on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
Jeffro : it remains unverified and implausible given the absence of any Bergers in Ratzinger's family tree
That is not how maiden names work. As I said above, at present we know nothing about Stefanie Blabst’s maternal line (from Katharina Berger). Her mother's maiden name would not have been Berger, so the absence of Bergers in Ratzinger's family tree is irrelevant to the discussion.
on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
aqwsed12345 : Stefanie Blabst’s maternal line (from Katharina Berger) remains unconnected to any branch of the Pope’s known family tree.
At present we know nothing about Stefanie Blabst’s maternal line (from Katharina Berger), so until we do there is no reason not to accept her word on the connection.
I do agree that the Ratzingers did not live as near to the Bergers as she suggests. But I am more inclined to think that her memory of distances in her childhood is failing with age than that she is concocting the whole story.
While I found the evidence that Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber was born in Moravia to be quite convincing, with the Tauber family being there for several generations, I now agree she was born in Natz-Schabs, South Tyrol, possibly in Raas where her daughter was born. The source I relied on for this information seems a bit dubious in light of your post.
on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
aqwsed12345 : To assess the plausibility of a familial connection to Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), it's pertinent to examine the geographical proximity of Weilheim to the birthplaces of the Pope's maternal ancestors.
Geographical proximity would only be relevant if we knew that Katharina Blabst's mother, both her mother's parents, and all four of her mother's grandparents were born in Weilheim in Oberbayern, Bavaria. We know none of that. We only know where her mother was buried.
Consider the full spread of the Pope's maternal ancestors to see how location can change over a couple of generations.
Maria Peintner Rieger (Joseph Ratzinger's mother) was born in Muhlbach bei Oberaudorf, Bavaria.
Her mother, Maria Tauber-Peintner, was born in Raas, South Tyrol, Austria.
Her father, Isidore Rieger, was born in Welden, Augsburg, Bavaria.
Her maternal grandmother, Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber, was born in Maehrisch-Weisskirchen, Moravia, present-day Czechoslavakia.
Her maternal grandfather, Anton Peter Peintner was born in Aica, South Tyrol, Austria.
Her paternal grandmother, Maria Anna Rieger was born in Welden, Augsburg, Bavaria.
His paternal grandfather, Johann Reib was born in Untergünzburg, Bayern, Bavaria.
If Joseph Ratzinger's maternal line was so widespread over three generations, it seems quite likely that of Stefanie Brzakovic would likewise be widespread. So with geographical proximity there are no fixed points to measure.
One other gem that I picked up was that Betty (Elizabeth Maria) Tauber, the Pope's great-grandmother, was the daughter of Jacob Tauber (b.1811) and Josefina Knopfelmacher (1819-1886). Josefina Knopfelmacher's nickname was "Peppi". I can only think that this gives credence to Stefanie Brzakovic's recall of Joseph Ratzinger's nickname.
on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
For those who have the time and interest in this research, it should be easy enough to establish whether Stefanie Brzakovic's mother, Katharina Blabst nee Berger (born 20 August 1894), was a cousin of Joseph Ratzinger's mother, Maria Ratzinger nee Peintner Rieger (born 8 January 1884 in Muhlbach bei Oberaudorf, Bavaria).
For the mothers to be cousins they must share the same grandparents. Both Katharina Berger and Maria Peintner Rieger have two sets of grandparents.
Maria Peintner Rieger's grandparents are Johann Reib (ca 1830) & Maria Anna Rieger (b.30/9/1829) and Anton Michael Peintner (ca 1820 - < 1855) & Elizabeth Maria Tauber (15/1/1834-1904, born in Moravia, Czechoslavakia).
Johann Reib & Maria Anna Riege married in Absam, Tyrol and owned a mill near Brixen, South Tyrol, before emigrating to Bavaria. They had a son, Isidore Rieger (22/3/1860-29/5/1912, born in Welden, Bavaria).
