Legionary Stalling

The delegate overseeing the Legion of Christ has sent a letter. Magister in his piece recounts the stalling of Garza Medina, one of the senior superiors who is refusing to step down.

Magister (emphasis mine):

It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the superiors of the Legion to overturn these guidelines. But not to impede them. And in the absence of rapid steps forward in the journey of renewal, other priests will leave, not "hotheads" as their superiors say, but some of the best, in addition to those who have already left and been incardinated into the diocesan clergy. The new vocations will disappear, and are already drying up more or less everywhere, for example in Italy, where only one novice entered this year.

Given this situation, if there is the intention to bring trust and courage to the healthy portion of the Legion of Christ, only one urgent signal of transformation can be given: the removal of those leaders, at least the highest ranking, all of whom owe their power to the man who both founded and capsized it. And they still continue to keep it in prison.

Sodano's In Trouble

Damian Thompson recounts here the story from NCReporter on how Cardinal Sodano took the money of the Legion of Christ. According to Mr. Thompson's recap, Mgr. Dziwisz, formerly JPII's personal secretary and now Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow doesn't come out well either. As the known gatekeeper of the late Pope, especially as he got older and sicker, Dziwisz is alleged to have accepted sizable amounts of money from those wishing to gain admittance to the Holy Father's private Masses (including of course Father Maciel and his Legion colleagues).

Some details of the above come from Father Finigan who has his own thoughts and recollections at his blog.

Cardinal Ratzinger according to accounts refused gifts from the Legion, God bless him.

The "Nomenklatura" That Must Disappear

The title given to Magister's latest piece on the Legion of Christ, a naming of names of men who need to go and sooner rather than later.

It is likely that the Vatican authorities will put the Legion under the command of an external commissioner endowed with full powers.

And he will have to be obeyed by the current heads of the congregation, who are the real obstacle to any movement toward renewal, no matter how slight.

But this leadership group is anything but resigned to giving way.

Freed from the annoyance of the visitors, and not yet subjected to the command of the commissioner, during this interim period which they are hoping will last for "several months" they are doing everything they can to consolidate their power and win the support of the majority of the 800 priests of the Legion, and of the other religious and lay members.

This is an excellent point. There needs to be a rooting out immediately. The Church cannot afford more cover-ups.

After giving the list, Magister details the relationships the men currently in place have with the deceased founder of the Legion and then gives a brief account of their actions.

According to some of the testimonies given to the apostolic visitors in recent months, some in this group knew about the founder's double life, about the carnal acts he performed with many of his seminarians over the span of decades, about his lovers, his children, his drug use. But in spite of that, a fortress was built around Maciel in defense of his virtues, devotion to him was fostered among his followers, all of them unaware of the truth, his talents were emphasized, even among the upper hierarchy of the Church. This exaltation of the figure of the founder was so effective that even today it inspires the sense of belonging to the Legion among many of its priests and religious.

Finally is a brief breakdown of where these men come from.

Both are Mexican, like most of the upper echelon of the Legionaries. The second most privileged nationality is Spanish.

The Italians, on the other hand, have always been kept away from the important posts. They are seen as less trustworthy, in addition to having too many connections in the Vatican curia, where the Legionaries have friends but also enemies, and more of them enemies now.

The Legionaries: A Conclusion?

Magister talks about the conclusion of the visitation to the Legion of Christ. Most of it is recounting the past, but a few snippets are new:

The apostolic visit began on July 15, 2009. And the five bishop visitors fulfilled their mandate halfway through this month of March, with the delivery of their report to the Vatican authorities. They were Ricardo Watti Urquidi, bishop of Tepic in Mexico; Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver; Giuseppe Versaldi, bishop of Alessandria; Ricardo Ezzato Andrello, archbishop of Concepción in Chile; and Ricardo Blázquez Pérez, bishop of Bilbao.

It will be the Vatican authorities who decide what to do. The three cardinals charged with the case are Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, and Franc Rodé, prefect of the congregation for institutes of consecrated life.

