By Anita Guidera
Irish Independent
Friday October 02 2009

VISITORS to a remote grotto have claimed a statue wept and crosses appeared and disappeared in the night sky this week.

A group of 14 people, who had gathered at the statue of the Virgin Mary, in a rocky outcrop near the town of Dungloe, Co Donegal, on Tuesday night, were transfixed as they watched the phenomenon, which they said lasted almost an hour.

Visitors yesterday at the Kerrytown shrine near Dungloe, in Co Donegal, where witnesses say the statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears.

"It was a crazy evening. It was absolutely amazing. I am still on an emotional high. All but one person seemed to see the same thing," recalled James Boyle, from Ardara, who was at the site with his wife Margaret and children, Martin (10) and Mary (11).

The Kerrytown shrine is visited by thousands of pilgrims annually, after first becoming the subject of a religious apparition 70 years ago.

James explained how the group had been drawn there last Tuesday night because of a claim by Ballyfermot-based faith healer Joe Coleman that the Virgin Mary had told him in a channelled message that she would appear at the shrine on September 29 at 8pm.

"We went into the shelter facing the rock and at a few minutes to eight someone suggested we should start the rosary. We had no sooner started than someone shouted 'look up'.

"To the left of the cross, another cross appeared in the sky and as soon as it disappeared, another one appeared. It lasted about 10 minutes," he explained.

Then people began noticing that the white statue with its red heart had begun changing colour and form.

"She appeared to have a human face and her head turned and she looked at people. She looked down at the children who were at the front," he said.

One woman explained how the statue began crying and she went up to dry the tears.

"The tears were running down from her eyes," she told Highland Radio.

Healing

Speaking to the Irish Independent from his Dublin home, Mr Coleman said that the Virgin Mary, who has been appearing to him for many years, had communicated to him that she would make herself known at Kerrytown on September 29.

He had passed on the details of that message to a small group of people who attended a healing service organised by him in Dungloe last June.

He added that a lot of priests in Co Donegal did not believe he was doing his healing work for the love of God.

Dungloe parish priest, Father Seamus Meehan, said last night that there had been talk about the Kerrytown grotto for years.

"But I would be kind of sceptical about it myself," he added.

Derry Journal
17 July 2009

A Derry man has spoken for the first time about how he was miraculously healed from kidney disease by Padre Pio's mitt.

Bogside born John Glenn, who now lives in California, was just ten years old when he was rushed to Altnagelvin Hospital after both his kidneys collapsed. Despite numerous treatments, doctors were baffled by his condition. It was only when the mitt of Padre Pio was placed over his back that John began to recover.

"I remember that time well because I had just started St Brigid's College," John recalled this week. "I had gained 50 or 60 pounds in a very short space of time.

"My parents sent me to see Dr Tom McGinley who admitted me to Altnagelvin Hospital where I spent six weeks on complete bed rest. I thought it was great because I got off school."

Padre Pio

However, When John's condition didn't improve and he was moved to Belfast City Hospital where he spent weeks undergoing tests.

"I had biopsies and was in an incubator," John explained. "When the doctors came in to see me, they were dressed in masks and surgical suits.

"At one point, medics thought I might have leukaemia or even cancer. In fact, they were so baffled by my condition at one point they even thought I may have picked up a disease from the racing pigeons that I kept with my father.

"My parents and I lived in Belmont at that time.They'd heard about the mit of Padre Pio, and the whole community was talking about it. Someone, who I cannot remember, brought the Padre Pio mitt to my home and rubbed it all over my back and kidneys.

"I spent a further ten weeks in Belfast going through different tests. My kidneys healed over that time and to this day I know I was cured by the mitt of Padre Pio."

John says that, while his family were religious and regular Sunday Mass goers, they never spoke much about his miraculous recovery.
"We all believed it was the mitt that healed me," he said, "but it wasn't something that we talked about to everyone else.

"I'm 44 now, and to this day I believe it was the mit of Padre Pio which made me better.

"I never go to sleep without saying a prayer to him and giving thanks. I live a happy and healthy life in California."

John has lived in the USA for the past 14 years. However, he regularly returns to Derry to visit his two brothers and two sisters who still live in the city.

He now runs his own business, 'Irish John's Market', just outside San Francisco selling Irish goods. Before leaving his native city, he ran his own business in Derry Glenn's Meats and was a former apprentice at Hegarty's Butchers.

Muffin Pet Diabetes Support Group

**This is just one part of this website. If you have a pet with diabetes, and it is very common, please use the link to read about it and to join the internet support group.



St. Francis of Assisi, born in Umbria in 1181, was the founder of the Franciscan Order. He died on October 4, 1226 at the age of 45. Francis is considered the founder of all Franciscan Orders and the patron saint of ecologists and merchants.


