Posted on 10/14/2013 2:27:58 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Pope Francis clearly has identified mercy as the spiritual cornerstone of his pontificate, and the impression of deep compassion he's given over the last eight months goes a long way toward explaining his appeal.
As a pastoral matter, however, it's not always easy to determine what "mercy" implies in concrete cases. In Rome right now, debate over whether a Catholic funeral ought to be held for Erich Priebke, a former Nazi SS officer responsible for the massacre of 335 Italians in 1944, including 57 Jews, illustrates the point.
Priebke died Friday at the age of 100, having lived the last 17 years of his life in Italy under house arrest. Ironically, his death came the same day that Pope Francis received a delegation from the Jewish community of Rome, insisting, as he has before, that "a Christian cannot be anti-Semitic."
Priebke was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 by an Italian court for organizing the infamous Ardeatine caves massacre, in which 335 Italians were executed in reprisal for an attack on German troops by antifascist resistance forces. By his own admission, Priebke personally shot two of the prisoners and supervised the deaths of the others.
Priebke never expressed public remorse, insisting he was following orders, and after his death, his lawyer released a seven-page testament in which the former SS official essentially denied the Holocaust, claiming that alleged crematoria in Nazi concentration camps were actually large kitchens for feeding inmates.
Today's debate boils down to this: Given that Priebke apparently identified himself as a Catholic, though there's little evidence he ever practiced the faith, should a funeral for him be celebrated in a Catholic church?
Francis may well take a personal interest in the matter, given that Priebke fled to Argentina after the war and spent 50 years living comfortably in a Buenos Aires suburb prior to his extradition to Italy in 1996.
On Saturday, the Vicariate of Rome under Italian Cardinal Agostino Vallini, which administers the Rome diocese in the name of the pope, issued a statement saying no funeral for Priebke would be held in a Roman church.
On background, officials of the vicariate cited canon 1184 of the Code of Canon Law, which states that a funeral may be denied to "manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful."
Riccardo Pacifici, head of the Jewish community in Rome, hailed the veto as "a singular decision in history," saying it supports what Francis said about the impossibility of being both Christian and anti-Semitic.
On the other side of the argument is Swiss Cardinal Georges Cottier, the former theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, who told reporters Saturday that mercy extends even to "great sinners."
"I hope that in the last instant of his life, this man found a way to change his mind and to repent, but we'll never know what happened," Cottier said in one interview. "God knows, and God can forgive."
Now 91, Cottier in retirement has become something of a hero for Catholic progressives, among other things defending the University of Notre Dame's decision in 2009 to invite President Barack Obama to deliver its commencement address.
In an interview, Cottier conceded there are cases in which funerals might be denied, but implies it ought to be rare because "everyone needs prayer."
With Priebke, he suggested taking precautions to avoid scandal, including "a very simple and sober rite."
That said, he favored allowing a funeral to take place.
"I think that if funerals were denied to everyone who committed evil during their lives, it would be anticipating the judgment of God," he said.
Part of the reason the debate is so animated is because Priebke's lawyer originally suggested the funeral could take place Wednesday, which is also the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Roman Jews in 1943, many of whom eventually died in Nazi concentration camps.
Events commemorating the occasion are planned around Rome, and Francis issued a message saying the anniversary is a call "to never justify the evil we encounter" and "to never lower our guard against anti-Semitism and racism, wherever it comes from."
Priebke's lawyer later said the funeral would be delayed, but he still intends to hold one somewhere -- if not in Italy, he said, then perhaps Germany, where Priebke was born and where some family members still reside, or in Argentina. If it can't happen in a church, he said, then a private ceremony will be arranged.
Meanwhile, Catholics will ponder what mercy means as applied to the death of someone like Priebke.
Will the murderer's lawyer go church-shopping world-wide to find somebody to say Catholic funerary words over his wretch's corpse. Stay tuned.
Words fail me.
>> “I hope that in the last instant of his life, this man found a way to change his mind and to repent, but we’ll never know what happened,” Cottier said in one interview. “God knows, and God can forgive.” <<
>> “I think that if funerals were denied to everyone who committed evil during their lives, it would be anticipating the judgment of God,” he said. <<
But that’s just it, Cottier, you Nazi-lover. It’s NOT anticipating judgment of God; it’s declining to announce to the world that the deceased was a faithful Catholic. He should no more be given a Catholic funeral than any other non-Catholic. And we should leave it up to God to decide if there was some sort of private repentance in his heart, not presume there was.