But the last word will belong to Benedict XVI, the most prescient of all. Even before he was elected pope and when Maciel still had very powerful protectors in the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger ordered an extensive investigation of the accusations against the founder of the Legionaries. And as pope, on May 19, 2006, he sentenced him to "a retired life of prayer and penance."
[...]

But that the current leaders of the Legionaries should be left at the head of the congregation is entirely unlikely. The more probable decision is that the Holy See will appoint a fully empowered commissioner of its own, and will set the guidelines for a thorough reform, including the replacement of the current leaders.

But rebuilding from the ground up a congregation still deeply influenced by its disgraced founder will be an arduous enterprise. [Magister then describes the insidious influence of Father Maciel.]

Over the eight months of the apostolic visit, this control was relaxed only in part. Some priests told the visitors about the things they believed were wrong. Others have left the congregation and been incardinated into the diocesan clergy. Others have continued to defend Maciel's legacy. Others feel lost. Still others, finally, have faith in the rebuilding on new foundations of a religious congregation that is part of their lives and that they continue to love.

Others may have faith in a rebuilding, but I don't unless two things happen.

1. All the top and mid-level men in the LC need to be removed from office.

2. The statutes and all the other handbooks and rulebooks handed down by Maciel need to be revised completely. If the LC wants to do it itself, under the direct supervision of the incoming commissioner, then the revisers need to be men who were NOT Maciel's top lieutenants and managers.

If Cardinal Ruini weren't already tapped by Vatican watchers to lead the alleged commission to Medjugorje, he'd be a great no-nonsense prelate to tackle this task.

Time and prayer will tell.

More Ave Maria News

AveWatch: Safranek Wins Settlement from Ave Maria and Monaghan

Detroit attorney Deborah Gordon announced today that former Ave Maria School of Law professor Stephen Safranek accepted a settlement offer in his October 2007 wrongful termination suit against Tom Monaghan, the Ave Maria Foundation, the Law School, and Bernard Dobranski (the recently-resigned AMSL Dean and President). The Law School’s Board of Governors will rescind its earlier revocation of Professor Safranek’s tenure; further, the Board will rescind the preceding suspension and all censures imposed by then-Dean Dobranski.

Lots of links and reaction. Check it out.

Ave Maria

Greetings to you all. To my priestly readers (probably few in number...), happy Year of the Priest to you.

There seems to be much going on of late, but little of it interests me enough to mount an effort at posting. There are plenty of sources out there with more in-depth coverage.

But I have found one thing that has developed further that always interests: Ave Maria and Tom Monaghan.

Check out this headline from AveWatch: Monaghan Legal Claim: Ave Maria School of Law is a “Religious Institution” with “Ministerial” Professors.

In a stunning legal maneuver that could trigger unintended negative consequences involving a host of sources (Catholic legal academics, the American Bar Association, Ave Maria students/employees/alumni/recruits, official Church authorities) — Tom Monaghan’s lawyers argued in court on Wednesday that Ave Maria School of Law is a “religious institution” claiming “ministerial exception” such that any inquires into their “underlying motivation for a contested employment situation” should be barred from government courts. They also argued that AMSL’s law professors are “ministerial employees”, claiming that the “legal doctrine of ‘ecclesiastical abstention‘ is pertinent to the court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction of AMSL’s employment decision and the allegations concerning AMSL’s governance”.

Nice, huh. AveWatch has all kinds of analysis in that post, go check it out if you're so inclined. The crew at Fumare took a look at the development from a civil standpoint and Doctor Ed Peters from a canon law standpoint.

Mr. Monaghan's latest legal maneuver comes on the heels of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that upholds a lower court's order for Monaghan to turn over his notes regarding Ave Maria School of Law, formerly of Ann Arbor, MI and soon to be of Naples, FL, for the lawsuit of former three professors.

The saga of Monaghan and the various incarnations of Ave Maria (the college, the university, the law school, the town, etc.) is covered with great attention by AveWatch and Fumare, but despite Monaghan's tendrils throughout the more traditional wing of American Catholicism, his allegedly less-than-ethical affairs don't receive much attention from more mainstream Catholic blogs. Hopefully this latest clain will draw some attention given just how ludicrous it is.

Feeling Good, Europe?

