit on seperate sides of the bus" and that they may be generally seperated from non-religious Jews. We like this. We hope the religious Jews beat the non-religious ones, as one interviewee feared would happen, on the head with the Torah.

Someone in Liberal Oregon can't understand, or appreciate cultural diversity, at least not the domesticated kind of diversity one might appreciate on a planned and disneyfied cruise and tour of Uganda. It irks him that somewhere, someone else's truth isn't the same as his for the Ugandan government is getting a democratic law passed which will punish homosexuals with death. It's not exactly the kind of democracy we had in mind though here at the epicenter of cultural niceness where some values are more equal than others.

Perhaps what we need is to get newly Knighted Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan on an away team to discuss tolerance and diversity to the Ugandan people, that is, even before economic sanctions hit and Ugandan children might starve in order that the 5-10% of our population that really values these things can feel less impotent than they usually do.



Then perhaps they will understand. Even the usually morally moribound Anglican Church is supporting this legislation which was once, more or less, a standard in European societies, at least until the French Revolution came along.

Uganda has banned radio adverts by witches but before you go around criticizing and getting all superior on the poor Ugandans, we do too, except we tend to call them psychics or palm readers.

Our enthusiasm for Uganda increases when we see that the government not only takes swindlers like fortune tellers to jail and prevents them from preying on ordinary people, but it even takes care of false versions of Catholicism, like the Brazilian Catholic Church, which permits its ministers to marry. Like the Old Catholics in Europe, they have quite a few problems with adult supervisions. By comparison, the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, though considerably less corrupt than the cannibal conference of the United Nations, and all of the heresy we talk about that it does suffer from, is nothing.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Ven. Pius XII Defender of the Jews

If anything, Pius XII did too much for the Jews. This video made by a high-school student demonstrates the facts that big-name publications like New York Times keep getting wrong; but it was a Communist inspired disinformation campaign in the first place, thats well documented.

In repayment for his courage and generosity of spirit, many Jews have chosen to defame his name with their usual allies in print and broadcast media. It is truly a testament to their true spiritual bretheren Cane, Esau and the elder brothers of Joseph, that modern Jews persecute the only organization that stood by them in the Second World War.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

"Goldblog" Tells it Like it is



Jewish blogger, Jeff Goldberg at "Goldblog" expresses frustration with the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Who can blame him? Simon Wiesenthal was a huge charlatan and a fraud. There are all kinds of Nazis in the Vienna phonebook, but Simon never went after them.

One wonders if all of the whining won't, as Jeff observes, undermine the cause of Jewish security rather than help in the long run?

We'd like to thank Jeff for his sanity and good will, finally, someone gets it. Jews have no more business harping about Vatican Canonizations than Catholics have lecturing Jewish leaders about how they run their internal affairs.


He writes:

Put me down as both unshocked and uninterested. I don't particularly care who the Catholic church elevates to sainthood, because I'm not Catholic. It's not my business who the Catholics decide to call saint. The Catholic Church today is respectful of Jews and Israel; it also adores its former Popes. I don't see a contradiction. I'm not sure why I'm so unmoved by these Jewish protests -- maybe because I think Jews should keep their powder dry for actual problems. Or maybe because excessive whining is just so damn annoying.


Wiesenthal Center "Shocked" by Vatican; Goldblog Unshocked

Wiesenthal Center "Shocked" by Vatican; Goldblog Unshocked: "From the AFP:The founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center voiced dismay and disappointment Monday at weekend Vatican moves to raise controversial wartime pope Pius XII to sainthood.The Vatican sparked anger in Jewish communities worldwide with moves to nudge Pius --..."

Speaking of professional whiners... another Liberal blog attacks Bill Donahue who engages the media on behalf of the Catholic Church, not only winning scattered approval from elderly Catholics who send him money, enough to fund a $15 Million dollar a year non-profit, but allows him a broad platform to potentially discredit and undermine the thing he claims to be saving. In our opinion, he shouldn't be allowed to talk about rancorous sexual topics on television. He seems to us no more credible than Simon Wiesenthal or the 700 Club, but because he gets face time and fits a certain image, he'll continue speaking for the Church though he has no official position and receives hearty endorsements from Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Even Garrison Keillor Angers Jews


image credit soulintention


YES!

NPR is going to be so angry. Perhaps Garrison wants to go out in a blaze of glory?