Anton Michael Peintner & Elizabeth Maria Tauber had a daughter, Maria Tauber-Peintner (29/6/1855-17/6/1930, born in Austria).
Isidore and Maria T-P married on 13 July 1885 in Austria and were the parents of Maria Ratzinger nee Peintner Rieger.
Katharina Berger's two sets of grandparents are a bit more difficult to establish. She lived from 20 August 1894 - 17 June 1962 and was buried at Weilheim in Oberbayern, Bavaria, Germany. She married Philipp Blabst (22/9/1897 - 19/2/1978) and Stefanie was born on 7 February 1927. But that is about as much as I have been able to establish.
Any budding genealogists happy to sort this out?
on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
Jeffro : There’s no evidence that the lady’s story is actually true. There is no verified record of the phone call, no transcript of the conversation, no established relationship between the two people, it’s just a story a lady told.
Another interview was reported by Andrea Tornielli in Il Giornale of July 17, 2008. There he wrote (in translation) :
"The Pope, in the only phone call he made to me, a few weeks after his election, said: 'for you I will always be Ratzinger-Pepi...' ".
Steffie Brzakovic is a smiling eighty-one-year-old lady of German origins, who left Germany more than half a century ago and moved to Australia, where she lives. Steffie is a second cousin of Benedict XVI, her childhood playmate, and for over thirty years she has left the Catholic religion, that faith of which her illustrious cousin was first a rigorous guardian in the former Holy Office, and then became the world leader.
Mrs. Brzakovic, since the beginning of the seventies, has in fact embraced the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, becoming an assiduous follower. She lives at number 5 Crisp Street, in Cooma, a town not far from Canberra, developed in the mid-nineteenth century thanks to the nearby gold deposits, which today has about eight thousand inhabitants. It is not easy to convince her to talk about her famous cousin, who in these days is so close to her home and not, as usual, on the other side of the globe. Steffie gave the only interview in August 2005, shortly after Ratzinger's election, to the local newspaper Canberra Times, but she almost seems to have regretted it.
"Yes," she confirms, a little hesitant and surprised to have been contacted by Il Giornale, "I am the Pope's cousin... “. We ask her if a face-to-face meeting with Benedict XVI is planned in these days. "So far no, no one has called me, no one has invited me. I was supposed to come to Sydney, to meet him, but I can't move from Cooma, I'm not able to drive, I'm old."
Mrs. Brzakovic explains her family ties with the pontiff: "My mother Katherine was a cousin of Joseph's mother, Maria Peintner. My family lived in Weilheim in Oberbayern, about fifty kilometers from the town where the Ratzingers lived. We used to hang out... “.
May I ask you what Benedict XVI was like as a child? "He was always where he shouldn't be... If I think about it today, it is a miracle that we are still alive," she adds, alluding to the liveliness of little Joseph, who one day, in Aschau am Inn, the town where the Ratzingers had moved in 1932 after leaving Tittmoning, one day fell into the pond where large carp were swimming.
An episode that the pontiff himself recalls in his autobiography, published in 1997: "Once, while I was playing, I was there to drown."
Steffie left Germany back in 1956, when Fr. Joseph was still a young priest professor. And she moved to Australia. For fifty years their relationship was interrupted, he knew he had a cousin at the antipodes, she knew she had a cousin and former playmate who became a priest and then archbishop and cardinal. Then, in April 2005, when both were 78 years old, Ratzinger's life took an abrupt turn and the elderly Bavarian cardinal was elected successor to John Paul II. A few days passed, and the phone from Brzakovic's house in Cooma rang for an international call, which came from Vatican City. On the other end of the phone is him, Benedict XVI. "At first I thought it was a joke. He told me he was 'Ratzinger-Pepi', using the nickname they called him as a child."
Finally Steffie realizes that it is not a joke and that she is talking on the phone with him. "I said to him: 'Are you the Pope?' And he replied: 'Yes, but for you I am still Ratzinger-Pepi'".