Bishop Williamson and his alleged Holocaust denial may be only the tip of the iceberg for a hypocritical Europe...
----------------------------------------

One-third of Europeans blame the economic collapse on ...
posted at 12:20 pm on February 13, 2009 by Ed Morrissey [HotAir.com]

... the Joooooooos. Anti-Semitic attitudes have increased in the wake of the economic collapse, a study across seven European countries has found, with a third of Europeans blaming the Jews for the economy. Spain appears to have the highest levels of animosity towards Jews:

The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world.

The organization, which says its aim is “to stop the defamation of Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all,” says the seven-nation survey confirms that anti-Semitism remains strong.

The poll included interviews with 3,500 people - 500 each in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain.

It says that in Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel it is “probably true” that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey.

Nearly two-thirds of Spanish respondents said Jews were more loyal to Israel than they were to their home countries.

Anti-Semitism is an old security blanket for people when they can’t get around to blaming themselves. It’s a superstition as old as two millenia, with no rationality to it at all. Europe indulges in this on a regular basis. When Germany collapsed in World War I, no one wanted to take responsibility for conducting an utterly destructive war that bankrupted their nation and killed millions. It was a lot easier to blame the Jews for their own failures — and it led to disastrous consequences.

America isn’t immune to this, either, nor the rest of the Anglosphere. In fact, one of Barack Obama’s appointees, Samantha Power, made an allusion to this a few years ago in an interview, and others in American political life have been less subtle. In Britain last year, 50% surveyed thought British Jews more loyal to Israel than the UK. At the same time, 31% of Americans thought the same about American Jews. Do people question the loyalties of Catholics, Anglicans, the Irish? Perhaps a fringe do, but nowhere near as mainstream as these numbers suggest.

Make no mistake about it; the Jews of the West are in danger of getting completely marginalized at a very bad time in history for it to happen. If those numbers continue to grow, we can expect pressure from these Western nations to abandon Israel, and more importantly, to abandon the fight against radical Islamist terrorism and Iranian hegemony in the Middle East.

Father Maciel and the LC

Remember when I covered the allegations surrounding Father Maciel a long while ago and then his exile just before his death? While a large portion of the Catholic and secular media and blogosphere have been debating the Williamson affair, it came out recently that Father Maciel, in addition to the other things, fathered a child... It's been about two weeks and I don't want to explain the entire thing, so I will direct your attention:

From FUMARE:

• Feb 3: What Is Next For The Legionaries/Regnum Christi?
  
• Feb 6: Germain Grisez Letter to the Legionaries
  
  

  American Papist has an open letter by Dr. Germain Grisez to the Legionaries and Regnum Christi. Dr. Grisez suggests that the LC/RC dissolve the current "juridical person" and seek the formation of a new institution.

  
  
• Feb 7: Through the years... [Lots of video.]
  
  

  Is it really just a problem with Maciel? Or is Grisez right that the corruption runs into the operations of LC/RC?

  
  
• Feb 11: The Hindsight View: Ave Maria, Legionaries of Christ: Henchmen Only Give Palliative Care [Where Maciel and the LC are compared to Monaghan and his Ave Maria projects.]
  
  

  After considering Grisez's article posted by Thales concerning the situation of the LCs, I saw parallels to the situation at Ave Maria. Namely, here was Maciel who it is beyond contention had power to distribute and a society of people under religious vows to obedience and non disparagement of him. It really is the religious equivalent of what Monaghan appears to demand from his henchmen. After all, if you so much as question Monaghan, the people around you accuse you of sin.

  
  
• Feb 12: American Papist Reports on Legionary Mass [A cult? You decide.]
  
• Feb 12: Body of Christ Has Legionaries of Christ Disease, but some say it's just a sniffle [Where the LC's tendrils in the Catholic media are discussed.]

Note as well Dr. Peters' covering of the situation from the canon law standpoint. Check out American Papist as well which is referenced a lot by FUMARE's bloggers.

You can't make this stuff up!

Ave Watch, the website that chronicles the various efforts of the former head of Domino's Pizza and now president/chairman/godfather of an interlinked web of quasi-legitimate academic enterprises that all tie into a land deal in a Florida swampland (seriously!), has several new posts up on the latest saga, that of Ricky Benitez, the just-fired head coach of the Ave Maria University basketball team.

