Posted on 10/16/2013 2:33:05 PM PDT by NYer
Following yesterday’s thwarted funeral, some reaction in Italy:
The head of Rome’s Jewish community praised protesters who blocked the funeral of a convicted Nazi war criminal as Italy marked on Wednesday the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Rome ghetto.
Erich Priebke’s final resting place is now unclear after the protesters forced a suspension of his funeral on Tuesday in the Italian town of Albano Laziale. His body is lying at a military airport near Rome pending a decision from the authorities.
The former German SS officer died aged 100 last week in Rome, where he had been serving a life sentence under house arrest for his role in the killing of 335 civilians in 1944 in caves near the capital, one of Italy’s worst wartime massacres.
At a ceremony in Rome’s main synagogue, the head of Rome’s Jewish community drew loud applause as he lauded the citizens and mayor of Albano Laziale for resisting Priebke’s funeral.
“For this we feel proud to be Romans,” the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, Riccardo Pacifici, said at the event to mark the anniversary of the Nazis’ rounding up of 1,000 Jews from Rome’s centuries-old ghetto and their deportation to Auschwitz. Only 16 of them survived.
“I do not even want to say his (Priebke’s) name, not to profane this sacred place,” said the head of Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Renzo Gattegna.
“He never repented of his crimes and repeated the most incredible arguments denying the Holocaust.”
Italian lawmakers debated on Wednesday a bill to outlaw denial of the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews perished. Several other nations already have such a law.
Meantime, Catholic News Service has more:
Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, secretary of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, told Rome’s Corriere della Sera newspaper Oct. 16 that the church would never prohibit prayers for someone, but canon law does allow a bishop to deny a public funeral to a “manifest sinner” when it would scandalize the faithful.
In Priebke’s case, he said, “the crime was public and notorious, the lack of conversion was public and notorious, and the scandal it would have raised in the Christian community was public and notorious.”
After agreeing to host the funeral, the Italian district of the Society of St. Pius X issued a statement on its website saying, “A Christian who was baptized and received the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist, no matter what his faults and sins were, to the extent that he dies reconciled with God and the church, has a right to the celebration of the holy Mass and a funeral.”
The statement said the SSPX condemns “every form of anti-Semitism and racial hatred, but also hatred under all its forms. The Catholic religion is one of mercy and forgiveness.”
The SSPX has a history of comments by its leaders expressing suspicion or hostility toward Jews. In 2009, after now-retired Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications of the society’s bishops, there was widespread outrage at revelations that one of the four, Bishop Richard Williamson, had denied the gassing of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. The SSPX later ousted Bishop Williamson.
The New York-based Anti-Defamation League, which combats anti-Semitism, issued a statement Oct. 15 saying it was “shocked” that a “fringe Catholic sect” would agree to host the funeral of a “notorious Nazi war criminal.”
I don't know if you know how true your statement is. My wife became a Christian, my Father in Law became a Christian before he died, my Sister in Law became a Christian, and I keep talking with my Brother in Law. The other relatives don't say to much to us anymore.
It's not really all good. The lost soul is just that - lost. They can confess to some priest all they want the act is misdirected. Unlike what their current Pope says there is only one way to the Father and that is through the Son, not Mary, not a priest, not an institution. Faith Alone in Christ Alone is the only way to be saved.
Hypocrisy...At its finest...
Dang, girl, you always take the words right outta my mouth!
Have you ever noticed how what you say just goes right over most C-heads here?
No need to apologize. Misunderstandings occur.
I would submit that anyone with the attitude of *I’m good so I can sin with impunity, God has to forgive me* (Or even God will forgive me), is not really saved. That person is just looking for fire insurance and that not what a relationship with Christ is all about. God will not be used and God will not be mocked.
OTOH, there is a great deal of comfort in the thought of my security, that my own human weakness and frailty, which leads to sin so often, will not condemn me. I’m secure, not because of who I am or what I do, but because of who HE is and what HE’S done.
It allows me the freedom to fail without fear. Perfect love casts out fear.
My confidence in my security in Him is NOT something I take for granted.
That was said tongue in cheek.
Where is this letter?
But supporting the murder of millions is OK. So I assume that if an abortionist in the U.S. died the the SSPX would jump at the chance to provide them a funeral?
We run into girls and women who say, "Yeah, definitely abortion is a sin, but Jesus is so merciful. He understands what's happening in my life right now and He loves me, so I know I can do what I need to do and He will forgive me. I'm, like, at peace about this, really I am."
We've even heard this: "I know a baby is a gift from God. But I'm, so not ready, so it's like I'm sending the baby on back to God so he can re-gift it to somebody who's ready. I know my baby forgives me."
"I've been saved since I was 12."
(As she walks across the parking lot to the abortion clinic door.)
It's --- I can't even describe how flabbergasting and soul-sorrowing this is to me, to all of us who pray out there on the street.
Meanwhile, one of our guys, a Presbyterian deacon, sent a letter out to every pastor in Upper East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia --- there are literally well over a thousand of them, this is a heavily Christian part of the country --- asking for prayer support, and got not one response.
And my friend Joe D. and his buddy went visiting pastors, and got the same story over and over:
"God bless you for what you're doing, but we can't get involved. Sure, abortion's terrible, but abortion is not a problem we run into in my church."
Where do they think these girls are all coming from? Manhattan?
Pray for us, metmom.
Making it illegal to deny the holocaust is such a weird law. Holocaust deniers come off as totally bonkers, might as well let them speak.
In case you didn’t figure it out, the Germans and their allies were not dislodged from Rome until May of 1944.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Rome debates funeral for Nazi war criminal (Roman Vicariate says "No")
Nazi war criminal to get church funeral [from schismatic sect]
They didn’t. Italy was occupied as Mussolini faltered, Rome was under German control until June, 1944.
I knew that Rome was declared an open city on June 5, 1944, but Mussolini was taken out almost a year earlier and the people at once took to the streets, celebrating, among other things cutting the Fascist eagle down from Mussolini's balcony. And as I said, Mussolini had been ousted, imprisoned, and rescued and the new Italian government had joined the allies by this date seventy years ago. I had forgotten about the Germans, though, and how far north Rome is. It's just that the idea of a new Allied Italian government caused me to assume Rome was its capital. As I said, I had forgotten about the Germans and how much longer it took to liberate Rome. I regret the error, and thank you for correcting me.
I am especially ashamed of my error because my late father was at Salerno. He never forgot it and mentioned it on Sept. 9 every year.
Thank you. I regret the error.
My father was in the Italian campaign, so I am especially ashamed of myself.
The famous photo of Mussolini hanging upside down was taken in April 1945 in Milan, not Rome.
The Italian Fascist Party was in Rome when it removed Mussolini, but Nazis took over there very quickly.
The anti-Nazi Italian government was centered far south of Rome under Allied protection.
It is summarized in the fifth paragraph of this article on FR.
Thank you again. I am truly ashamed of myself for not knowing or remembering this.
If you were to read the document in context, you would discover that Muslims are "first" AFTER considering:
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