WI Catholic Musings: 04/15/2007

Thoughts and Videos on Virginia Tech

We all have heard the story of Liviu Lebrescu, the Holocaust survivor who blocked the door with his body, and died at VT to save his students.

On April 18, 2007 U.S. President George Bush honored Librescu
at a memorial service held at the US Holocaust Museum
to a crowd that included many Holocaust survivors:
"That day we saw horror, but we also saw quiet acts of courage.
We saw this courage in a teacher named Liviu Librescu.
With the gunman set to enter his class, this brave professor blocked the door with his body while his students fled to safety.
On the Day of Remembrance, this Holocaust survivor gave his own life so that others may live.
And this morning we honor his memory and we take strength from his example."

Video Headline: Hero's Story

There are others who also were heroes:

Video Headline: Hokie Heroes

But another kind of hero also needs to be mentioned... and just as the Amish did when the gunman attacked their school, this man has done the same.... I often wonder if I have the courage to emulate these people for something so horrendous! Though I have learned that forgiveness is a CHOICE, not a feeling, and it does NOT mean 'approval' of the action of the other person... I still find it hard to live out. I still find myself struggling. And I have not had to face what this man and all the others have had to!

Video Headline: A Father's Pain

And then there is the family of the one who caused this... remember the earlier story about A Father's Pain? Too often we judge the parents as having failed, when it could simply be that it is solely the guilty person. How many families have several children, all but one are good and successful... Not knowing this family, we need to remember that they, too, have lost their son, AND have to live with what he did, perhaps what they failed to do.... or perhaps not anything at all that they did or did not do. Evil does exist. There are some who choose it, no matter what.

Video Headline: BYA Because You Asked: What information is available about family of Virginia Tech killer?

Then we listen to the names, to the brilliance of these 32 plus 1 people.... a few of them in this video piece. Undergraduates. Graduate students. PhD students. Professors. Some with families of their own. Not just from the US. From many countries. VT has chosen to graduate each of the deceased students in the field that they were studying in at the time of their deaths, and to issue the diplomas at the graduation ceremony.

So many gone, for what? We may never really have any answers. We may never really know... There IS evil in the world. Liviu Lebrescu lived through it long ago, and recognized it when he heard it begin. Though the person was different, the source was the same. Evil does exist.

Video Headline: Virginia Tech Update

There is another aspect to this that we need to think about, though, and that is the fact that we have forgotten that we have a right to defend ourselves, and that we must stand up to evil. Mark Steyn (author of America Alone ) was a guest of Neal Cavuto. I think that in this politically correct and very passive times, we need to listen, and remember what he has to say!

Video Headline: Confronting Evil

May they rest in peace.
May their families have peace, and many arms and shoulders to support them through this.
May God have mercy on Cho Seung-Hui.

God bless!

Clean Sweep in Bay Area Media for Stanford -- Walid Shoebat

Passing this on for your information.......

God bless!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shoebat.com

Friends

Stanford was the biggest and best event so far in our campaign for truth in the media.

The event got double coverage from Fox 2 news, Double coverage from CBS 5, Double coverage from ABC 7 and single coverage from NBC 11 as well as two hours of coverage from Ron Owens and Armstrong and Getty Talk talk radio shows, both leaders in ratings of their respective time slots.

Coverage was also given by LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press. Many regional newspapers covered the story through the AP coverage.

Based on Regional and National and international press we reached about 10 million people.

We are working hard to secure an event for next month. We will let you know when it happens.

We appreciate all who sent letters to the President of Stanford.

Shalom

Keith Davies
Director of The Shoebat Foundation

Liviu Lebrescu B Aug 18, 1930 D April 16, 2007

Imagine the peace of an early day suddenly rudely interrupted by shouting, screaming, gunshots....

Imagine seeing others shot before your eyes by ...madmen.

Imagine seeing hatred and coldness in the eyes of the executioner....

Imagine knowing that someone wants to kill you...wants to kill others with you... and not REALLY knowing why.

Imagine hearing someone pounding and pushing against a door, barricaded by whatever you can find, knowing that DEATH stands on the other side.....