We can't wait till Garrison appears before a press conference to offer a contrite apology to his masters. Perhaps he couldn't take it anymore and he was off steam and what was intended as toungue in cheek showed his underlying ire.

How about a little sympathy for a man who's just suffered a stroke?



Garrison Keillor, self-appointed cultural representative of regular old Americans, ruffled some feathers yesterday with a mildly xenophobic rant about Christmas. After lambasting a Unitarian church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for “spiritual piracy and cultural elitism”—tweaking the lyrics of “Silent Night” for a singalong, in layman’s terms—he turned his ire in a different direction:

And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write ‘Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t. Christmas is a Christian holiday—if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.

The Baltimore Sun got some angry letters about this, and understandably so. Hating on Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is, in a way, the same thing as the American Family Association’s boycott of the Gap for its “failure” to use the word Christmas in ads: both actions reject a dilution of Christmas by outsiders, just in slightly different ways. It certainly does not accord with the generous holiday spirit. And anyway: “Dreck?” Really? Who’s co-opting whom?

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Cenacle Site Defaced with Graffitti in Jerusalem

g.s.) - For the past few nights in Jerusalem, someone has been contriving to sow the seeds of hatred in Christian Sion hill.

The quiet neighbourhood just south-west of the walls that surround old Jerusalem is home to the Church of the Dormition, the Cenacle, and the adjoining Franciscan friary where five friars live.

When he left the friary yesterday morning, the guardian friar, Father Enrique Bermejo, found the door covered with abusive graffiti (see the photo), in English and Hebrew, against Christians. The kindest words invited them to leave. Every night the door is also used as a urinal.

Tired of supporting this in silence, the friars decided to make these facts public - especially as, on the night between 9th and 10th December, an anonymous hand wrote in Hebrew Mawet lanotsrim, "Death to Christians" with a black spray on the perimeter wall of the Church of the Dormition, corresponding to the apse. The words were erased in a few hours (at noon they had already disappeared) after the Custos of the Holy Land had complained to the Israeli authorities.

The building with the room of the Cenacle was once where the Custos of the Holy Land and the first friars lived. They were evicted in 1551 when the building was converted into a mosque to honour a grave which is believed to be the tomb of King David.

For this reason the area is considered sacred by Muslims and Jews alike. A Jewish religious school (yeshiva) has also occupied part of the complex for some time now. The Franciscans however, have never ceased claiming ownership of the premises and today the question is included in the ongoing talks between Israel and the Holy See.

Link to original...

UK Courts Define Jewishness

JFS ruling: '3,500 years of Jewish tradition overturned.'

The Tablet


The Jewish Free School has lost the hard-fought case on the criteria for admissions to this sought-after school. The next step might be to challenge equality legislation itself, as the admissions criteria, found to be racially discriminating, was based on the 3,500-year-old criteria for judging whether a person is Jewish or not, fundamentally by the religion of the mother.


The outline of the case is summed up well in the United Synagogue's own press release, which I reproduce her with a comment from the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks at the end.

Narrowest of margins defeats JFS
in the UK Supreme Court

London, 16th December 2009

The UK Supreme Court today, by the narrowest of margins, held that the admissions criteria of JFS, which gave preference in the event of oversubscription to children who are Jewish according to Orthodox Jewish law (either by descent or conversion), were in the definition of the 1976 Race Relations Act, directly racially discriminatory.

Read further...

Friday, December 4, 2009

Why are Jews trying to Wreck Italy?

This is from an article in 2005 and it demonstrates not only longstanding Jewish intolerance of religious expressions outside of Judaism, but it shows a certain similarity with other planned cause celebs launched by the SPLC, ADL and ACLU. Hello, Saul Alinsky. The Italian government will ignore this judicial bullying.

Italian Jews’ Crucifix Stand

The leader of the Italian Jewish community has called for public displays of crucifixes to be outlawed.

In a statement released last week, Amos Luzzatto, Chair of the Italian Union of Jewish Communities (UCEI) spoke out against the symbols as irreflective of all members of society.

"We do respect the Christian people,” Luzzato said. “But a symbol of divine presence in a public school should be recognisable by the citizens of all faiths and it should address them all in an equal manner.
“Now, since every school hosts citizens with different beliefs or no belief at all, we should rather avoid displaying any symbol".

Silence broken

The new declaration broke the August quiet of Italian politics and followed Pope Benedict XVI’s homily on Assumption of the Virgin Day, August 15.

