This is a fascinating read: The Great Schism from the point of view of the Orthodox Church. Especially interesting are the paragraphs under the heading: Formal Schism 1054.
I Believe Catholicism And Its Trappings Are Silly, Strange & Weird!!!
by minimus 306 Replies latest jw friends
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apostatethunder
Talesin, you should ask yourself why the Jews were not given refuge in Canada at the time.
The Vatican helped thousands of them to survive, not because they believed they converted, but because they were human beings.
The fact that the Pope didn’t officially opposed Nazism, doesn’t mean that it supported it. Helping the Jews to escape was an act of subversion.
People that accuse the Pope of supporting Nazism are either not well informed or plainly dishonest.
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FlyingHighNow
In the past 35 years, I have done MY OWN RESEARCH ON MANY TOPICS, so I say "Cofty's Law" to YOU and your constant pointing of fingers at others for still believing the lies of the JWS. It's boring, and lazy.
Well, to be fair here, Tal, I don't constantly point my fingers at you or others for "still believing the lies of the JWS." And you know that. I do however point out, at times, that all of us, including YOU, still have residual effects from being brainwashed Jehovah's Witnesses. Tal, you were raised as a JW. If you think that you have completely shed every influence the WTBTS has had on you, then you do. But how we were raised does affect us, whether our parents were Baptist, Atheist, Pagan or nothing. The WTBTS is a cult. It's a horrible experience for children who are raised in it. It's a horrible experience for adults who are gradually brainwashed into it. Our experiences as JWs are woven into the tapestry of our very beings. We can shed a lot of the experience, but we can never get rid of all of its effects.
It doesn't offend or upset me to admit that I was a JW and that it does affect my personality and life to this day. To me, it's a kind of delusion to dream that you or anyone else came out of it all unscathed and wholly unaffected. No offense to Cofty, but what a cop out it is for you or anyone else to use that made up law like it instantly makes the other person's assertion wrong. Sometimes people are behaving like people who once were part of a great cult. Throwing up Cofty's Law doesn't change that. If we try hard enough, we can make a law to throw out for just about any subject someone could bring up on JWN, to try to invalidate it. For example, I could make up one called FHN's Law to throw at anyone using Cofty's law instead of engaging in some honest, introspective thinking. Throwing up Cofty's Law to try to invalidate a comment is lazy.
As for the RC and Hitler, you know that the church is made up of millions of people who did not support the Nazis. Most of us understand that the Nazis got "support" through coercion, terror and force. The Nazis were invading and bombing Europe with their great war machine. I'm guessing the Pope didn't think it was a wise action to cross Hitler and cause even more extreme torture and bloodshed. The witnesses take the harshest, most simplistic view of what happened between the RC and the Nazis. I can see that you still share a similar view of the decision of the Pope on how to handle the strong arm of the Nazi regime. Go outside the box and think hard about the reasons why the Pope made the decision he did. Would you want to have been in his shoes? It's really the only way you could truly say you would have handled Hitler's bullying differently.
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FlyingHighNow
Catholics have done nothing to me...lol.
I just think The Church is odd. I don't feel that way toward all religions because some do not promote mysticism and eerieness.
Understandable, Mini. Especially is this so when it mixes with Voo Doo. We saw it in the little cajun town I lived in. Ever been through the cemeteries in New Orleans?
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FlyingHighNow
What you're saying sounds to me as if Catholics had more children if only they could. It is not so.
I'm not telling you that Catholics would have more children if only they could. I am saying that some Catholics go along with the Vatican's ban on birth control, very most sincerely. Some are able to manage the size of their families to two or three children, through watching the woman's cycles. That doesn't work well in all circumstances and some do end up with large families. It's a tough thing to manage no matter where a Catholic family lives, when the cycle method doesn't work and the result is a lot of babies. I can't speak for all RC women, but I'm thinking that most of them would prefer not to spend literally years of their lives pregnant and caring for lots of children.