Imagine having seen so much death... you survive.

Imagine living for sixty plus years, grateful, but at the same time wondering why you... instead of all those who should have... could have.... why is it YOU that did not die?

Imagine finding love, with someone who also survived the terror....

Imagine having lived not only under Nazi Germany as a Jew, but also Communist Romania....

Imagine that after many years, you are back there in your thoughts as you suddenly hear once again, shouting...screaming.... gun shots... and then you see ... him...with the same cold hatred in his eyes you recognize from so very long ago... having come this time for those you teach....and imagine choosing to stand against, and possibly save some of those young students as you give your own life trying to prevent .... murder.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,"
Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Mordecai said to Esther... "And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)

Perhaps Liviu Libresco was spared long ago.... for such a time as this....to instinctively ACT to save others from becoming victims of another .....on Yom Hashoah, the day chosen to remember those victims of the Holocaust.

Liviu Librescu, may you rest in peace...

Note: I originally had the wrong date in the title. I have now changed it.

Archbishop reconsiders, attends Holocaust memorial

Archbishop reconsiders, attends Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem

----snip----

"Since my action was not intended as a move to disassociate myself from the commemoration
but to call attention to the manner in which the pope is presented, my aim has been achieved,"
the archbishop told Vatican Radio before the memorial.

"I have no motives to keep up the tensions, and therefore I will participate in the ceremony," he added.

Yad Vashem on Sunday immediately welcomed the archbishop's decision to attend, saying it was
"the right thing to do." In a statement, it also said it
"was inappropriate to link an issue of historical research with commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust."

----snip----

As part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, sirens wailed throughout Israel for two minutes while Israelis stood silently to remember the victims

#30

May they rest in peace, may God have Mercy on all.

In remembrance of Liviu Lebrescu who laid down his own life trying to protect his students, having survived the Holocaust sixty some years before.

Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Liviu Lebrescu, Pius XII, WWII

Sarah Writes About VA Tech--Her Alma Mater's Terrible Day

My dear young friend is an alumnus of Virginia Tech, and wrote to our yahoo group of her disbelief at the events of today. She then went on to put her thoughts into words on her blog.

My prayers are for those students, their families and friends, and for all of the students, faculty of VA Tech, as well as the shooter and his/her family.

May they rest in peace, and may He have Mercy.

Sarah, my thoughts are with you.

God bless!

Labels: Fears, Memorial, Murder, Struggles

Update Leah Willover

Sometimes when one gets a prayer request, one waits to have an update. Such is the case for our request for prayer for Leah Willover last July!

After this length of time, one's tendency is to feel that perhaps there was not good news, even with the saying 'No news is good news'... but this is the recent update!!

"…and ______, you had asked about Leah. She has recovered, but she has a fairly rare form of cancer that is never "cured". It could pop up again at any time. What a difficult thing to live with!"

A definite Praise the Lord, and another encouragement to continue to pray for her!!

God bless!!

Labels: John Paul II Canonization, Prayers, UPDATE

Pius XII saved thousands of Jews, “black legend” spread by the Soviets

A Related Story to my last piece, and more.... :

Pius XII saved thousands of Jews, “black legend” spread by the Soviets

Rome, Apr 16, 2007 / 10:08 am (CNA).- Italian historian and professor Gian Maria Van of the Sapienza University of Rome said the “black legend,” which claims that Pope Pius XII did not help the Jews during World War II, was originally spread by the Soviets during the years of the conflict.

Van’s comments came in response to the recent refusal of the Apostolic Nuncio to Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco, to participate in the annual ceremony of the commemoration of the Shoah at the Museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. Museum officials had denied a request to remove or change of photo of Pius XII with a caption that indicated his “ambiguous” position regarding the Jews, when history shows that in reality he saved thousands. “This is an undeniable fact,” explained Professor Van.

