Posted on 04/07/2009 6:42:40 PM PDT by Huber
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the cutest clergyman of all? A 66-year-old Staten Island pastor trying desperately to turn back the clock ripped off nearly $85,000 from his congregation to pay for plastic surgery, Botox shots and fancy clothes, authorities said yesterday The Rev. William Blasingame, 66, a fixture at the historic St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church for more than 30 years, began breaking the Eighth Commandment in January 2005 and continued to steal for another three years, according to the Staten Island district attorney. The unwed Blasingame's miraculous makeovers apparently impressed some of the older members of his congregation. "He is a favorite of the elderly and 65-plus crowd," a law-enforcement source said. "He was a real schmoozer."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Perhaps...I see little difference in what Christ experienced when he whipped the money changers from the temple (this very week some 2000 years ago) and what Martin Luther experienced in Rome when indulgences were sold by John Tetzel under the direction of Pope Leo X
With respect to the Bad Popes, remember that Boccacio in one of his stories had a Jew go to Rome, observe the corruption, and convert with the comment that any church that could survive that sort of misconduct HAD to be the True Church . . . . but, seriously, that was a time when the Papacy was a political entity as well as a religious one, in the hotbed of corruption, murderous politics, and constant warfare that was Renaissance Italy. Not surprising that the cardinals let pragmatism override holiness when (as they thought) their lives depended on it.
I will call you out on Pius XII with a vengeance, though! You are believing a slander that was begun in the 1960s by a former Hitlerjugend Communist (funded by East Germany), and brought back to life by a failed seminarian who is a rabid anti-Catholic. Hitler's Pope is a pack of lies, beginning with the cover photo which is a deliberate fraud. Pius XII was a good, holy man who spent the Vatican's money like water ransoming Roman Jews, concealing them in convents and monasteries, issuing them fake baptismal certificates, and smuggling them out of the reach of the Nazis. He also spoke out strongly against the Nazis at the beginning of the war and was commended by the New York Times, Time magazine, and Albert Einstein (see Mit brennender Sorge, which was issued by his predecessor but written largely by Pius XII). Later he took a more subtle approach once the Nazis started responding with more violence (e.g. what happened in the Netherlands). Hitler wanted to arrest or assassinate him (some favorite!) but was talked out of it by his commander in Germany.
I know a lot about this because it was my recognition as a historian that somebody was out to assassinate Pius XII's character that started me looking into the facts. Ultimately it helped turn me towards the Catholic Church. I started asking why people were doing this against all evidence, and why they were so anxious to destroy a dead man's reputation, and what they stood to gain from it . . . .
I would like to know what your beef is with BXVI. The media is trying to do the character-assassination number on him as well (like the lifting of the excommunication on Bishop Williamson and the Nazi slanders) but all of that aside, what has he himself actually done or said that you disagree with? I've read a number of his books and follow his weekly addresses pretty closely, and he seems to me to be a good, devout, very orthodox Catholic. (It ought to please you that his Marian devotion is less overt than that of JPII - probably a function of his being German and beginning life as a 'liberal' theologian.)
I think you may also be a bit confused about the meaning of "immaculate conception". All it means is that God, by his power and through no act of Mary herself, intervened to preserve her from sin from the moment of her conception so that she would be a fit person to carry God in her womb. It no more requires a chain of inheritance than the Virgin Birth itself.
Note the sources in the footnotes -- no original material, all secondary sources (none Catholic which is where you would expect to find references to contemporary Vatican documents), and including as icing on the cake an inflammatory Reuters headline. And also note the dates -- most from the 80s and 90s, and absolutely nothing before the 1960s date of Der Stellvertreter (the play that started all the nonsense and was funded by the Stasi).
I'm not sure what their motive is or if they are sure of it themselves. It may just be reflexive distrust, which is certainly understandable, but not good history.
If you look at contemporary sources, including original documents, you can see that this article is nonsense. During and immediately after the war, the praise for Pius XII from Jewish sources was overwhelming.