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dgp
I agree with your last post, Flying. My simple point is saying that those "some Catholics" are a very small minority. What a very small minority does is no way to define what everyone in the community does. Experiences may be different in different countries, but my experience is that not even one percent of Catholics "sincerely follows" the Pope regarding contraception. When I was a child, in the street where I lived, where there must have been something like 500 people, I had one friend who was a Baptist and another who was a Moravian. Everybody else -and I really mean it- was a Catholic. You never asked what religion the other person belonged to, because the answer was "Catholic" in 95% of the cases. Well everybody in my street was on birth control. Some families did have four children, but, since they had married at 22, all the children were of similar ages, and the couple was by then on their forties, you *knew* something was going on regarding birth control.
You know, there's a joke down here. In Spanish, that watching of the woman's cycles is called "the rhythm method". Some people say, jokingly of course, that "the rhythm" actually means moving faster during lovemaking. Nobody believes that works.
These days, it is not infrequent to find a Catholic couple that manages to keep the number of children down to one.
I wonder why it is difficult for you to believe that the overwhelming majority of Catholics simply disregard what the Pope says regarding birth control. Or economics. The Pope in "infallible", yes, but only in matters related to religion and only when he speaks "ex cathedra". So he's an ignoramus in Economics and isn't even claiming he isn't one.
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FlyingHighNow
Hey, DGP, I understand that some RC families do disregard what the Pope says on birth control. Yeah, I didn't say "Rhythm Method" for that very reason, because it sounds sexual.
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botchtowersociety
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejm1/piusxii.htm
In defense of Pope Pius XII:
Before his Pontificate:
As Cardinal Pacelli, he drafted the famous papal encyclical, MIT BRENNENDER SORGE, which denounced Nazi paganism and racism. The document was smuggled into Germany in March, 1937 and read from all Catholic pulpits.
At the time of his election as Pope:
The Nazi newspaper, Berliner Morgenpost, stated: "The election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism."
The international communist newspaper, "La Correspondance Internationale", dedicated an article to Pope Pius XII's election, saying it was a good election, because he was a man "clearly opposed to Nazism."
During his Pontificate:
In September 1939, with the invasion of Poland, Hitler imposed a news blackout over occupied territory. For much of the next several years, the Vatican provided the most reliable, regular source of information available to the public. The New York Times (and other periodicals) gave massive coverage to the Vatican's disclosures of Nazi atrocities against Jews and non-Jews. A few examples:
10/28/39 Times article "Pope Condemns Dictators, Treaty Violators, Racism; Urges Restoring of Poland."
01/23/40 Times article "Vatican Reveals Terrors in Poland".
01/24/40 Times articles "Vatican Amplifies Atrocity Reports" and "Weight of Papacy Put Behind Exposure of Nazi Excesses in Poland".
01/24/40 Times Editorial "The Vatican's Indictment" against the Nazis: "All we have heard until now have been unofficial reports of such horrors that we choose to disbelieve them as 'exaggerated'. Now the Vatican has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned, and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror which have come out of the Polish darkness."
01/29/40 Nearly a full page given in the Times to a 1940 Vatican report released by Pius XII detailing the precise places where Jews and non-Jews were being killed and brutalized by the Nazis in Poland. The word "extermination" is specifically used in this Vatican report.
03/14/40 Times article reports that "Jews' Rights Defended" by the Pope in meeting between Pius XII and a Nazi official.
12/40 A letter of Albert Einstein in Time magazine stating that "only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth...Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty."
12/25/41 A Times editorial states: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas...He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all."
1942 London’s Jewish Chronicle remarked: “A word of sincere and earnest appreciation is due from Jews to the Vatican for its intervention in Berlin and Vichy on behalf of their tortured co-religionists in France.”
08/27/42 Times Article entitled "Vichy Seizes Jews; Pope Pius Ignored".
10/42 The Times of London summarized the wartime record of Pius XII up to that time. It stated: "A study of the words which Pope Pius XII has addressed since his accession in encyclicals and allocution to the Catholics of various nations leaves no room for doubt. He condemns the worship of force and its concrete manifestation in the suppression of national liberties in the persecution of the Jewish race."
