www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE 1-8 MAY 2005

I just found this website last night as my son's drama class is acting our "The Diary of Anne Frank" please logon to http://www.ushm.org for 1-8 May 2005, Days of Remembrance, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Reason for my posting this is my son and I know a Jewish couple whose entire families perished in Auschwitz and the number on their arms does disturb my son whose 13. And also, our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul the Great, as I recall would not baptize Jewish children as Roman Catholics. Let's not forget the Holocaust!

My mother & I are going to the annual memorial service this evening at the synagogue in her hometown. I went last year for the first time and would encourage everyone to start attending such services.
I've also been to Dachau in Germany. It's beyond belief that such a thing could ever happen!

And also, our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul the Great, as I recall would not baptize Jewish children as Roman Catholics.

I seriously doubt that John Paul II would have ever said something like this. Otherwise his words must have been taken out of context.

What you said, implies a horrible lack of charity toward children who are inocent and not responsable for having been born in a non-christian religion which jeopardizes their eternal salvation.

True charity was that of Pope Pius IX, he actualy raised a Jewish boy who had been baptized and who, after reconciling with his parents became a Catholic priest. Christian virtue was also that of the Orthodox and Catholic priests, prisioners of Nazi camps, who baptized and evangelized Jewish people, who died in knowledge of Christ.

Mexican,

The refusal of His Holiness, as a priest in Poland, to baptize a Jewish child is well-documented. From Zenit:

TEL AVIV, MAR 26 (ZENIT.org).- Among the Jews who have closely followed John Paul II's visit to Israel is Eliahu Wajcer, an engineer from Beer Sheba in Negev, and a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, who in a letter written a few days ago (enclosing photocopies of an old magazine) requested Avraham Burg, president of the Israeli Parliament to proclaim Karol Wojtyla "Just Among the Nations," the highest recognition given by Israel to those who did everything possible to rescue Jews from extermination.

In his letter, Wajcer wrote that "John Paul II has done more than anyone to reconcile the Church with the Jewish people." He adds, "To offer the recognition of 'Just' would enable the opening of a new page in the history between Jews and Christians."

Up to this time, neither the president of the Parliament nor the Yad Va-Shem Memorial to the Holocaust have commented on the initiative. The proclamation of "Just" requires thorough historical research, direct testimony, and months of work, much like the Church's canonization process.

Wajcer, who was a fellow-inmate with writer Elie Wiesel and of Israel Meir Lau, the current Grand Rabbi of the Ashkenazim of Israel, at Buchenwald concentration camp, continues to be interested in Polish culture. Therefore, he often goes to the library to page through magazines of contemporary history, among which is "Zank," a publication produced in Warsaw.

"In the May-June, 1988, issue, writer Stanislav Krajewski described in detail a story about Karol Wojtyla," Wajcer explained. This is information that is not new, but that is not widely known in Israel.

Wajcer takes up the case of a Krakow Jewish couple who in 1942, feeling endangered by the anti-Semitic persecutions, entrusted their 2-year old child to Catholic friends. At the end of the war, it was proved that the child's natural parents had died. Meanwhile, the Catholic friends had become very attached to the child and wished to baptize him. They asked the advice of Fr. Karol Wojtyla who counseled them, to their surprise, that if the natural parents wanted their son raised in the Jewish faith, that is what should happen.

The couple made all kinds of difficult research to find other relatives of the child. Finally, they located relatives in the United States who agreed to receive him. "That child became an orthodox Jew," Wajcer said. According to the engineer, this gesture of Wojtyla's surprised Polish Rabbi Israel Spira, known as "the just of Lubishev." "God has mysterious ways to reveal his will," Rabbi Spira explained to his students in commenting on Wojtyla's example. "To save a soul in Israel is tantamount to saving the whole world. This priest is worthy of becoming a Pope."

What the future Pope told the family who wanted to baptize the Jewish child was really nothing new. It is what the Catholic Church has taught throughout history, although it has not always been applied by the Church's children. At the Council of Toledo it was affirmed that until a Jewish child reached the use of reason, he could not be baptized against his parents' will, even if they had died. This teaching was set forth systematically by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae, Part III, Question 68, Article 10.
ZE00032608
Will John Paul II Be Proclaimed "Just Among The Nations?" [zenit.org]

Many years,

Neil

May the memory of all who perished in the Nazi concentration camps be eternal and blessed. Prayers that the sin of genocide never again be committed against the Jews or any other peoples of this earth.

AMEM, AMEN, AMEN. From your mouth to God's ear.
Pray without ceasing...Mike

That child was kidnapped from his parents. I am glad the Catholic Church has moved on from such abuses that happened during the period of the Papal States and as Pius XI said "we are all spiritual Semites"

May the Lord have mercy on those who were victims of the satanic Nazis.

I just hope that the Israeli will have enough love one day in their hearts to forgive, and maybe, just maybe, even demolish the biggest Concentration camp left in the world called Gaza and build there instead a country of brothers who are united with Israel by peace.

Hi Brian

I wouldn't say he was kidnapped. He had been baptized before when he was thought to be an orfan and the law prescribed that Christian children could not be raised by non-christians.

It was not Edgardo's wish to return to his parents, he only lived with them for about 1 month until he decided to become a priest. He always said that the Pope had been like a father to him.

This day must also be a day of remembrance of millions of Germans, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians and peoples of other nationalities in defence of their nations, as well as inocent civilians who perished in the hands of the Communist and allied troops.

May the Lord have mercy on them-

This is disputed and one must take into consideration the influence over a young boy in that situation. I am glad the Papal States with such laws has passed into history.

I agree with you about remembering all who suffered. The Holocaust however can never be minimized when speaking of WWII. It's shadow and it's repetition in genocides occuring now will always remain with us. It is our duty to fight against the ideology that fostered it.