>> Priebke’s lawyer later said the funeral would be delayed, but he still intends to hold one somewhere — if not in Italy, he said, then perhaps Germany, where Priebke was born and where some family members still reside, or in Argentina. <<
Argentina? Yeah, good luck with that. I’m sure Pope Francis’ successor as primate of Argentina wants to stick that thumb in Francis’ eye.
Its easy to posture over the corpse of a dead Nazi. It may even have some moral instructional value. However the better question is to ask how seemingly ordinary people could alter their conscience and then perform such vile acts. It happened not only in Germany but in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Mideast and Africa. It continues today. It might be even a more beneficial exercise to ask ourselves just how we as individuals would have behaved and realize that almost anyone is capable of behaving badly.
I have no argument with the decision to deny Priebke a Roman Catholic funeral. But I wonder if the current Pope will make the same argument regarding pro-abortion American politicians who claim to “practice” Roman Catholic faith. Erich Priebke was responsible for almost forty deaths in a universally condemned campaign of extermination that occurred seventy years ago, while many Catholic politicians are still actively abetting the systematic slaughter of millions of babies to popular acclaim.
| Dies iræ! Dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla: Teste David cum Sibylla! Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando iudex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus! Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum. Mors stupebit, et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Iudicanti responsura. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus iudicetur. Iudex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet, apparebit: Nil inultum remanebit. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, Cum vix iustus sit securus? Rex tremendæ maiestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis. Recordare, Iesu pie, Quod sum causa tuæ viæ: Ne me perdas illa die. Quærens me, sedisti lassus: Redemisti Crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus. Iuste iudex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis. |
Day of wrath and doom impending, David’s word with Sibyl’s blending, Heaven and earth in ashes ending! Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth, When from heaven the Judge descendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth. Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth; Through earth's sepulchres it ringeth; All before the throne it bringeth. Death is struck, and nature quaking, All creation is awaking, To its Judge an answer making. Lo! the book, exactly worded, Wherein all hath been recorded: Thence shall judgement be awarded. When the Judge his seat attaineth, And each hidden deed arraigneth, Nothing unavenged remaineth. What shall I, frail man, be pleading? Who for me be interceding, When the just are mercy needing? King of Majesty tremendous, Who dost free salvation send us, Fount of pity, then befriend us! Think, kind Jesu!–my salvation Caused thy wondrous Incarnation; Leave me not to reprobation! Faint and weary, Thou hast sought me, On the Cross of suffering bought me. Shall such grace be vainly brought me? Righteous Judge! for sin's pollution Grant Thy gift of absolution, Ere the day of retribution. |
|---|
The Nazi lived to be 100?
Why wasn’t he hung in 1946?
There you have it. Its not that difficult.
He escaped to Argentina after WWII, and was not arrested until 1996.
They gave one to the unremorseful, unrepentant, non-practicing Edward Kennedy. Why not?
Why not? Maybe, because it was wrong?
He might have been but how is that relevant?
Who am I to judge?
War criminals who said “I was only following orders” are aided by our postmodernists who say “Who am I to judge?”
Judge.
It's not a matter of judging the man's soul, as the stupid Cardinal Georges Cottier seems to think. We must leave that to God.
The question is whether Catholic funerary honors would cause scandal. They certainly would, since (among other things) they would imply that the man was a Catholic in good standing, which he was not, as shown by his total non-practice, as well as his evident final unrepentance.
Canon Law prohibits a Catholic funeral in such a case, as well as --- as I understand it --- burial in consecrated ground.
There's no reason why he might not be interred with zero publicity in a public cemetery. By all means pray for him, since that is a spiritual work of mercy. He might have repented in the minutes before his death. This we cannot know.
But in any case, Canon Law applies now, or it never applies ever. Cardinal Cottier --- like so many of our capon clerics --- thinks he is above the law.
I've been told, by more than one Catholic in this forum, that we have no idea if Kennedy made a deathbed confession and therefore it's imprudent to pass judgment as to the "wrongness" of the Kennedy Funeral Mass. He was identified as a Catholic, and that bought him the funeral.
However we can objective judge that his being given a Catholic funeral is unlawful, because of his evident and unrepentant repudiation of the Catholic faith.
Where his immortal soul is now, is impossible for us to know. But we must refuse funerary honors for the sake of publicly upholding the truth --- the awful truth --- about sin, and justice, and judgment.
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