Sunday May 10th. 2009
This week, Pope Benedict will visit the Holy Land, the third pope to do
so, but only the second to make an official visit, invited to Israel by
President Shimon Peres; he will set foot in the West Bank where he will
visit Bethlehem, He could not travel at a more difficult time, The Israeli-
Palestininan conflict has entered a very dark phase since Israel’s
defensive assault on Gaza. This caused much criticism in many countries.
Everything the pope says and does throughout his visit will be watched in
great detail by the media. We remember him in our prayers that he may
have the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Father
goes as a man of
peace, and he will
take every
opportunity to
advocate peace,
but the Hamas
Charter declares
says that peaceful
solutions are in
contradiction to
the principles of
the Islamic
Resistance
Movement. He
has also to
contend with the
lies that have
been fabricated
against the
papacy and the
conspiracy
theories of its
involvement with
the Nazi
propaganda. If the
pope is limited in
what he can do to
further peace, he
may still be able
use his visit in
some way to
correct these false
assertions. There
is a plaque in the
Holocaust museum highly critical of pope Pius X11 for his supposed lack
of concern for the Jews during the second world war, whereas it was
exactly the opposite. It is sad that hatred of the Church has influenced
certain writers to sacrifice truth on the altar of prejudice.
In a recent article in the Bulletin, testimony was shown from Jewish writers
and the highest Jewish authorities of their gratitude to Pope Pius X11 for
what he and the Church did to save the lives of thousands of their people.
The following is testimony from further sources which supports what they
said in gratitude to the Church:
From 1917 to 1929 Cardinal Pacelli (who later became Pope Pius XII)
gave approx. forty speeches in Germany attacking Hitler's doctrine of
Nazism. During the war as Pope Pius XII, he hid, bedded, clothed, and
fed over 4,000 Jews in the Vatican City itself.
Rabbi Lapide recorded:
"No less than 3,000 Jews found refuge over a period at the Pope's
summer residence at Castel Gandolfo; sixty lived for nine months at the
Jesuit Gregorian University, and half a dozen slept in the cellar of the
Pontifical Bible Institute."
The total of Jews helped and saved by the Catholic Church through its
monasteries, convents and other religious organisations came to over
700,000. (How Pius XII Protected Jews by the American historian J. Akin)
Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent Pope Pius XII a letter of
gratitude on February 28, 1944. In it he said:
"The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious
delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very
foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and
sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of divine
Providence in this world."
On April 7, 1944, Rabbi Safran of Bucharest, Romania sent a note of
thanks to the pope: >>>>>>>
Pope Benedict’s Visit to the Holy Land