And now for a public service announcement from 'Vatican Watcher' blog:

"DON'T EVEN THINK OF SENDING YOUR KIDS TO AVE MARIA!"

The one man show

Daily Herald:

“I’ve served three popes and done what I was told. I blessed myself with one hand and counted their money with the other. They wanted to arrest me. They couldn’t ’cause I had Vatican diplomatic immunity … but they fought that every day. I outlasted ’em.”

Those words will be spoken this coming weekend by Paul Marcinkus, which may seem odd because the notorious Catholic archbishop from Cicero has been dead for nearly a year.

They won’t be spoken from the grave, rather by an actor in a one-man stage drama entitled “Marcinkus.”

That's about it actually. The article is just rehash of all the theories and such that have been alleged over the years. It makes much of the idea that the archbishop had John Paul I strangled.

The playwrite:

“Nobody could get this guy (Marcinkus) to say anything,” Flannery told me. “So all we’re really left with is the evil our imaginations could conjure up. And based on what the guy was accused of, that’s enough for about 50 plays.”

More on Marcinkus

The New York Times gives a rundown of the archbishop's life.

The Telegraph in its article is a bit more conspiratorial.

[...]

Four people are currently on trial in Italy charged with murdering Roberto Calvi; there had been speculation that the accused might attempt to call Marcinkus as a witness, although his diplomatic status would have made this difficult.

Despite the efforts of prosecutors in several countries, Marcinkus was never questioned about claims of money laundering, shell companies, the collapse of the Vatican Bank or the death of Calvi.

Some even implicated Marcinkus in the supposed murder of Pope John Paul I, who died a month after his election in 1978. The motive for murder was allegedly the Pope's determination to clean up the Vatican's finances.

According to David Yallop, whose book In God's Name (1984) articulated the theory of John Paul I's "murder": "Marcinkus is a crook, a criminal, a man who in the normal world would have served a long prison sentence for his part in a whole array of financial crimes."

Marcinkus always denied any wrongdoing. On his departure from Rome, he had provided journalists with his own candid epitaph: "I have no doubt that I will be remembered as the villain in the Calvi affair."

To what extent he was villain or dupe remains unclear; he himself was never willing to assist those who attempted to shed light on the issue.

The BBC's Vatican correspondent shares several anecdotes, including one of the archbishop's sense of humor.

[...]

In May 1982 we, the Vatican's international press corps, were back on the road again, this time in Portugal, where John Paul II visited the Catholic shrine to the Virgin Mary at Fatima to offer thanks for what he regarded as a miraculous escape from death.

After worshipping at the shrine, the Pope narrowly escaped another attempt on his life.

A Spanish priest who, it later transpired, was suffering from serious psychiatric problems, suddenly lunged at him with a knife.

Marcinkus, at the Pope's side as always, threw himself on the assailant who was quickly handed over to Portuguese police.

I rang the archbishop later that evening to check reports that were coming out about the incident.

"No," he told me, "nothing happened."

The following day local TV transmitted pictures of the priest brandishing a knife at the Pope and we all saw how the archbishop had apparently saved the Pope's life.

Marcinkus came the following night to the Lisbon hotel where the Vatican press were staying.

I asked him to clear up the discrepancy between what we had all seen on TV and his previous denial that anything had happened.

"Oh, you know," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "you can't always believe everything you see on TV."

Was it natural or murder???

Rocco reports that Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, one-time head of the Vatican Bank and top official of two popes, died Monday in Arizona, his choice of residence since his retirement after the scandal broke.

No, I don't think that his death is due to foul play. He was 84 after all. However, longtime readers will no doubt recall my interest in the entire Vatican Bank affair and the associated conspiracy theories. Check out those old posts here and here.


Archbishop Paul Marcinkus in the foreground with JP II behind.

The Siri thesis

From Inside the Vatican is an interesting piece on conspiracy theories and their debunking. The piece is rather long and there are a lot of good excerpts (I didn't hold back, as you will notice by reading down). In the context of Benedict's priority of bringing the SSPX back into the fold, the content of this is welcome news indeed.