PRAYERS TO ST. FRANCIS FOR OUR PETS:

Good St. Francis, you loved all of God's creatures.
To you they were your brothers and sisters.
Help us to follow your example
of treating every living thing with kindness.
St. Francis, Patron Saint of animals,
watch over my pet
and keep my companion safe and healthy.
Amen.
_________________________

St. Francis of Assisi Lover of all Creation
Prayer for Sick Animals:

Heavenly Father,
you created all things for your glory
and made us stewards of this creature
If it is your will, restore it to health and strength.
Blessed are you, Lord God,
and holy is your name for ever and ever.
Amen
_________________________

PRAYER FOR OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS

(To make a Novena for a sick pet, say this prayer for 9 consecutive days)

Heavenly Father, our human ties with our friends of other species is wonderful and special gift from You. We now ask You to grant our special animal companions your Fatherly care and healing power to take away any suffering they have. Give us, their human friends, new understanding of our responsibilities to these creatures of Yours. They have trust in us as we have in You; our souls and theirs are on this earth together to give one another friendship, affection, and caring. Take our heartfelt prayers and fill Your ill or suffering animals with healing Light and strength to overcome whatever weakness of body they have.

(Here mention the names of the animals needing prayer).

Your goodness is turned upon every living thing and Your grace flows to all Your creatures. From our souls to theirs goodness flows, touching each of us with the reflection of Your love. Grant to our special animal companions long and healthy lives. Give them good relationships with us, and if You see fit to take them from us, help us to understand that they are not gone from us, but only drawing closer to You. Grant our prayer through the intercession of good St. Francis of Assisi, who honored You through all Your creatures.

Give him the power to watch over our animal friends until they are safely with You in eternity, where we someday hope to join them in giving You honor forever.

Amen.

By Shira Schoenberg
Jewish Virtual Library


Pope Pius XII's (1876-1958) actions during the Holocaust remain controversial. For much of the war, he maintained a public front of indifference and remained silent while German atrocities were committed. He refused pleas for help on the grounds of neutrality, while making statements condemning injustices in general. Privately, he sheltered a small number of Jews and spoke to a few select officials, encouraging them to help the Jews.

The Early Years

The Pope was born in 1876 in Rome as Eugenio Pacelli. He studied philosophy at the Gregorian University, learned theology at Sant Apollinare and was ordained in 1899. He entered the Secretariat of State for the Vatican in 1901, became a cardinal in 1929 and was appointed Secretary of State in 1930.

Pacelli lived in Germany from 1917, when he was appointed Papal Nuncio in Bavaria, until 1929. He knew what the Nazi party stood for, and was elected Pope in 1939 having said very little about Adolf Hitler’s ideology beyond a 1935 speech describing the Nazis as “miserable plagiarists who dress up old errors with new tinsel.” Pacelli told 250,000 pilgrims at Lourdes on April 28, “It does not make any difference whether they flock to the banners of the social revolution, whether they are guided by a false conception of the world and of life, or whether they are possessed by the superstition of a race and blood cult.”

Even as Cardinal, Pacelli's actions regarding Hitler were controversial. Hitler took power on January 30, 1933. On July 20 that same year, Pacelli and German diplomat Franz Von Papen signed a concordat that granted freedom of practice to the Roman Catholic Church. In return, the Church agreed to separate religion from politics. This diminished the influence of the Catholic Center Party and the Catholic Labor unions. The concordat was generally viewed as a diplomatic victory for Hitler.(1)

Pacelli was elected Pope on March 2, 1939, and took the name Pius XII. As Pope, he had three official positions. He was head of his church and was in direct communication with bishops everywhere. He was chief of state of the Vatican, with his own diplomatic corps. He was also the Bishop of Rome. In theory, at least, his views could influence 400 million Catholics, including those in all the occupied eastern territories - the Poles, Baltics, Croatians, Slovaks and others.(2)

As soon as he was appointed Pope, Pacelli did speak out against the 1938 Italian racial laws that dealt with mixed marriages and children of mixed marriages.(3) However, he issued no such condemnation of Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) which occurred in November 1938, and which recent evidence shows he was informed of by Berlin's papal nuncio. As the security of the Jewish population became more precarious, Pius XII did intervene the month he was elected Pope, March 1939, and obtained 3,000 visas to enter Brazil for European Jews who had been baptized and converted to Catholicism. Two-thirds of these were later revoked, however, because of "improper conduct," probably meaning that the Jews started practicing Judaism once in Brazil. At that time, the Pope did nothing to save practicing Jews.(4)

Cries for Help

Throughout the Holocaust, Pius XII was consistently besieged with pleas for help on behalf of the Jews.