Commenting about the way in which Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI combated the black legend about Pius XII, Van said there are “three points of continuity between these three Pontiffs: one, the historical defense of the memory of Pius XII, of his actions during the World War II and in response to the scandalous tragedy of the Holocaust;” second, “the honor to the memory of the six million victims of the Shoah,” and third, “the unquestionable will, on both parts, to proceed down the road of peace and reconciliation, as Benedict XVI has said in Auswitz, as John Paul II constantly and tenaciously preached and as Paul VI did during the time of the Council and during his pontificate.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Obed Ben-Hur, said this week, “We say one simple thing: as soon as it is possible to investigate, see and read the documents at the Vatican that pertain to the years of the war, an historical judgment will be able to be made.”

“After the letter by then-Nuncio Pietro Sambi (who also requested the caption be changed or the photo be removed), there was a response, there was consideration, a promise to re-examine, to the see the possibility of healing this situation, looking at it together. Meanwhile, apart from this, the memory of the Holocaust is what is being respected,” Ben-Hur said.

Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Pius XII, WWII

Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Franco & Holocaust commemoration

I heard bits and pieces of this story over the weekend, but did not get a chance to speak to it until tonight.

For a very long time, Pope Pius XII has been vilified by some for 'not doing enough' to save the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, presumably for not speaking out more, in spite of a New York Times Editorial published on Dec 25, 1941 that stated:

"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".

In spite of testimonies of the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Issac Herzog, or former Chief Rabbi of Rome, Eugenio Zolli who later converted to Catholicism; in spite of those like Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, and others of that time who spoke out in gratitude to him for saving many lives, Pius XII is still vilified.

In spite of MANY articles and books by Sr Margherita Marchione, Rabbi David Dalin, Ronald Rychlak, and others that disprove those like John Cornwall and those who disparage him.... it continues to this date.

For one man, it has gotten to be too much. He had written last year, voicing his concerns then, and again this year, finally deciding not to attend...

The Apostolic Nuncio to Jerusalem and Palestine, Archbishop Antonio Franco, has announced that he will not attend the annual ceremony in commemoration of the Holocaust due to be held next week at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum of Jerusalem. The Vatican representative said he was refusing to participate after Yad Vashem refused to remove an inflammatory and highly contested description of Pope Pius XII.

The article ends with Archbishop saying:

Franco adamantly added that his refusal to attend the ceremony,
“does not mean I am disrespectful of the memory and the victims of this tragedy.
This is out of the question!”

“In reading the papers today I refuse point-blank to say the Catholic Church
and the Holy See have any responsibility for not helping out the Jews,
with all they did.
That photo offends all of the Catholic Church. And that’s what I wanted to make clear.”

A reader from Canada left this comment at the site:

The Catholic Church played a major role during the Second World War saving 32,000 Italian Jews and several thousand foreign Jews with the help of the Italian people, successfully hiding most of them in monasteries and religious institutions. In a book entitled "The Assisi Underground The Priests who rescued Jews" by Alexander Ramati as told by Padre Rufino Niccacci, "the Italians showed great restraint in telling of their actions which had resulted in saving 80 per cent of Italian Jewry, the opposite of what happened in the rest of Europe, where except for Denmark with its 8,000 Jews spirited away to Sweden, 80 per cent of the Jews perished." All this despite the fact that Italy was governed by Facist Dictator Mussolini, who was in cahoots with Germany, and helping Jews escape some Priests were shot on the spot. Pope Pius XII did not speak up more publicly because he did not want to jepardize the entire rescue operation and put the lives of these Priests and religious at stake. To suggest that Pope Pius XII did not know what all these Priests, monasteries and religious institutions were doing in this major rescue effort defies all logic and reason. "Monsignore Montini, who headed the Holy See's Aid Service to Refugees during the War, and who in 1955 was to become Cardinal and later on Pope Paul VI, turned down the Gold medal offered him by the Jewish Community of Italy. 'I acted in the line of duty,' he answered, 'and for that I am not entitled to a medal.' Well said!

I have to agree with you, George Angel of Canada, and to YOU, I also add my own.... WELL SAID!!

God Bless!!

Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Pius XII, Sr. Margherita Marchione, WWII

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Thoughts and Videos on Virginia Tech

Thursday, April 19, 2007