[...]

In other words, given the crisis in the liturgy, in Mass attendance, in traditional sacramental belief, in the priesthood (the various scandals), in the episcopate, in the Church’s seminaries and universities, in the family life of ordinary Catholics, it is understandable that thoughtful Catholics should ask, "What went wrong?"

It is not the purpose of this article to offer a comprehensive answer. It would require the work of many thoughtful scholars and believers, and perhaps many decades of time, even to begin to formulate such an answer. But it is our purpose to suggest that now, 40 years after Vatican II, at the beginning of a new pontificate, following a pontificate which lasted for 26 years, may perhaps be an opportune time to begin to try to sort through things and to bring a bit of clarity out of the confusion.

Confusion has always been and will always be the enemy of the Church. Precision in language, exact definitions, clarity of understanding, do not readily allow for confusion. This is what we need.

In this context, we were intrigued by a small newsletter which recently arrived in our editorial offices. It was the December 2005 issue of an 8-page typewritten newsletter entitled "The War Is Now!", edited by Hutton Gibson, the father of Mel Gibson the actor and film producer.

In this newsletter, Hutton Gibson gives a fascinating glimpse into the minds of Catholics who have grown so frustrated and confused by the shifting "trends" in the post-conciliar Church that they have latched onto various "conspiracy theories" to explain what has happened.

The elder Gibson argues that one of the more elaborate of these conspiracy theories, called the "Siri thesis," simply isn’t true and must be discarded.

The "Siri thesis" argues that the rather conservative cardinal archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, was actually elected Pope in 1958, but that his election was suppressed, leading to the election of Angelo Roncalli, who became John XXIII, called the Council, rehabilitated Giovanni Battista Montini, who became Paul VI, thus ushering in the entire "post-Pius XII" era in the Church.
[...]

The "Siri thesis" is built upon one key point: the issue of the "white smoke" that appeared for a brief time on October 26, 1958, before changing to black. The thesis is that Siri was elected on that occasion, that the smoke was white to signal his election, but that the color changed to black when the conclave annulled or overturned Siri’s election.

A key piece of evidence for this theory has been an article written by Silvio Negro for the evening edition of Corriere della Sera (Milan, Italy) for October 27, 1958.

But, according to the elder Gibson, the Negro article has been misunderstood by the proponents of the "Siri thesis." Negro narrates a story from the 1939 conclave, when the smoke was also a confusing mixture of white and black, until the secretary of the conclave, one Monsignor Santoro, sent a note to Vatican Radio to advise that, so matter what color the smoke seemed, it was white, and that Eugenio Pacelli had been elected Pope Pius XII.

In the elder Gibson’s December newsletter, however, this "Siri thesis" is denounced as false, built on shoddy scholarship and inadequate fact checking.
[...]

We find this announcement by the elder Gibson interesting because it reveals two important things: (1) how people who are perplexed by change (in this case, some traditional Catholics), may grasp at untenable theories in order to explain disturbing realities; and yet (2) how an openness to sifting theories to ascertain their conformity to historical truth can persist even in these same traditionalist Catholic circles.

As one associate of the elder Gibson expressed it to us: "If the truth about our current confusion is ever to be clarified and understood, the necessary first step must be for those suspicious of Rome and of recent pontiffs to commit themselves to seeking the truth even if it goes against deeply-held positions arrived at without all the evidence in hand."

Thus, the "Siri thesis" has been dismantled by "insiders," members of that very traditional Catholic milieu which had been favorable to the idea in principle.
[...]

If this is the perspective of the most radical of the Catholic traditionalists, there seems room for guarded optimism about the possibility of coming to some sort of meeting of the minds over the questions which most trouble Catholic traditionalists, involving the changes in the Church’s liturgy and in her rites of ordination of priests and consecration of bishops. In this new pontificate, the time may have come for traditional Catholics and "conciliar Rome" to "reason together" to find a way forward in a complex and confusing world.

You saw Godfather III, right?

(ANSA) - Rome, October 6 - Some 175 people were called to testify Thursday at the start of a trial for the murder of 'God's Banker' Roberto Calvi, found hanging from a bridge in London more than 20 years ago .