In the spring of 1940, the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Isaac Herzog, asked the papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Luigi Maglione to intercede to keep Jews in Spain from being deported to Germany. He later made a similar request for Jews in Lithuania. The papacy did nothing.(5)

Within the Pope's own church, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna told Pius XII about Jewish deportations in 1941. In 1942, the Slovakian charge d'affaires, a position under the supervision of the Pope, reported to Rome that Slovakian Jews were being systematically deported and sent to death camps.(6)

In October 1941, the Assistant Chief of the U.S. delegation to the Vatican, Harold Tittman, asked the Pope to condemn the atrocities. The response came that the Holy See wanted to remain "neutral," and that condemning the atrocities would have a negative influence on Catholics in German-held lands.(7)

In late August 1942, after more than 200,000 Ukrainian Jews had been killed, Ukrainian Metropolitan Andrej Septyckyj wrote a long letter to the Pope, referring to the German government as a regime of terror and corruption, more diabolical than that of the Bolsheviks. The Pope replied by quoting verses from Psalms and advising Septyckyj to "bear adversity with serene patience."(8)

On September 18, 1942, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, wrote, "The massacres of the Jews reach frightening proportions and forms."(9) Yet, that same month when Myron Taylor, U.S. representative to the Vatican, warned the Pope that his silence was endangering his moral prestige, the Secretary of State responded on the Pope's behalf that it was impossible to verify rumors about crimes committed against the Jews.(10)

Wladislaw Raczkiewicz, president of the Polish government-in-exile, appealed to the Pope in January 1943 to publicly denounce Nazi violence. Bishop Preysing of Berlin did the same, at least twice. Pius XII refused.(11)

Papal Reasons and Responses

The Pope finally gave a reason for his consistent refusals to make a public statement in December 1942. The Allied governments issued a declaration, "German Policy of Extermination of the Jewish Race," which stated that there would be retribution for the perpetrators of Jewish murders. When Tittman asked Secretary of State Maglione if the Pope could issue a similar proclamation, Maglione said the papacy was "unable to denounce publicly particular atrocities."(12) One reason for this position was that the staunchly anti-communist Pope felt he could not denounce the Nazis without including the Communists; therefore, Pius XII would only condemn general atrocities.(13)

The Pope did speak generally against the extermination campaign. On January 18, 1940, after the death toll of Polish civilians was estimated at 15,000, the Pope said in a broadcast, "The horror and inexcusable excesses committed on a helpless and a homeless people have been established by the unimpeachable testimony of eye-witnesses."(14) During his Christmas Eve radio broadcast in 1942, he referred to the "hundreds of thousands who through no fault of their own, and solely because of their nation or race, have been condemned to death or progressive extinction."(15) The Pope never mentioned the Jews by name.

The Pope's indifference to the mistreatment of Jews was often clear. In 1941, for example, after being asked by French Marshal Henri Philippe Petain if the Vatican would object to anti-Jewish laws, Pius XII answered that the church condemned racism, but did not repudiate every rule against the Jews.(16) When Petain's French puppet government introduced "Jewish statutes," the Vichy ambassador to the Holy See informed Petain that the Vatican did not consider the legislation in conflict with Catholic teachings, as long as they were carried out with "charity" and "justice."(17)

In a September 1940 broadcast, the Vatican called its policy "neutrality," but stated in the same broadcast that where morality was involved, no neutrality was possible.(18) This could only imply that mass murder was not a moral issue.

On September 8, 1943, the Nazis invaded Italy and, suddenly, the Vatican was the local authority. The Nazis gave the Jews 36 hours to come up with 50 kilograms of gold or else the Nazis would take 300 hostages. The Vatican was willing to loan 15 kilos, an offer that eventually proved unnecessary when the Jews obtained an extension for the delivery.(19)

Pius XII knew that Jewish deportations from Italy were impending. The Vatican even found out from SS First Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein the fate of those who were to be deported.(20) Publicly, the Pope stayed silent. Privately, Pius did instruct Catholic institutions to take in Jews. The Vatican itself hid 477 Jews and another 4,238 Jews were protected in Roman monasteries and convents.(21)

On October 16, the Nazis arrested 1,007 Roman Jews, the majority of whom were women and children. They were taken to Auschwitz, where 811 were gassed immediately. Of those sent to the concentration camp, 16 survived.(22)

The Pope Protests

The Pope did act behind the scenes on occasion. During the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, he, along with the papal nuncio in Budapest, Angelo Rotta, advised the Hungarian government to be moderate in its plans concerning the treatment of the Jews. Pius XII protested against the deportation of Jews and, when his protests were not heeded, he cabled again and again.(23) The Pope's demands, combined with similar protests from the King of Sweden, the International Red Cross, Britain and the United States contributed to the decision by the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, to cease deportations on July 8, 1944.(24)

In the later stages of the war, Pius XII appealed to several Latin American governments to accept “emergency passports” that several thousand Jews had succeeded in obtaining. Due to the efforts of the Pope and the U.S. State Department, 13 Latin American countries decided to honor these documents, despite threats from the Germans to deport the passport holders.(25)

The Church also answered a request to save 6,000 Jewish children in Bulgaria by helping to transfer them to Palestine. At the same time, however, Cardinal Maglione wrote to the apostolic delegate in Washington, A.G. Cicognani, saying this did not mean the Pope supported Zionism.(26)