“When fearful martyrdom came to our people in the decade of Nazi terror, the voice of the Pope was raised for the victims.” - Golda Meir
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth." - Albert Einstein
“The delegates of the Congress of the Italian Jewish Communities, held in Rome for the first time after the Liberation, feel that it is imperative to extend reverent homage to Your Holiness, and to express the most profound gratitude that animates all Jews for your fraternal humanity toward them during the years of persecution when their lives were endangered by Nazi-Fascist barbarism. Many times priests suffered imprisonment and were sent to concentration camps, and offered their lives to assist Jews in every way. This demonstration of goodness and charity that still animates the just, has served to lessen the shame and torture and sadness that afflicted millions of human beings.” - Italian Jewish Congress, 1946.
“In the most difficult hours which we Jews of Rumania have passed through, the generous assistance of the Holy See was decisive and salutary. It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experience because of the concern of the Supreme Pontiff who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews sufferings which had been pointed out to him by you after your visit to Transnistria. The Jews of Rumania will never forget these facts of historic importance.” - Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran, 1944.
"…This Christmas more than ever, the Pope is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent." - New York Times, 1943
And, on the other side - the Nazis condemned Pius XII's 1942 Christmas Message for “clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews” and accused the Pontiff of being a “mouthpiece of the Jewish War Criminals.”
I gotta million of 'em (I did study this issue quite thoroughly before I converted. I also did an in-depth investigation of the homosexual priest question. My boss says I "give new meaning to the term 'informed consumer'." You could also say I wasn't going to jump from the frying pan into the fire.)
Wrt the Immaculate Conception and “perfect”: Matthew 5:48. Mary (with God’s special assistance) follows Jesus’s express command.
In 1999, John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope" criticized Pius for not doing enough, or speaking out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argued that Pius's entire career as the nuncio to Germany, cardinal secretary of state, and pope was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argues that Pius was anti-Semitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.[210] However, as noted below, Cornwell recanted , now stating he is unable to judge the Pope's motivation.Cornwell's work was the first to have access to testimonies from Pius's beatification process as well as to many documents from Pacelli's nunciature which had just been opened under the seventy-five year rule by the Vatican State Secretary archives.[211] Cornwell's work has received much praise and criticism. Much praise of Cornwell centered around his disputed claim that he was a practising Catholic who had attempted to absolve Pius with his work.[212] While works such as Susan Zuccotti's "Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy" (2000) and Michael Phayer's "The Catholic Church and the Holocaust", 1930–1965 (2000) are critical of both Cornwell and Pius XII, Ronald J. Rychlak's "Hitler, the War and the Pope" is critical as well but defends Pius XII in light of his access to most recent documents. [213] Cornwell's scholarship has been criticized. For example, Kenneth L. Woodward stated in his review in Newsweek that "errors of fact and ignorance of context appear on almost every page."[214] Five years after the publication of Hitler's Pope, Cornwell stated: "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler's Pope, that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany".[215][216][217]
Most recently, Rabbi David Dalin's The "Myth of Hitler's Pope" argues that critics of Pius are liberal Catholics and ex-Catholics who "exploit the tragedy of the Jewish people during the Holocaust to foster their own political agenda of forcing changes on the Catholic Church today" and that Pius XII was actually responsible for saving the lives of many thousands of Jews.[218].
I don’t think Richard Chamberlain ever looked that fruity.
". . . basically mute and acting in an oblivious un-Christlike fashion to a human tragedy . . . "
I just gave you numerous contemporary quotes from prominent Jews and from the New York Times, no less, saying that he DID speak out and DID aid the Jews in Italy, Rumania, and elsewhere with financial and other tangible help (faked passports, hiding them in convents, etc.)
I challenge you to give me a contemporary, sourced authority saying that Pius XII was "mute", "oblivious" or "unChristlike". Anything predating Hochhuth's play.
Otherwise, you are just promoting slander.
I'm an RC, and I just happily conceded that there were some notorious "Bad Popes" in the Renaissance period, and explained the reason it happened. Errare humanum est.
If you're looking for a church where every leader was perfect in his Christian leadership and made every possible decision correctly in your eyes, you are going to be looking for a long time, and unsuccessfully.
And I think you are still misunderstanding "papal infallibility". It does not mean and has never meant that the Pope is infallible in all religious matters, let alone that he is always pious or a perfect Christian ("impeccability"). The following requirements must be met for the Pope to speak infallibly:
1. he speaks "ex cathedra" that is, explicitly relying on his office as successor of St. Peter;
2. he expressly declares
3. a doctrine concerning faith or morals
4. that "must be held by the whole Church."