The prosecution did not release its witness list but some experts think one may be the 81-year-old former head of the Vatican Bank, Cardinal Paul Marcinkus, who retired to Arizona shortly after the death of Calvi, the former head of Italy's biggest private bank .
[...]

Prosecutors claim there are other motives for the killing .

These include a desire on the part of those who commissioned the murder to gain leverage among Calvi's extensive network of contacts with masonic lodges, Vatican bank Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), political and institutional figures, and public-sector agencies .

Licio Gelli, 86, the convicted head of the subversive Propaganda Due (P2) lodge, is one of a dozen suspects in a related probe to establish who ordered the hit .
[...]

Read the complete article from ANSA.it.

Murder and mayhem surrounding on of Italy's largest banks at the time, the Vatican Bank and the elite secret lodge of Propaganda Due...

Future media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, currently Italian premier for the second time, took out membership shortly before Gelli's fall. He has claimed he thought the lodge was a sort of gentleman's club.

As you all no doubt recall from previous posts, this is also the same circle that is alleged by conspiracy theorists to have killed John Paul I because he was going to 'clean up' IOR and end the corruption.

I don't give any credence to such theories, but putting together the death of a Pope and Mafia mischief certainly makes of an interesting movie plot. I'm surprised that no one else over the years except Puzo and Coppola has tried. Given the fascination with the Mafia in the United States, it would probably do well.

Detente with the Masons?

Rome, Aug. 08, 2005 (CNA) - In an unusual show of “openness” to the Catholic Church, a Masonic lodge in Italy has announced the appointment of a Catholic priest as chaplain. The news was announced during an address to members of the lodge by Grand Master Fabio Venzi of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Italy.
[...]

Read the complete article Masonic Lodge in Italy appoints Catholic priest as chaplain, claims "openness" to Catholic Church from Catholic News Agency.

Freemasonry has alwasy intrigued me, though I've never really read a whole lot about it. Its relationship with the Church is perhaps my true interest. For instance, a portion of the sedevacantists of the world believe that there has been no pope since Pius XII died because John XXIII's election was invalid? Why? Because according to the theory, in the 1930s, John XXIII became a Freemason and thus incurred automatic excommunication. (More info can be found at Wikipedia.)

Then there's the case of P2 and the conxpiracy theories that surround it and the supposed membership of various high-ranking Church officials. The principal case is the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and the involvement of P2 and the Vatican Bank. If one goes down this path even further, one reaches the fringe where it is believed that John Paul I was murdered to prevent investigation of corruption in the Vatican Bank...

But we shalln't go there. In any case, if a Masonic Lodge wants to appoint a Catholic chaplain, I'm interested in seeing what, if any response there will be from the Church.

Pius XII: The Beginning

Sandro Magister at his column takes a look at two differing though not mutually exclusive theories on how the legend of Pius XII began and grew before, during and after World War II.

The Black Legend of Pius XII Was Invented by a Catholic: Mounier
And with him, another important Catholic: Mauriac. It wasn’t just communist propaganda that created the image of pope Pacelli as a Nazi-lover. Two pieces in two influential magazines have thrown new light on the origins of this image

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, 20 June 2005 – In the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica”, the Jesuit historian Giovanni Sale reconstructs the birth about the “black legend” of Pius XII as being pro-Hitler.

“La Civiltà Cattolica” is the magazine of Rome’s Jesuits whose articles are read and authorized by the Vatican’s secretariat of state before publication.

According to Fr Sale’s reconstruction, it was the international communist press, led by Moscow, that generated the black legend after the end of the second world war.

In the same period, in the latest issue of "Archivum Historiae Pontificiae", the annual magazine published by the faculty of ecclesiastic history at the Pontifical Gregorian University, also run by Jesuits, an article appeared by the historian Giovanni Maria Vian presenting a different reconstruction of the original of the black legend of Pius XII.

According to Vian, the accusations against Pius XII’s “silence” were brought about not only by soviet propaganda, but also French and Polish Catholics, especially two important intellectuals, Emmanuel Mounier and François Mauriac.
[...]