The Politics Behind the Policy

Historians point out that any support the Pope did give the Jews came after 1942, once U.S. officials told him that the allies wanted total victory, and it became likely that they would get it. Furthering the notion that any intervention by Pius XII was based on practical advantage rather than moral inclination is the fact that in late 1942, Pius XII began to advise the German and Hungarian bishops that it would be to their ultimate political advantage to go on record as speaking out against the massacre of the Jews. (27)

One of the only cases in which the Pope gave early support to the allies was in May 1940. He received information about a German plan, Operation Yellow, to lay mines to deter British naval support of Holland. Pius XII gave his permission to send coded radio messages warning papal nuncios in Brussels and The Hague of the plot. The German radio monitoring services decoded the broadcast and went ahead with the plan.(28) This papal intervention is surprising due to the Pope's persistent claim of neutrality, and his silence regarding almost all German atrocities.

Recent Developments

The International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission (ICJHC), a group comprised of three Jewish and three Catholic scholars, was appointed in 1999 by the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. In October of 2000, the group of scholars finished their review of the Vatican's archives, and submitted their preliminary findings to the Comission's then-President, Cardinal Edward I Cassidy. Their report, entitled "The Vatican and the Holocaust," laid to rest several of the conventional defenses of Pope Pius XII.

The often-espoused view that the Pontiff was unaware of the seriousness of the situation of European Jewry during the war was definitively found to be inaccurate. Numerous documents demonstrated that the Pope was well-informed about the full extent of the Nazi's anti-Semitic practices. A letter from Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, that proved that the Pope was aware of the situation as early as January of 1941, particularly caught the attention of the commission. In that letter, Preysing confirms that "Your Holiness is certainly informed about the situation of the Jews in Germany and the neighboring countries. I wish to mention that I have been asked both from the Catholic and Protestant side if the Holy See could not do something on this subject...in favor of these unfortunates." The letter, which was a direct appeal to the Pope himself, without intermediaries, provoked no response. In 1942, an even more compelling eyewitness account of the mass-murder of Jews in Lwow was sent to the Pope by an archbishop; this, too, garnered no response.

The commission also revealed several documents that cast a negative light on the claim that the Vatican did all it could to facilitate emigration of the Jews out of Europe. Internal notes meant only for Vatican representatives revealed the opposition of Vatican officials to Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine. "The Holy See has never approved of the project of making Palestine a Jewish home...[because] Palestine is by now holier for Catholics than for Jews." Some Catholic higher-ups violated this position of the Vatican by helping Jews to immigrate when they were able to; most did not.

Similarly, the attempts of Jews to escape from Europe to South America were sometimes thwarted by the Vatican. Vatican representatives in Bolivia and Chile wrote to the pontiff regarding the "invasive" and "cynically exploitative" character of the Jewish immigrants, who were already engaged in "dishonest dealings, violence, immorality, and even disrespect for religion." The commission concluded that these accounts probably biased Pius against aiding more Jews in immigrating away from Nazi Europe.

The claim that the Vatican needed to remain neutral in the war has also been refuted in recent months. In January of 2001, a document recently declassified by the U.S. National Archives was discovered by the World Jewish Congress. The document was a report in which Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Pius XII's secretary of state, detailed and denounced several abuses committed by the Soviet Army against German inhabitants of the Soviet Union. The report was widely viewed as demonstrating that the Vatican had no compunctions about speaking out against atrocities, even when doing so would violate neutrality.

The preliminary report released by the IJCHC also asked the Vatican for access to non-published archival documents to more fully investigate the Pope's role in the Holocaust. This request was refused by the Vatican, which allowed them access only to documents from before 1923. As a result, the Commission suspended its study in July 2001, without issuing a final report. Dr. Michael Marrus, one of the three Jewish panelists and a professor of history at the University of Toronto, expained that the commission "ran up against a brick wall.... It would have been really helpful to have had support from the Holy See on this issue."(29)

In 2004, news was disclosed of a diary kept by James McDonald, the League of Nations high commissioner for refugees coming from Germany. In 1933, McDonald raised the treatment of the Jews with then Cardinal Pacelli, who was the Vatican secretary of state. McDonald was specifically interested in helping a group of Jewish refugees in the Saar region, a territory claimed by France and Germany that was turned over to the Germans in 1935. The Pope's defenders cite his intercession on these Jews' behalf as evidence of his sympathy for Jews persecuted by the Nazis. According to McDonald, however, when he disccused the matter with Pacelli, “The response was noncommittal, but left me with the definite impression that no vigorous cooperation could be expected.”(30) Pacelli did intercede in January 1935 to help the Jews, but only after McDonald agreed that American Jews would use their influence in Washington to protect church properties that were being threatened by the Mexican government.(31)