It is not easy to get a few more details about that phone call. "What we talked about - is a private matter, it concerns me and him, it concerns two cousins who had not spoken for fifty years... “. And yet, with Benedict XVI, Mrs. Brzakovic also spoke of the faith embraced a few decades earlier, that of the Jehovah's Witnesses. A choice that caused many problems and frustrations to the woman, who had to face a lot of opposition from her family.
The Pope, however, did not reproach her, as the woman had already revealed to the Canberra Times three years ago: "He told me: 'You are doing the work we should do'", referring to the missionary activity of Jehovah's Witnesses, who go from house to house to meet people. "He also told me: 'You have halls that are not so big, but they are full, we have cathedrals, churches and chapels, but they are often empty.'"
The conversation ends, but in the gaze and voice of the Pope's cousin one can grasp an expectation. She has not yet lost hope that Pope Benedict will make a phone call from Sydney and perhaps arrange to pick her up to meet her.
on a trip to rome a few years ago i asked my friend (who is roman and jw) what the catholic faith thinks of jw.
he simply stated that jw is tolerated by the church but that really not much thought is given to them.
is there an official stance on jw by the catholics?
...until i meet the most incredible, wonderful, fascinating lady i've ever encountered in my life!
bikerchic, you have captured my heart and make me happier than i've ever been, ever, ever, ever!
craig (of the totally twitterpated, gushing-and-blushing-all-over-the-place dufus-in-love class).
Hi bikerchic, how lovely to hear from you again and to full in some gaps in your collective story, especially your courtship and first meeting which Craig (onacruse) shared on this board. He and his mates (AlanF and Farkel) are still greatly missed.
‘jehovah’s witnesses told me i would die at 15 – so i didn’t save for a pension’.
fame & fortune: award-winning author on religion, divorce and her dream car.
70. gift this article free.
She wrote a book in 2022 - Without Warning and Only Sometimes - about her childhood which was serialised on Radio 4 in the UK as reported here at the time.
Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.
https://www.thereflector.com/stories/washington-legislature-passes-bill-to-make-clergy-mandatory-reporters-of-child-abuse,378913 .
The bill does seem to make an exception for "privileged communication".
The Final Bill Report says :
Privileged Communication. No one is required to report child abuse and neglect when the information is obtained solely as a result of a privileged communication that would not compel that person to testify as a witness in any action or proceeding. A member of the clergy, a Christian Science practitioner listed in the Christian Science Journal, or a priest shall not, without the consent of the person making the confession or sacred confidence, be examined as to any confession or sacred confidence made to him or her in their professional character, in the course of discipline enjoined by the church to which he or she belongs.
But then in the Summary it says :
Members of the clergy are mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect. Except for members of the clergy, no one shall be required to report child abuse or neglect when that information is obtained solely as a result of a privileged communication.
"Member of the clergy" means any regularly licensed, accredited, or ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder, or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community, or sect, or person performing official duties that are recognized as the duties of a member of the clergy under the discipline, tenets, doctrine, or custom of the person's church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community, or sect, whether acting in an individual capacity or as an employee, agent, or official of any public or private organization or institution.
italy meets another bomb in front of the kingdom hall, after having caused a scandal on tv, now it is also dangerous to go to the hall.
here is the image of the press release.
This happened on Tuesday, 25 March 2025. It was reported here, here and here.
A google translation of the notice from the Italian branch office follows :
On Tuesday, March 25, at approximately 4:00 p.m., a small explosive device exploded in front of the entrance door of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, located in Piazza delle Camelie in Rome. We are relieved to report that no one was injured. As a precaution, religious gatherings scheduled for yesterday evening and today have been canceled.We note that the place of worship that was hit is the same one that recently appeared in a report on a national television program, which included defamatory speeches against Jehovah's Witnesses.
We are grateful to all those who are providing assistance.
Alessandro Bertini
NATIONAL SPOKESMAN
Communications and Press Office
Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses
TEL +39 06 872941
EMAIL [email protected]
Via della Bufalotta 1281, 00138 Roma RM
