Posted on 10/15/2013 1:29:27 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows
ROME (CNN) - The Italian branch of schismatic Catholic sect with a history of anti-Semitism has agreed to hold a funeral for a convicted Nazi war criminal, despite protests from Jewish groups and the local mayor.
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But the conservative Society of St. Pius X, whose leaders were excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1988 for ordaining their own bishops without Vatican approval, agreed Tuesday to hold funeral rites for Priebke.
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The society also said that it "reaffirms our repudiation to any form of anti-semitism and racial hatred."
But the Society of St. Pius X has a long history of controversial statements toward Jews.
Its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, sharply disagreed with the Roman Catholic Church's softened stance toward other faiths, including Judaism, after the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Society of St. Pius X is "mired in anti-Semitism."
"Jews are described in SSPX documents as being cursed by God for the sin of deicide" (killing Jesus), the ADL says in an online report.
"Jews are accused of being in control of world financial and cultural institutions and of plotting to create a 'world empire' or obtain 'world dominion,'" the ADL report continues.
“The Society of St. Pius X never fails fail to shock," Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, said Tuesday. "First, they denied the Holocaust, and now they’re denying the acts of a perpetrator.”
Under Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church tried to bring the ultra-conservative society back into the fold, lifting the excommunication of several bishops and allowing for wider celebration of the Mass in Latin, a favored practice of SSPX.
One of those bishops, Richard Williamson, was later found to have denied elements of the Holocaust, including its death toll of 6 million Jews.
(Excerpt) Read more at religion.blogs.cnn.com ...
And they are said to carry along a load of utter, narrowly vindictive baloney about the Jewish people... is that a false assertion?
You sound like an addict to an ism, not to Christ.
That I will agree with but without those sins would His sacrifice be necessary? No, so to lay blame by some is flawed, is my only point here. They can settle blame assignment when/if they go home and ask Him themselves who was to blame? They might be surprised at the answer, which I suspect is all of us.
Ultimately it was a voluntary sacrifice. The Lord always had the right to tell all to go to hell as the devil’s slaves, but His own love forbade Him.
And I mean, what did Christ beg on that cross?
For these “pious Pius” folks to carry on like that (unless they don’t, and if they don’t then wonderful) would bespeak, at best, an extremely dilute Christ-ianity (and I hyphenate the word for emphasis).
I know without shadow of doubt that my own personal sins drove the nails into Christ's feet and pushed the spear into His side. Without His redemptive work, my fate is hell.
My only point is that I, and every other sinner is GUILTY! To say we are not guilty because God knew what we were going to do is simply wrong.
And anyhow. If whatever Christian group bid him farewell to eternity had any class, they’d do what Christ did. Pray for the forgiveness of all sinners.
This is an knotty philosophical issue. All I can suggest is that in the Lord’s creation, issues of causation are not necessarily tied down to the time line that we know in this mortal coil. When we humans think of the scene, we virtually always tend to think in terms of “keep one factor constant but vary the rest.” One result of this kind of assumption is the classic tussle between Calvinism and Arminianism depending on what the invariant factor is held to be. However an omnipotent Lord has the capability of varying EVERYTHING without skipping a beat, to get a glorious integrated whole.
When we talk about the fact you can't limit God, we may be underestimating Him.
No one but God knows what was in his heart at the moment of his death, but after he died, his lawyer released a statement he had written on his deathbed which continued to deny his guilt and also denied the Holocaust (he claimed the ovens at Auschwitz were actually kitchens to feed the prisoners). So, IMHO (and speaking as a non-Catholic), the Pope was right to deny him a church funeral.
I seem to recall, that there was a massacre in retaliation for an ambush in a city street by Italian Communist Guerrillas? The Nazi’s were known for their retaliation due to guerrilla activities. Italy was occupied by the Germans after the Italians surrendered. There were still Italian forces in Italy that supported the Germans. The Germans didn’t see the Italians as an enemy. The Italian Communists wanted to play soldiers, and the end result was they were rounded up. The Hague convention wasn’t vague on the treatment of Guerrillas. Like any war, no one wants to see their soldiers in their command killed by enemy partisans, lose a couple of buddies through partisan actions and bad things come out of it. My Lai was a good American example. War is truly hell, and not everyone is able to come out of it with clean hands.
One of Benedict's few mistakes -- he should have stood firm rather than made wishy-washy concessions.
The Fosse Ardeatine massacre of 1943.
No, the Church authorities said he should have a private funeral in his home. They were not against him having a funeral. They just wanted it done simply and quietly.
If what you say is true, then that’s good enough for me.
I got it from this article on FR.
Would SSPX have given Ted Kennedy a Catholic funeral? Serious question. I think highly of the SSPX and what they have done to preserve the Faith.
During the Middle Ages, the Church promulgated the concept that, even in war, there were rules of decent behavior that had to be followed. The Church generally didn't have the power to directly enforce such rules, but they did have ways of exerting pressure -- such as denying particularly flagrant violators the privileges of funeral rites and burial in consecrated ground.
Undermining this precedent is a serious offense by these schismatics.
I think we’re talking about two different issues here. The snotty attitude towards Jews doesn’t belong, in the first place. A “hardening in part” has come to Israel and that’s as far as we have any basis to speak of curses. We cannot prejudge what part. We don’t know for exactly what current Jewish nonbelievers Christ has effectually begged, and proper humility would tell us that a “damn those Jews” attitude just doesn’t fit. Also gentiles are partly hardened too. It’s not like God is frowning only at some Jews.
As for a funeral, since when did freedom of religion go away. One can express hopes the man has repented if it is unknown. To deem it a priori impossible for Christ to forgive that hideous murderer and pay for his sins demeans Christ who is infinite, not just a little figure on a cross.
Well, what I was thinking of is what remained after I had to toss out the impossibilities. I am left to lean not on Calvinism or Arminianism or any other ism, but on biblical promises... and we get to keep the one about “No one shall snatch them out of my hand.” I assert the biblical promise is that salvation is permanent once genuinely accepted. Without needing to go with all the rest of Calvinism, like “do you feel lucky punk.” God can line His ducks up just fine to keep that promise in every single solitary case. As for potential freedom of choice to believe... at the worst we have not been given any means by which to know who positively won’t accept the gospel. So I preach to all “like an Arminian.”
They have kept good “moral” appearances in many case.
But even good moral appearances mean nothing without Christ in love in the heart. Without that, all we are left with is a “good” proud show.
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