In 2005, the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, discovered a letter dated November 20, 1946, showing that Pope Pius XII ordered Jewish babies baptized by Catholics during the Holocaust not to be returned to their parents. Some scholars said the disclosure was not new and that the Pope's behavior was not remarkable. The more important story, according to Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, was that one of the recipients of the letter, Angelo Roncalli, the papal representative in Paris, ignored the papal directive.(32)

In 2006, an Israeli scholar, Dina Porat, discovered correspondence between Haim Barlas, an emissary of the Jewish Agency sent to Europe to save Jews in the 1940s, and Giuseppe Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII. Roncalli expressed criticism of the Vatican’s silence during the war. In June 1944, Barlas sent Roncalli a copy of a report compiled by two Jews who escaped from Auschwitz documenting the mass murder at the camp. Roncalli forwarded the report to the Vatican, which had claimed it did not know about the report until October. Earlier, Roncalli had written to the president of Slovakia at the behest of Barlas asking him to stop the Nazi deportations of Jews.(33)

Conclusion

The Pope's reaction to the Holocaust was complex and inconsistent. At times, he tried to help the Jews and was successful. But these successes only highlight the amount of influence he might have had, if he not chosen to remain silent on so many other occasions. No one knows for sure the motives behind Pius XII's actions, or lack thereof, since the Vatican archives have only been fully opened to select researchers. Historians offer many reasons why Pope Pius XII was not a stronger public advocate for the Jews: A fear of Nazi reprisals, a feeling that public speech would have no effect and might harm the Jews, the idea that private intervention could accomplish more, the anxiety that acting against the German government could provoke a schism among German Catholics, the church's traditional role of being politically neutral and the fear of the growth of communism were the Nazis to be defeated.(34) Whatever his motivation, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Pope, like so many others in positions of power and influence, could have done more to save the Jews.

See also Defenses of Pius XII


Bibliography

Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1993.

Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. NY: Henry Holt And Co., 1987.

Gilbert, Martin. The Second World War: A Complete History. NY: Henry Holt And Co., 1992.

Gutman, Israel. ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Vol. 3. NY: Macmillan, 1995.

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. NY: Holmes & Meier, 1985.

Hilberg, Raul. Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945. NY: Harper Perennial Library, 1993.

Holocaust. Israel Pocket Library. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1974.

International Jewish Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission. The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report. Submitted to The Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with Jews. October, 2000.

Perl, William R. The Holocaust Conspiracy: An International Policy of Genocide. NY: Shapolsky Publishers, 1989.

Reuters. "WJC Says it Has New Evidence Against Pius XII." By Joan Gralla. 1/11/01.
Notes

1. Berenbaum, Michael, The World Must Know, p. 40.
2. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 197.
3. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1136.
4. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1136.
5. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1136.
6. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137.
7. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 206.
8. Hilberg, Raul, Perpetrators Victims Bystanders, p. 267.
9. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137.
10. Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 133; Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137.
11. Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 134.
12. Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews, p. 315.
13. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137; Hilberg, Raul, Perpetrators Victims Bystanders, p. 264.
14. Gilbert, Martin, The Second World War, p. 40.
15. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137.
16. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1137.
17. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 200.
18. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 200.
19. Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 133.
20. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 202.
21. Gilbert, Martin, The Holocaust, p. 623.
22. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 201.
23. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1138.
24. Gilbert, Martin, The Holocaust, p. 701.
25. Perl, William, The Holocaust Conspiracy, p. 176.
26. Gutman, Israel. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1138.
27. Israel Pocket Library, Holocaust, p. 136.
28. Gilbert, Martin. The Second World War, p. 59.
29. The Jerusalem Post. "Vatican Blocks Panel's Access to Holocaust Archives." By Melissa Radler. 7/24/01
30. Peter Carlson, “A Diplomat's Diary,” Washington Post, (April 22, 2004).
31. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (April 23, 2004).
32. Jerusalem Report, (February 7, 2005).
33. Jerusalem Post, (December 4, 2006).
34. Gutman, Israel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, p. 1139.

By Evelyn Ring
Irish Examiner
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

sacredspace.ie

THOUSANDS of people are expected to go online to pray today — Ash Wednesday — as the computer gains in popularity as a virtual prayer book.

Today, the start of Lent, is also the 10th anniversary of Sacred Space, the prayer website established by Irish Jesuits in their communications centre in Dublin.

The site, which guides the visitor through prayer, is available in almost 20 languages, with up to 20,000 visitors worldwide logging on every day.

Site editor, Fr Piaras Jackson, is expecting a big increase in visitors today. "We often see even more people logging on to pray on dates with religious significance," he said.

Fr Jackson said the computer is now what the prayer book was for many years ago. "For many people, the computer is where everything happens — it’s where they keep notes, make appointments, get information. So it is no surprise that it’s also where people pray," he said.

And the website has developed beyond daily prayer to include scripture commentaries, areas to write and send prayers, email greeting cards, novenas and audio.

"This is very much in line with the Jesuit approach to prayer," said Fr Jackson. "From the spiritual exercises to operas, Jesuits have always tried to help people find engaging and imaginative connections with the gospel."

