Cardinal von Galen -- "Jesus Weeps for Us"

Seventy years ago today, August 4th 1941, Clemens August von Galen, the Catholic Bishop of Munster, delivered his famous sermon against Acton T4 the Nazi euthanasia program. This was the last stage of a Eugenics program to rid Germany of persons with genetic disabilities. It set the stage for the large scale exterminations of able bodied persons because of their ethnic, notional, or religious background. The publicity forced the Nazi's to officially stop the program though it continued unofficially. Three of his priests were killed in retaliation and von Galen was only spared to prevent him from becoming a martyr.

I previously posted the main part of this sermon. Click here











But a sermon is meant to heard not read. A representation of the sermon

Jesus Weeps for Us

Starts at 4 mintes.

And continues here
and here
and here

Change a few names for context and this sermon could (and should) be delivered in many places today.

Book Review: The Traitor

Grigori is a traitor. But whom and how many has he betrayed?



Book Review: The Traitor
Author: Lvar Divomlikoff
Publisher: Popular Library, 1976
Originally published in French as Le Traitre.
By Editions Robert Morel, 1972




This novel tells the story of Grigori, KGB officer at the end of World War II, who is offered a twenty-year mission to infiltrate the Russian Orthodox Church. Twenty years later he still thinks in his mind that believers are suppositious fools, but when meeting with his superior, his first thought is how to save the superior’s soul. His superior tells him the mission will be terminated. He is to write a letter to a noted professor ”confessing” his error in being a priest, denouncing the Church and the faith, after which he will be given a cincture as a professor of atheism at the university, and undoubtedly serve as a spy there.


He first walks into a seminary and states he had a conversion during the war and wants to be a priest. He is accepted with little checking because it is impossible in post war confusion. After three years while the seminary is being closed by local authorities, he attacks the soldiers who are closing it against the instructions of the Rector. He is thrown in jail by the local police who know nothing of his mission. In doing this he has betrayed both the Church and the Service.

After letting Grigori stew a while and a solid reprimand the KGB gets him released with instructions to find the proper authorities and be ordained. In the Orthodox Church one can be ordained a celibate monk or after reaching a certain age as a celibate priest. Otherwise he has to be married. To be a Bishop, which is the eventual goal, he has to be a celibate monk or priest. The last surviving member of the faculity recommends him as a priest but not a monk. He is too young to be ordained without being married. But in looking for the proper authorities he met a girl who dreams of being the wife of parish priest. He proposes and she accepts. He does not see this as a problem to becoming a Bishop because she can be run over by truck in a year or two. He is validly, if sacrilegiously and blasphemously, ordained.

He spends the next seventeen years in several parishes; to maintain his cover he enthusiastically performs his priestly duties, often illegally. He becomes influential in the affairs of the Church. His wife’s tenderness wins and softens his heart, and she makes the best borsht in the world.

Grigori turns in his “confession.” Waiting for the summons to be recalled, he celebrates what he expects is his last Divine Liturgy, glad that he will never participate in that farce again. At the consecration he bows, comes up, and Christ is present on the altar. A fact of which he is absolutely certain. He does not like it but a fact is a fact, the party and KGB are wrong and the Church is right. Pondering on his way home to some of his wife’s borsht he is arrested.


His mission is reviewed under torture, his new faith gives him the strength to survive it, but he is never asked the question about his current belief that would send him to a firing squad. He passes the test, his wife is run over by a runaway truck and he is released from jail. Between his reputation, his witness to the faith under torture, and KGB string pulling, he is ordained a bishop. He confesses the truth to the Patriarch who tells him not worry, there is plenty of time for martyrdom and he will do much good before the KGB figures it out.



This psychological drama is good read. Mildly annoying is the translator used the terminology of the Western Church in describing the Russian Orthodox Church. The plot is completely in agreement with everything I have heard of life under the Soviets. Long out of print if you find a copy it is worth reading.

I found this book which I read a long time ago while moving things at home. The story has remained with me especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall. As the news stories of how the Church survived and of clergy at various levels of loyalty came out my mind ran back to poor Grigori. No great lessons just a context to view the events.

If he survived until the overthrow, a Grigori would have betrayed to many to ever be restored to anything more than a back pew parishioner, but there is the strange irony that to maintain his cover he was a more effective priest, who brought Christ and salvation to more people, than a sincere priest could ever have done without being arrested. And he betrayed them to martyrdom.



Pray for the persecuted Church everywhere.

Related (added 11/12/11): Resurection

Book Review: Left to Tell

Left to Tell – Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
Immaculee Ilibagiza
Hay House, 2006
Left to Tell Fund



Most everyone knows in general that in 1994 there was a genocide of over a million people in Rwanda as the world stood by. Numbers so large we lose any sense of individuals. Immaculee Ilibagiza rivets us the events as they happened to her, her family and acquaintances as she was one of the few who was left to tell their story

From the life of a child in a loving family and a student who is only loosely aware of national politics she is suddenly thrown into the maelstrom of a Civil War that turns into genocide against own her people. Hidden in a bathroom for three months with seven other women she emerges to find her family dead, many whom she had thought friends had been part of the killing. She learns that the only way survive as a human being, not just some one who was not killed, means she has to have faith and trust in God and forgive those who killed her family and friends.

The surreal horror is seen in joy of finding a friend she thought dead, and finding out he was hidden by someone who went out every day to join the killers.

This is a riveting well written account that should be mandatory reading for every one.

Many things can be said about the genocide, but is perhaps best to remind ourselves of the teaching of the Catholic Faith that gave her the strength of survive.