From his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, a village on a hill close to Rome, the Pope said that it is important to continuously display the divine presence "through the cross symbol in privates homes as well as in public buildings".

Since the revision of the 1929 Lateran Pacts of between Italy and the Holy See in 1984, the issue of displaying the crucifix in public buildings such as schools, hospitals and law-courts has been controversial and the subject of much debate.

In 2000, the Court of Cassation ruled as illegitimate the presence of the crucifix in polling stations. And, in its court order four year later, the Italian Constitutional Court, recognised that "The mandatory display of the Crucifix in classrooms would violate the state’s duty of equidistance with respect to different faiths and would contradict the need for a neutral public space".

However, the Court has somehow delegated the local authorities to decide whether to display the cross or not.

Rabbi reacts

Rome’s Chief Rabbi Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, reacted with detachment to the situation.

He declared to the press: "I think there’s absolutely no new official position of the Church on the issue" he declared.

"It is important that the Pope underlined the religious aspect of the symbol. Benedict XVI is a Pope who talks very openly. In the previous polemics some were defending the idea that the crucifix is a cultural symbol (of the Western world); it is clearly not the case and we must take note of this clarification," Di Segni added.

Link to original...

The response

Vatican Condemnation.

Judicial Activist, all part of the initial plan.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Archbishop of Galveston thinks even less of Catholicism than of Jews

This Archbishop must think the Catholic laity is stupid and will simply keep on shelling out the contributions, supporting his liberal resolutions and even buying him dinner once in awhile for the sake of his jolly company.

Reminiscing like a battle hardened journalist, the Bishop of Galveston talks about how far we've come from those times when we actually thought the Catholic Church was important enough that we actually took the Gospels seriously when reading the Great Commission to go forth and make disciples of all nations (including the Jews). The Archbishop confidently contradicts all of this, heretically, and of course, since most people are aware that he knows his religious beliefs are tin plated but committed to the same ideas of liberalism he's committed to, they aren't going to be rude enough to point out to him that he's just contradicted the prophetic and integral portion of the Catholic religion.

We have no doubts he will never convert a Jew. Like Cardinal Cushing of Boston, he'll probably never convert anyone, because he has nothing to give.

Nostra Aetate implicitly acknowledged that Israel remains in a covenant with God, and later Pope John Paul II made it explicit that Jews are “the people of God of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God.”


Article here...

Thursday, October 29, 2009

New York Times Refuses Archbishop Dolan's Editorial Reply


It's alright for Jews to trash the Catholic Church, vandalize Catholic holy sites like they did in the Russian Revolution or in the Spanish Civil War, or more recently when Larry David urinated on a kitchy painting of Jesus Christ, unbelievably hung in someone's bathroom.

It's ok to run newstories by the minute and comment on clerical Catholic pederasts, who are, after all, a relatively small number of allegedly Catholic homosexuals who hypocritically draw a paycheck from an institution most of them don't really believe in anyway, but no one, at least not where there's all the news that's fit to print, does anyone seem to care if pederasty is rampant in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York.

At least leftist editor, Arthur "Pinchy" Sulzberger of the New York Times refused to post his Lordship's article, we've decided to post it here for the few who might find it illuminating:


October 29, 2009

The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.

FOUL BALL!

By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York

October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!

Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:

On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”

Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.


On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.


Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.


Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.


True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.


I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?

The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.

I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.

Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.

Archbishop's Blog.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The State Departement is Displeased with Bulgaria





Intolerance by Bulgarian local authorities of non-Orthodox Christian religious groups and anti-Semitic messages by Volen Siderov’s Ataka party are among issues raised in the US state department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report, released on October 26 2009.

The report said that Bulgaria’s constitution provides for freedom of religion and prohibits religious discrimination but designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the "traditional" religion.


Read more...

Monday, October 26, 2009

SSPX Bishop Williamson Fined €12,000 by German Court

A British bishop has been fined €12,000 after a German court found him guilty of denying the Holocaust.

Richard Williamson received a letter today from the court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg informing him that he was being fined for incitement over his claim on Swedish television that fewer than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi death camps.

Read More...

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Cardinal George lauds appointment of N.Y. archbishop to Jewish Affairs post

Cardinal George lauds appointment of N.Y. archbishop to Jewish Affairs post

Just as a reminder, here is an article on Cardinal George's previous non-binding statement on Jewish-Catholic interaction and his aqcuiescence to their insistence that all references to "conversion" be removed.

- Curious Cardinal.