He said the feedback left by visitors showed they felt part of a worldwide community of prayer.

"The messages we get range from longer and detailed enquiries to the short text-like ones such as ‘You guys rock! Thank you for all you do’."

Editor of the Irish Catholic, Garry O’Sullivan said Lent had come even earlier for many people because of the economic crisis. "The warning given by Jesus about the dangers of people storing up treasures for themselves is very appropriate at this time."

Sadly, many people who did well during the Celtic Tiger and then saw their savings disappear or their firm become bankrupt now knew what happened if they stored up wealth for themselves.

"The message of the gospel is a very wise one and you don’t need to be a Christian to believe it."

Mr O’Sullivan believes Lent is a time for people to think of their neighbour.

"There was a time in rural parishes in Ireland when people who fell on hard times were quietly looked after and we need to get back to that way of looking after the weak and the vulnerable."

He said old-fashioned words associated with religious practice such as greed, sin and repentance were now back in vogue — almost by default.

For this journal, I have made a new Google site search. Lj will not take the code in an entry, however, so the search box is located on Blogs.ie. Please use it to search this journal for subjects and issues you are interested in. I will also put the link on the list on the right..

SITE SEARCH

**Every day I have need to call upon St Anthony for help when I lose things, which I do constantly. As soon as I ask this blessed saint to help me, the article I was unable to find previously becomes visible. It happens every time. You dun have to believe me, because I know many of you are sceptical.

I know that if St Anthony cares enough about me to help me find my lost keys, then he is my special saint to also ask for bigger help, and this I do. I ask him to watch over certain of my loved ones and to make sure they stay safe. He always comes through for me. This is not to say he is a god, for those of you not familiar with Catholic theology, but to illustrate that God's power works through St Anthony.

St Anthony Shrine

Nearly everywhere St. Anthony is asked to intercede with God for the return of things lost or stolen. Those who feel very familiar with him may pray, “Tony, Tony, turn around. Something’s lost and must be found.”

The reason for invoking St. Anthony’s help in finding lost or stolen things is traced back to an incident in his own life. As the story goes, Anthony had a book of psalms that was very important to him. Besides the value of any book before the invention of printing, the psalter had the notes and comments he had made to use in teaching students in his Franciscan Order.

A novice who had already grown tired of living religious life decided to depart the community. Besides going AWOL he also took Anthony’s psalter! Upon realizing his psalter was missing, Anthony prayed it would be found or returned to him. And after his prayer the thieving novice was moved to return the psalter to Anthony and to return to the Order, which accepted him back. Legend has embroidered this story a bit. It has the novice stopped in his flight by a horrible devil, brandishing an ax and threatening to trample him underfoot if he did not immediately return the book. Obviously a devil would hardly command anyone to do something good. But the core of the story would seem to be true. And the stolen book is said to be preserved in the Franciscan friary in Bologna.

In any event, shortly after his death people began praying through Anthony to find or recover lost and stolen articles. And the Responsory of St. Anthony composed by his contemporary, Julian of Spires, O.F.M., proclaims, “The sea obeys and fetters break...And lifeless limbs thou dost restore...While treasures lost are found again...When young or old thine aid implore.”

St. Anthony and the Child Jesus

St. Anthony has been pictured by artists and sculptors in all kinds of ways. He is depicted with a book in his hands, with a lily or torch. He has been painted preaching to fish, holding a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament in front of a mule or preaching in the public square or from a nut tree.

But since the 17th century we most often find the saint shown with the child Jesus in his arm or even with the child standing on a book the saint holds. A story about St. Anthony related in the complete edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints (edited, revised and supplemented by Herbert Anthony Thurston, S.J., and Donald Attwater) projects back into the past a visit of Anthony to the Lord of Chatenauneuf. Anthony was praying far into the night when suddenly the room was filled with light more brilliant than the sun. Jesus then appeared to St. Anthony under the form of a little child. Chatenauneuf, attracted by the brilliant light that filled his house, was drawn to witness the vision but promised to tell no one of it until after St. Anthony’s death.

Some may see a similarity and connection between this story and the story in the life of St. Francis when he reenacted at Greccio the story of Jesus, and the Christ Child became alive in his arms. There are other accounts of appearances of the child Jesus to Francis and some companions.

These stories link Anthony with Francis in a sense of wonder and awe concerning the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. They speak of a fascination with the humility and vulnerability of Christ who emptied himself to become one like us in all things except sin. For Anthony, like Francis, poverty was a way of imitating Jesus who was born in a stable and would have no place to lay his head.

Patron of Sailors, Travelers and Fishermen

In Portugal, Italy, France and Spain, St. Anthony is the patron saint of sailors and fishermen. According to some biographers his statue is sometimes placed in a shrine on the ship’s mast. And the sailors sometimes scold him if he doesn’t respond quickly enough to their prayers.