Read the complete article The Black Legend of Pius XII Was Invented by a Catholic: Mounier from www.chiesa.

In today's column, Magister links to a previous column written back in January of this year. A Son of the Church of Pius XII Breaks the Silence on His Sanctity features a note by Pietro De Marco entitled 'Towards an Evaluation of Pius XII'.

My Christian formation took place in the Church of Pius XII. My parish priests, my religion teachers were men of the Church of Pius XII. No anti-Semitic attitudes were transmitted to me, unless one maintains that the Creed, the Catechism, the Mass, and the Gospels were or are anti-Semitic. For years, I prayed on every Good Friday for the "perfidi Judaei," knowing since my youth that "perfidus" in Church Latin means "unbelieving" with respect to Christ.

My high school religion teacher and spiritual director – mine, and of many others in Florence – until the time of his death, Fr. Raffaele Bensi, was a priest of the Church of Pius XII, even though he had been trained for the priesthood during the two preceding pontificates. He was a priest of the Church of Pius XII also in his intense activity to help the Jews and the men of the Italian anti-fascist Resistance conducted during the war.

But I learned from Fr. Bensi that the Church, with the same courage and freedom with which it sought to help the Resistance and the Jews, also meant to save the lives of the men on the other side, when the defeated were made beasts to be hunted.

The Church of Pius XII was then still the sovereign Church in its judgment of history, in the decisions its men faced, in the horizons of ultimate choice to which these were called. It might err, in men just as in this or that act or judgment, but it drew its capacity for judgment and for jurisdiction from its own supernatural foundation: and in that, no circumstance founded otherwise could replace or compel it. This is the meaning of its "perfectio," which is strictly connected with martyrdom, because collision with other powers – even the most legitimate – is certain.
[...]

But I learned from Fr. Bensi that the Church, with the same courage and freedom with which it sought to help the Resistance and the Jews, also meant to save the lives of the men on the other side, when the defeated were made beasts to be hunted.

Should the Church take a stand? Should it have taken a stand? De Marco makes an excellent point, but it is also a terrible question. The Church's mission on Earth is ultimately saving souls through Christ so that they may find eternal life. Should Pius have taken a stand against Nazism or was his safe harbor for one and all to enter and find hope amid the carnage enough?

I am not in a position to answer such questions and explore their depths, but it is clear that Pius XII has been demonized by his enemies. Hitler had no qualms about taking Germany into a two-front war and including the US among its list of enemies. I don't think he would have had any qualms about wiping out the Holy See.

Look at the Parable of the Talent. Would a good vicar/regent/steward be considered responsible for overseeing the destruction of his master's goods and property?

Rapproachment with the Templars?

Given that the following comes from a publication dedicated to investigating conspiracy theories, I make no claims as to the actual veracity of the following...

Pope was investigating Knights Templar before his election at The Insider details how just before his election, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was requesting information from Herefordshire, UK historians and government offices on the history of the Templars in the area. A local historian refused to divulge who had requested information, saying only that it was a 'former cardinal'.

The inquiries follow the Templars’ demand last December for a papal apology by 2007 for their persecution by the Vatican almost 700 years ago.

The article goes on to describe Benedict XVI's role in the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office and before that the Inquisition) and how it was that organization that set out along with the King of France to suppress the Templars back in the fourteenth century.

This last part was entertaining:

Mr Acheson observes an ironic historical connection between the Templars and the name of the new Pope.

He added, cryptically: “The pontiff chose Benedict as his papal title, a name with special significance for the Knights Templar. The Rule of the Templars, which is like a code of conduct for the Order, was originally known as the Rule of Benedict.”

The Templars followed the Rule of St. Benedict along with... let's see... The Benedictines, the Cistercians, and a whole slew of other religious communities over the centuries. That's really fodder for historial ironies, isn't it? ;)

If this article is actually true, it would be interesting to see if this goes forward. After 700 years of deeming the Templars a cult of Satanists and warlocks along with its offshoots in Freemasonry, I seriously doubt the Vatican can seriously be pursuing this. Or maybe it is in the name of ecumenism?

Anyone have any comments?