12/25/42 Times editorial stated that "This Christmas more than ever he (Pius XII) is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent."
08/16/43 A Time magazine editorial stated that the Church "has been fighting totalitarianism more knowingly, devoutly, and authoritatively, and for a longer time, than any other organized power."
12/04/43 Times Article reporting that Vatican "Denounces Decision to Intern and Strip All Jews in Italy."
Following the war:
Moshe Sharrett, former Foreign Affairs Minister and Prime Minister of Israel, visited Pius XII "to thank the Catholic Church for what it did to save the Jews in all parts of the world." Summing up his personal interview with Pius, he said: “I told him that my first duty was to thank him, and through him, the Catholic Church, on behalf of the Jewish public, for all they had done in the various countries to rescue Jews, to save children, and Jews in general. We are deeply grateful to the Catholic Church for what she did in those countries to help save our brothers.”
The World Jewish Congress made a large cash gift to the Vatican “in recognition of the work of the Holy See in rescuing Jews from Fascist and Nazi persecutions.”
Rabbi Herzog of Jerusalem, as well as the Rabbis of the Italian, U.S., Rumanian and Hungarian Jewish communities came to Rome or sent messages thanking Pius XII for the way in which he mobilized the Church in their behalf.
Dr. Joseph Nathan, who represented the Italian Hebrew Commission, stated: "Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who executing the directive of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with efforts and abnegation, hastened to help us, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed."
Dr. A. Leo Kubowitzki, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, came to present "to the Holy Father, in the name of the Union of Israelitic Communities, warmest thanks for the efforts of the Catholic Church on behalf of Jews throughout Europe during the war."
At least three of the volumes of the "Acts and Documents of the Holy See" relating to the Second World War are full of documents written by the Jewish communities worldwide thanking Pius XII and the Catholic Church for the assistance offered to persecuted Jews.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, former president of the World Jewish Congress, stated: "With special gratitude we remember all he (Pius XII) has done for the persecuted Jews during one of the darkest periods in their entire history."
The Israel Philharmonic played at the Vatican as a gesture of gratitude for the Pope's war services.
The elders of one liberated camp went to Rome and presented Pius with a letter: “Now that the victorious Allied troops have broken our chains and liberated us from captivity and danger, may we, the Jewish internees of Ferramonti, be permitted to express our deepest and devoted thanks for the comfort and help which Your Holiness deigned to grant us with fatherly concern and infinite kindness throughout our years of internment and persecution.... In doing so Your Holiness has as the first and highest authority on earth fearlessly raised his universally respected voice, in the face of our powerful enemies, in order to defend openly our rights to the dignity of man.... When we were threatened with deportation to Poland in 1942, Your Holiness extended his fatherly hand to protect us, and stopped the transfer of the Jews interned in Italy, thereby saving us from almost certain death. With deep confidence and hope that the work of Your Holiness may be crowned with further success, we beg to express our heartfelt thanks while we pray to the Almighty: May Your Holiness reign for many years on this Holy See and exert your beneficent influence over the destiny of the nations.”
The chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, said: “I thank the Pope and the Church from the bottom of my heart for all the help they have afforded.”
When Pius XII died in 1958:
Gold Meir, Israel's representative to the United Nations, wrote: "During the Nazi terror, when our people were subjected to a terrible martyrdom, the Pope's voice was raised to condemn the persecutors and to offer mercy to their victims. We mourn over the death of a great server of peace."
Jacob Philip Rundin, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, said: "His sympathy for all, his wise social vision and his extreme understanding made him a prophetic voice in the service of justice everywhere. May his memory be a blessing for the life of the Roman Catholic Church and the world."
London's "Jewish Chronicle" recalled that "before, during and after the Second World War, he tried to carry a message of peace. Confronting the monstrous cruelties of Nazism, fascism and communism, he continually proclaimed the virtues of humanity and compassion."
Writing in the Jewish Anti-Defamation League's Bulletin, Dr. Joseph Lichten said that the late Pontiff's "opposition to Nazism and his efforts to help Jews in Europe were well known to the suffering world."