Not only those who travel the seas but also other travelers and vacationers pray that they may be kept safe because of Anthony’s intercession. Several stories and legends may account for associating the saint with travelers and sailors.

First, there is the very real fact of Anthony’s own travels in preaching the gospel, particularly his journey and mission to preach the gospel in Morocco, a mission cut short by severe illness. But after his recovery and return to Europe, he was a man always on the go, heralding the Good News.

There is also a story of two Franciscan sisters who wished to make a pilgrimage to a shrine of our Lady but did not know the way. A young man is supposed to have volunteered to guide them. Upon their return from the pilgrimage one of the sisters announced that it was her patron saint, Anthony, who had guided them.

Still another story says that in 1647 Father Erastius Villani of Padua was returning by ship to Italy from Amsterdam. The ship with its crew and passengers was caught in a violent storm. All seemed doomed. Father Erastius encouraged everyone to pray to St. Anthony. Then he threw some pieces of cloth that had touched a relic of St. Anthony into the heaving seas. At once, the storm ended, the winds stopped and the sea became calm.

Teacher, Preacher, Doctor of the Scriptures

Among the Franciscans themselves and in the liturgy of his feast, St. Anthony is celebrated as a teacher and preacher extraordinaire. He was the first teacher in the Franciscan Order, given the special approval and blessing of St. Francis to instruct his brother Franciscans. His effectiveness as a preacher calling people back to the faith resulted in the title “Hammer of Heretics.” Just as important were his peacemaking and calls for justice.

In canonizing Anthony in 1232, Pope Gregory IX spoke of him as the “Ark of the Testament” and the “Repository of Holy Scripture.” That explains why St. Anthony is frequently pictured with a burning light or a book of the Scriptures in his hands. In 1946 Pope Pius XII officially declared Anthony a Doctor of the Universal Church. It is in Anthony“s love of the word of God and his prayerful efforts to understand and apply it to the situations of everyday life that the Church especially wants us to imitate St. Anthony. While noting in the prayer of his feast Anthony’s effectiveness as an intercessor, the Church wants us to learn from Anthony, the teacher, the meaning of true wisdom and what it means to become like Jesus, who humbled and emptied himself for our sakes and went about doing good.

Franciscan Father Norman Perry (1929-1999) served as editor-in-chief of 'St. Anthony Messenger' magazine for 18 years. He was the anonymous friar behind the publication’s popular “Wise Man” column for the 32 years he served on the magazine staff. This excerpt is from the book Saint Anthony of Padua: The Story of His Life and Popular Devotions, which was published in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of 'St. Anthony Messenger.'


“The sea obeys and fetters break
And lifeless limbs thou dost restore
While treasures lost are found again
When young or old thine aid implore.”

—Responsory of St. Anthony

geocities.com/abruscino
--Documented: 1231-32

Miracle (During Lifetime)

One miracle that is attributed to Saint Anthony during his lifetime was described as follows:


A certain inhabitant of Padua, called Peter, had a daughter whose name was Padovana. Although she was four years old, she was absolutely incapable of using her feet and moved like a reptile, crawling with the help of her hands. Furthermore, it was said that, since she suffered from epilepsy, she would often fall and roll around. When Saint Anthony was still alive, her father, as he carried her in his arms while walking through the city one day, met the saint and began to beg him to make the sign of the cross over his daughter. The saintly father, admiring the man's faith, blessed her and sent her away. When the girl's father returned home, he made his daughter stand up on her feet. Supported by a footstool, she immediately began to walk about. Then, having taken away the footstool, her father gave her a cane. Indeed, walking about in the house, the girl always improved. At last, through the merits of most blessed Anthony, she healed completely and did not need any prop whatsoever. And, from that moment when she was blessed, she no longer suffered any illness or even the least falling sickness.

Miracles (After Death)

The following miracles are just a few of the many that occurred after Saint Anthony's death, and were read, along with the one above, before Pope Gregory IX:

Prosdocima of Noventa, the widow of Mainerio, had a left hand and both feet that were contracted. She was carried to blessed Anthony's sepulchre in a wooden tub. When she was raised above the ark, her feet were immediately straightened out and restored to their original use through the merits of blessed Anthony. Her hand, to be sure, opened a little, trembling at first, and then stretched out so that, while everyone looked on, she closed and opened it. Taken down from the ark, she at once jumped to her feet and, having regained the health she desired, she departed full of joy.

In the city of Padua, there was a certain boy, called John, whose chin for four years adhered to his chest so much that he could not raise his head in any way but walked about stooped forward, with his head at an angle. One day, when his mother brought him to blessed Anthony's tomb, there and then, the boy himself raised his head and, cured, went back with his mother. But a cavity appeared in his chest, in the very spot where his chin had stuck.

A certain woman, whose name was Bilia, for three years suffering tremors in her whole body, came shakingly, straitened as she was, to the ark of the saintly father Anthony. While she persisted in prayer before the sepulchre, the tremor became stronger and she felt her temperature rise greatly. Men and women cried, moved to compassion by her trembling and perspiration. But, when she was taken outside the door of the church so that she might breathe a little, her temperature came down, and having been cured, she left the place.

