Posted on 09/26/2003 2:19:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Would Give Him "Righteous Among the Nations" Medal
ROME, SEPT. 24, 2003 (Zenit.org).- A leader of the Italian Jewish community proposed that the "Righteous Among the Nations" medal be conferred on John Paul II.
Emmanuelle Pacifici, president of the Yad Vashem Association in Italy, made the proposal today when he addressed a conference on the contribution of religious orders and congregations to the rescue of Jews during World War II.
"When John Paul II was an aspirant to the priesthood in 1942, he was introduced to a 2-year-old Jewish orphan boy whom he entrusted to a peasant married couple," Pacifici said. "At the end of the war, they brought the child back to him safe and sound, and asked that he baptize him."
"He who would become Pope, rejected the proposal, saying: 'He is a child and he must continue to be a Jew.' Later I learned that he did everything possible to entrust him to relatives who had gone to the United States. If I knew this child's name, I would give the Pope the medal of the Righteous."
Yad Vashem honors as "Righteous Among the Nations" those non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, often at great personal risk.
Offering his own life testimony, Pacifici said that if he survived the Nazi persecutions of the war it was thanks "to the great contribution of the religious to the rescue of Jews, not only in Rome, but everywhere."
"Many of my brothers in religion have never given thanks for this help. Those who helped us, did so by risking their lives," he added.
"I owe my life to the Franciscan Sisters of Santa Maria in Settignano, near Florence, where I was welcomed and treated as a son," Pacifici recalled. "One of the religious prayed with me the 'Shema Israel.' While I am alive I shall talk about the Shoah [Holocaust] so that it will not be forgotten."
People like to point to W as the anti-Clinton but the Pope is probably as close to a 180 degree opposite of the lying bastard as we'll find
Some people may wish he has done more. I too wish someone has done more to strengthen Christianity in Europe, for instance, and speak more forcefully in defence of the Christians in the Sudan. I am afraid, however, that any pope has now only a limited power, given that less than 10% of Europeans consider themselves Christian. I think he is doing what he can.
G-d bless him and grant him a healthy autumn of his life.
You can count me among those Catholics who are of the opinion that Pope John XXIII made a grave strategic error when he decided to try pacifying the paganism of modern Europeans with flattery.
The current Pope has essentially admitted that Europe needs to be reevangelized.
I am reminded of T.S. Eliot's observation that Europe has been injected with just enough Christianity to develop an immunity.
We'll see if he's right.
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