For three (3) consecutive days, the New York Times printed so many tributes to Pius XII that it had to list only the names, not the contents.
Leonard Bernstein asked the New York Philharmonic audience to stand for a moment of silence in honor of Pius XII for all he had done for the Jews.
Other testimonies:
In early 1943, the Gestapo wrote the following in a report that the Pope "has severely criticized everything we believe..He has spoken clearly in favor of the Jews." Another Nazi report accused Pius XII of being a "mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals."
Dr. Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Romania, wrote in 1944: "In these hard times our thoughts turn more than ever with respectful gratitude to the Sovereign Pontiff, who has done so much for Jews in general.... In our worst hours of trial, the generous aid and noble support of the Holy See ... has been decisive. It is not easy to find the proper words to express the relief and solace which the magnanimous gesture of the Supreme Pontiff has given us, in offering a large subsidy in order to alleviate the sufferings of the deported Jews. Roumanian Jewry will never forget these facts of historical importance."
After the Allies liberated Rome in 1944, a Jewish Brigade Group said in its Bulletin: “To the everlasting glory of the people of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church we can state that the fate of the Jews was alleviated by their truly Christian offers of assistance and shelter. Even now, many still remain in the religious homes and houses which opened their doors to protect them from deportation to certain death.”
"One survivor, quoted in a Hebrew daily in Israel, said: “If we have been rescued, if Jews are still alive in Rome, come with us and thank the Pope in the Vatican.”
A committee of the American Jewish Welfare Board, wrote to Pius himself: “We have received reports from our military chaplains in Italy of the aid and protection to Italian Jews by the Vatican, priests, and church institutions during the Nazi occupation of the country. We are deeply moved by this extraordinary display of Christian love — the more so as we know the risk incurred by those who afforded shelter to Jews.... From the bottom of our hearts we send you the assurances of undying gratitude.”
Rabbi Zolli, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, was so moved by the Pope's efforts that he became a devoted friend of Pius XII. He eventually converted to the Catholic faith and took for his baptismal name Eugenio, in honor of Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII).
Rabbi Zolli's daughter, the psychiatrist Myriam Zolli, has issued a strong defense of Pius XII. She said the Pope was in steady contact with her father and worked diligently to save Jews from persecution. In an interview in the Italian daily Il Giornale, she recalled her father's prediction that Pope Pius XII would become a scapegoat for the West's silence in the face of the Holocaust. She concluded that "the world's Jewish community owes him a great debt."
In "The Secret War Against the Jews" in 1994, Jewish writers John Loftus and Mark Aarons write that "Pope Pius XII probably rescued more Jews than all the Allies combined."
The Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide writes that "The Catholic Church under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving the lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands..The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together. Its record stands in startling contrast to the achievements of the...Western Democracies." He stated further that "no less than 3,000 Jews found refuge at one time at the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gongolfo."
At the Eichmann Nazi War Crimes Trial in 1961, Jewish scholar Jeno Levai testified that the bishops of the Catholic Church "intervened again and again on the instructions of the Pope." In 1968, he wrote that "the one person (Pius XII) who did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences, is today made the scapegoat for the failures of others."
In several Catholic churches in Rome there are still Jewish plaques thanking the Church for saving Jewish lives. -
dgp
Hey, DGP, I understand that some RC families do disregard what the Pope says on birth control.
Flying High Now, do you understand the difference between "some" and "the overwhelming majority"? I think you do, and I also feel it is pointless to try to get you to recognize you understand that. I don't think this is terribly important, however, because facts are stubborn (Lenin) and I'm talking about the fact I have witnessed my entire life.
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FlyingHighNow
dgp, look, I don't have a problem with you. I have a problem with the Vatican. They should not be telling women not to use birth control. And that means every woman. Every single one. Whether a woman listens to the Pope or not, the Pope has no business perpetuating such an assault on women's rights to control how many babies they have. That's one of my beefs with the church. If only one RC woman, and we both know there are many more than one, is hurt by this ban, then it's one too many.
Thank you for that, BTS, the info about Pope Pius XII and the Nazis.