A certain German woman, whose name was Caroline, was brought to the sepulchre of the most saintly father because for seven years she had been deprived of sight in both eyes. When she stayed there for a short time in prayer, she regained her sight through heavenly aid and happily returned home, praising God.

When a certain man, whose name was Guidotto, was once suffering from a serious illness, his kidneys were impaired and he developed a hump. He couldn't walk without the support of crutches and his head would droop almost to the ground. When his mother had him led to blessed Anthony's sepulchre so that he might regain his health, he suddenly began to feel such great pains throughout his whole body that he perspired violently because of his anguish. As the pain subsided, the man could distend his kidneys and immediately, through the saint's merits, the hump disappeared.

In the book, "Life of St. Anthony: Assidua," by A Contemporary Franciscan, the author lists fifty-three miracles that were read before Pope Gregory IX. It seems unbelievable that there could have been fifty-three miracles, but according to the author, who was also a franciscan friar and personally knew Saint Anthony, there were many more. The following is the author's "Conclusion To The Book Of Miracles:"

Indeed, the Lord of majesty deigned to work through his servant Anthony many other signs which are not written in this book. Here we have gathered a few from among many, choosing from the better known those that are most certain, in order to give an opportunity to others, who may wish to do so, to add to these praises. And, not assenting to what is uncertain, while we intend to praise the saint, may we guard our tongues from the vice of lying. Truly, if his miraculous signs, some of which are great, and his marvels, which are extraordinary, were described one by one, I am afraid that just as their number might cause discomfort to the reader so also the unusual greatness of the works might give rise to the danger of disbelief in the minds of the weak.


From "Life of St. Anthony: Assidua" by A Contemporary Franciscan
Copyright © 1984 Prov. Pad. F.M.C. Editrice GraficheMessaggero di S. Antonio.

By Rachel Donadio
January 25, 2009

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI, acceding to the far right of the Catholic Church, has revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage.

The decision announced Saturday provided fresh fuel for critics who charge that Benedict's 4-year-old papacy has proven increasingly hostile to moderates and to the sweeping reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s that sought to create a more modern and open church.

A theologian resigned to the church's diminished status in a secular world, Benedict has favored a smaller church of more ardent believers over a larger one with looser faith. But his focus on doctrinal debates has come at a cost. As in 2006, when Benedict offended Muslims by citing a medieval scholar who called Islam "evil and inhuman," the revocation may help heal an internal rift, but it opens a broader wound.

A particularly contentious part of the reinstatement on Saturday was the inclusion of Richard Williamson, a British-born cleric who in an interview last week said he did not believe that six million Jews died in the Nazi gas chambers.

He has also given interviews saying that the U.S. government staged the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a pretext to invade Afghanistan.

The four reinstated men are members of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by a French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, in 1970 as a protest against the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Lefebvre made the four bishops in unsanctioned consecrations in Switzerland in 1988, prompting the immediate excommunication of all five by Pope John Paul II.

Later that year, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, sought to regularize the church's relationship with the society. Lefebvre died in 1991.

In a statement Saturday, the Vatican said that the pope would "reconsider" whether to formally affirm the four as full bishops, but referred to the men by that title.

In recent years, Benedict has made other concessions to the Lefebvrists, including allowing the broader recitation of the Latin Mass, which was made optional in the 1960s Vatican reforms and includes a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of Jews.

Chester Gillis, the Amaturo chair in Catholic studies at Georgetown University, said that both Benedict and John Paul II before him had tried for years to bring these traditionalists back into the church, out of concern that their movement might grow and create an entrenched parallel church.

"I don't think the Vatican doesn't care about Jewish-Christian relations, but at least it appears that internal church matters trump external relations," he said. "They're thinking, let's heal our own house whatever the consequences are externally."

The recent comments by Williamson, who led a traditionalist seminary in Ridgefield, Connecticut, at the time he was made bishop and later moved to a seminary in Argentina, inevitably overshadowed the debate about traditional and liberal strains in the Roman Catholic Church.

In a November interview broadcast on Swedish television last week and widely available on the Internet, Williamson said he believed that "the historical evidence" was hugely against the conclusion that millions of Jews had been "deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said Saturday that Williamson's comments had "nothing to do with" the pope's decision to welcome the schismatic bishops back into the fold. He added, "These are declarations that we don't share in any way."

Lombardi called the revocation of the excommunications a fundamental step toward the unity of the church, after two decades of rift. "We have to consider it very positive news," he added.

Jewish groups criticized the decision to reinstate the men.

In a statement released Saturday, the Anti-Defamation League said that lifting Williamson's excommunication "undermines the strong relationship between Catholics and Jews that flourished under Pope John Paul II and which Pope Benedict XVI said he would continue when he came into his papacy."