It has only been used three times since 1854. Once by Pius XII. (It's XII, by the way, not VII. Pius VII was in interesting character in his own right, he was in constant conflict with Napoleon just as Pius XII was in constant conflict with Hitler. He wound up excommunicating the Little Corporal, then being kidnapped by Napoleon and shuttled all over Europe.)
So in a spirit of compromise you want to concede that maybe the slanderers of Pius XII have some valid points - maybe he wasn't anti-Semitic, maybe he helped some Jews, but he didn't do "enough", or didn't speak out "enough".
But this is not litigation, this is a search for historical truth. And sometimes the truth does not lie right in the middle between two points of view -- sometimes one point of view is false and must in good conscience be rejected.
When you examine the actual contemporary sources and documents, there is no question that Pius XII was extremely active and outspoken on behalf of the Jews (and others persecuted by the Nazis as well). Lots of money, lots of risk. Rabbi Pinchas Lapide, a former Israeli diplomat and the author of Three Popes and the Jews (1967), estimated that Pius XII saved between 500,000 and 700,000 Jewish lives.
To say that "he could have done more" is a cop-out. What, specifically? How much more? How? We could all do more, and after we have done all we are commanded to do, we say, 'I am an unprofitable servant.' Does that make us, God forbid, "un-Christlike"?
Yes, I know it was Pius XII...Pius VII got in there in my reply to another poster referral to him that way...BTW, the "ex cathera" was used to assume Mary into heaven bodily and I "assume" you know that; (interesting that it was revealed to the Church some 1,900 years after the fact; but the fact that Mary was thoroughly Jewish, I suppose, can also absolve Pius XII of any anti-Semite tag)
when did you graduate from Episcopal seminary Julie Newmar?
Have you considered a look at the Orthodox denominations?
They do not 'make up' doctrine 1900 years after the fact, as you allege. Like the Church councils from the very beginning, they codify and clarify doctrines that have been around for awhile.
The Assumption was believed long before the official declaration in 1950 (where do you think all those 16th, 17th, and 18th c. paintings of the Assumption came from, anyhow?) There are Assumption narratives that date back into the 3rd or 4th century, and early Ethiopian icons, to boot.
Plus, it's interesting to consider that there are no first-class relics of Mary (that is to say actual parts of her body).
Besides, the Orthodox believe it too, and you know they don't hold much truck with the Bishop of Rome! < j/k for my Orthodox friends >
To answer your question, please review the recent lives of JPII, specifically and his courageous stance against communism and its brutality, his charismatic message for all of Christianity; and also of Mother Teresa. You might also look at the life of Pope "Blessed" John XXIII and his ecumenical message of peace and hope (Vatican II) for reference(all recent RC "leaders" of whom, IMHO, were more Christ-like than Pius XII could ever hope to be).
When JPII was a clandestine seminary student in Poland, he was far more circumspect about 'speaking out' against the Nazis (but he personally rescued several Jews). When he was a priest and later the Archbishop of Krakow, he was similarly circumspect about speaking out against Communism.
When he became Pope, he was more outspoken, but then again the Communists were not occupying Italy at the time (at least not as a military force with artillery pointed at St. Peter's). The Bulgarians still took a good shot at assassinating him via Ahmet Agca, so it was not without risk. But the risk was less obvious and the risk to others was far less.
But it's a far cry from comparing this Catholic figure and that Catholic figure, in different circumstances, and deciding that one is "more Christlike" than another (we could argue about that all day), and claiming that a devout Pope who saved hundreds of thousands of Jews was "un-Christlike".
Will you at least retract that slander?
In 1939, even as late as 1941, that was by no means clear (with 'patriots' like Joe Kennedy and misguided naifs like Charles Lindbergh arguing that Europe and Britain should be left to their fate, and President Roosevelt turning boatloads of Jewish refugees back to death at Nazi hands.)
Right, the Council of Trent, etc., and others where protestants "heresies" were denounced; and I'm now waiting for a ex cathera declaration of perpetual virginity when it is Biblically evident, at least to me, that Christ had brothers and sisters.
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