We Hold These Fellow Believers in High Regard
We wrote about Focus on the Family when they done wrong (see “Apologist’s Eye,” July/August 2000), so it’s only fair we write about them when they done right.
In the July/August “Apologist’s Eye,” we pointed out the distortions of the Catholic faith that had appeared in a short article in Focus on the Family magazine earlier this year. Responding to a complaint a by one of our readers, Focus on the Family representative Jane Kristoffersen wrote a letter on September 26. It read:
“We are extremely sorry to learn that you felt the article ‘Extending the Good News to Italy,’ published in the April 2000 issue of Focus on the Family magazine, was disparaging to members of the Roman Catholic faith. Please accept our most sincere apologies. Although Dr. Dobson [president of Focus on the Family] was not aware of the content of the article until after it was published, he asked me to extend his deepest regret for any offense we may have caused you.
“We also want to assure you that it is our earnest desire to embrace brothers and sisters of all traditions who affirm the truth of Scripture and trust Jesus as Lord. While we do not deny that theological differences exist between Catholics and Protestants, we have never intentionally highlighted those areas of divergence. In fact, as a ministry we have worked with many noted Catholics to promote issues related to the family, and we hold these fellow believers in high regard. In hindsight, then, it’s clear that the publication of the article—which was incredibly insensitive at best—represented a very poor decision on our part. You can be certain that we will try to do better when we address issues of this nature in the future.”
– Tim Ryland
If Only He Could Run for Office
Poor Thomas More. Though he would certainly find no shame in it, he is now the patron saint of two of the most vilified professions in the Western world: lawyers and politicians.
Thomas More was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935 and declared patron saint of attorneys. On October 31, Pope John Paul signed a motu proprio naming More the patron of those in elected office.
At a Vatican press conference October 26, Cardinal Roger Etchegary explained that St. Thomas More provides political leaders with a model of moral integrity. His example should help to remind politicians of “the absolute priority of God, including in public affairs.
“Today, as we live in a period in which conscience is in eclipse, he shows us all the example of a man who prefers death to a life without freedom of conscience—a conscience which never ceased to be illuminated by God’ light and the council of wise men, far removed from all forms of fanaticism and subjectivism.”
– Dan Trimly
House of Judgment Falls on Lieberman
In our November issue, Catholic Answers staff apologist Rosalind Moss, a convert from Judaism, expressed her shame that vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman presented himself as an orthodox Jew while rejecting many of orthodox Judaism’s moral teachings (“Apologist’s Eye,” page 5). On October 23—two weeks before the presidential election—a rabbinical court called a beth din in Brooklyn, New York, agreed in essence with Ros when it took the unusual step of excommunicating the Connecticut senator.
“While claiming to be an observant Jew,” the New York Torah Court said, “Lieberman has been misrepresenting to the American people the teachings of the Torah against partial birth infanticide, against special privileges and preferential treatment for flaunting homosexuals, and against religious intermarriage of Jews.” The rabbinical court said that Lieberman had caused “grave scandal” for the Jewish religion.
Decisions from a beth din are based on the interpretation of Jewish teachings. A beth din, which means house of judgment, may consider matters including divorce, financial disputes, and other questions of Jewish law.
Rabbi Gavriel Cohen, who serves on the rabbinical court in Los Angeles, said he felt the decision was too harsh. But other religious leaders thought it was fair. “Joe Lieberman brought this excommunication upon himself by flatly trying to say that orthodoxy is one way when orthodoxy is the opposite direction of what he said it was,” said Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Christian lobbying group Traditional Values Coalition.
– Brian Kelleher
Much Nonsense Is Written
In October, eleven months after John Cornwell’s book, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, made its first malodorous splash, the paperback edition was released. As these things go, the author was again before us in print and TV media propagating the “black legend” that the wartime pope was anti-Semitic and did nothing to oppose the Nazi Holocaust.
In late October the Zenit news agency ran an interview with Jewish historian Michael Tagliacozzo, head of the Beth Lohame Haghettaot, the Center of Studies on the Shoah and Resistance in Italy. (Beth Lohame Haghettaot in Israel is one of the world’s largest museums and centers of documentation on the Holocaust.)
Throughout interview Tagliacozzo presents historical documentation showing Pius XII did everything within his diplomatic power to protest the Nazi treatment of Jews and ordered members of the Church to protect and hide them from the Germans. Most compelling was Tagliacozzo’s account of his own experience in wartime Rome:
“After the Nazis’ action [of arresting and deporting thousands of Italian Jews on October 16, 1943], the Pontiff, who had already ordered the opening of convents, schools and churches to rescue the persecuted, opened cloistered convents to allow the persecuted to hide. Msgr. Giovanni Butinelli, of the parish of the Transfiguration, told me that the Pontiff had recommended that parish priests be told to shelter Jews.
“I personally know a Jewish family that, after the Nazis’ request for 50 kilos of gold, decided to hide the women and children in a cloistered convent on Via Garibaldi. The nuns said they were happy to take the mother and girl but they could not care for a little boy. However, under the Pope’s order, which dispensed the convent from cloister, they also hid the boy.
“I myself was saved from persecution thanks to the Church’s help. I remember it was October 16, a rainy day. It was a Saturday, the third day of the Jewish feast of Sukkot. I had sought refuge in Bologna Square.
“When the Germans arrived, I was able to escape through a window and I found myself on the street in my pajamas. A family helped me and hid me. I then went to my former Italian teacher who let me stay in her home and asked several priests to find me a safe place.
“Finally, after almost a week, thanks to a recommendation of Fr. Fagiolo, I was hidden in the Lateran. I remember they treated me wonderfully. After not having eaten for two days, Fr. Palazzini gave me a meal with all God’s goods: a bowl of vegetable soup, bread, cheese, fruit. I had never eaten so well.”
When asked what he thought of Cornwell’s book, Tagliacozzo replied, “I haven’t read it, but I know that much nonsense is written and, unable to contribute new arguments, they give exaggerated interpretations. I am an historian and I do not look for controversies.”
Incidentally, little more than a month before the paperback release of Hitler’s Pope, a new book, Hitler, the War, and the Pope, appeared. Undertaken several years before Cornwell’s book appeared, the new book—by law professor Ronald J. Rychlak—is a meticulous refutation of the “black legend” of Pius XII’s silent complicity with Hitler. It won’t get the press Cornwell’s book did—few in the secular world care about a pope who is holy, even saintly—but it’s an honest, scholarly antidote to the dissembling poison of Cornwell. Look for an article by Rychlak, “Historical Dishonesty: The Lie of Hitler’s Pope,” in next month’s issue of This Rock.
– Tim Ryland