Look in the mirror - the person looking back at you is not so very far from being the hero or villain in a similar situation. Pray that Christ’s Grace and Mercy give us all the wisdom to see the difference and the strength to act.


Grant them Eternal Rest Oh Lord, and let your Perpetual Light shine upon them.


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See Also

R J Rummel’s Power Kills Site Most every thing you want to know about Genocide and more.

What is Genocide

Book Review: Death by Government

Genocide/Democide Topic.

Blessed Clemens August Cardinal von Galen

On August 4th 1941 Clemens August von Galen, the Catholic Bishop of Munster, delivered his famous sermon against Acton T4 the Nazi euthanasia program. This was the last stage of a Eugenics program to rid Germany of persons with genetic disabilities. It set the stage for the large scale exterminations of able bodied persons because of their ethnic, notional, or religious background. The publicity forced the Nazi's to officially stop the program though it continued unofficially. Three of his priests were killed in retaliation and von Galen was only spared to prevent him from becoming a martyr.


The Gospel and Sermon of Bishop von Galen on euthanasia delivered August 4, 1941.

The Gospel for the Ninth Sunday, after Pentecost. Luke 19:41-47

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation."

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers."

And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people sought to destroy him.


The Sermon.

Excerpts

In today's Gospel we read of an unusual event: Our Saviour weeps. Yes, the Son of God sheds tears. Whoever weeps must be either in physical or mental anguish. At that time Jesus was not yet in bodily pain and yet here were tears. What depth of torment He must have felt in His heart and Soul, if He, the bravest of men, was reduced to tears. Why is He weeping?

snip

My faithful brethren! In the pastoral letter drawn up by the German Hierarchy on the 26th of June at Fulda and appointed to be read in all the churches of Germany on July 6th, it is expressly stated: ‘According to Catholic doctrine, there are doubtless commandments which are not binding when obedience to them requires too great a sacrifice, but there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can release us and which we must fulfill even at the price of death itself. At no time, and under no circumstances whatsoever, may a man, except in war and in lawful defence, take the life of an innocent person.’

snip

For the past several months it has been reported that, on instructions from Berlin, patients who have been suffering for a long time from apparently incurable diseases have been forcibly removed from homes and clinics. Their relatives are later informed that the patient has died, that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be claimed. There is little doubt that these numerous cases of unexpected death in the case of the insane are not natural, but often deliberately caused, and result from the belief that it is lawful to take away life which is unworthy of being lived.

This ghastly doctrine tries to justify the murder of blameless men and would seek to give legal sanction to the forcible killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated. I have discovered that the practice here in Westphalia is to compile lists of such patients who are to be removed elsewhere as ‘unproductive citizens,’ and after a period of time put to death. This very week, the first group of these patients has been sent from the clinic of Marienthal, near Münster.

Paragraph 21 of the Code of Penal Law is still valid. It states that anyone who deliberately kills a man by a premeditated act will be executed as a murderer. It is in order to protect the murderers of these poor invalids—members of our own families—against this legal punishment, that the patients who are to be killed are transferred from their domicile to some distant institution. Some sort of disease is then given as the cause of death, but as cremation immediately follows it is impossible for either their families or the regular police to ascertain whether death was from natural causes.

snip

No, these are not the reasons why these unfortunate patients are to be put to death. It is simply because that according to some doctor, or because of the decision of some committee, they have no longer a right to live because they are ‘unproductive citizens’. The opinion is that since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete machines, comparable with some old cow that can no longer give milk or some horse that has gone lame. What is the lot of unproductive machines and cattle? They are destroyed. I have no intention of stretching this comparison further. The case here is not one of machines or cattle which exist to serve men and furnish them with plenty. They may be legitimately done away with when they can no longer fulfil their function. Here we are dealing with human beings, with our neighbours, brothers and sisters, the poor and invalids . . . unproductive—perhaps! But have they, therefore, lost the right to live? Have you or I the right to exist only because we are ‘productive’? If the principle is established that unproductive human beings may be killed, then God help all those invalids who, in order to produce wealth, have given their all and sacrificed their strength of body. If all unproductive people may thus be violently eliminated, then woe betide our brave soldiers who return home, wounded, maimed or sick.

Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill. If this dreadful doctrine is permitted and practised it is impossible to conjure up the degradation to which it will lead. Suspicion and distrust will be sown within the family itself.A curse on men and on the German people if we break the holy commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ which was given us by God on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, and which God our Maker imprinted on the human conscience from the beginning of time! Woe to us German people if we not only licence this heinous offence but allow it to be committed with impunity!

Snip

My dearly Beloved, I trust that it is not too late. It is time that we realized today what alone can bring us peace, what alone can save us and avert the divine wrath. We must openly, and without reserve, admit our Catholicism. We must show by our actions that we will live our lives by obeying God's commandments. Our motto must be: Death rather than sin. By pious prayer and penance we can bring down upon us all, our city and our beloved German land, His grace and forgiveness.

snip

O my God, grant to us all now on this very day, before it is too late, a true realization of the things that are for peace. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, oppressed even unto tears by the blindness and sins of men, help us by Thy grace to seek always what is pleasing to Thee and reject what is displeasing, so that we may dwell in Thy Love and find rest in our souls. Amen.


Let Us Pray

Father

We ask for:

The end of Euthanasia and all varieties of Demicide and Genocide.
Eternal life for the victims of Euthanasia
True repentance and thus forgiveness of it’s perpetrators.
That all Bishops and persons in authority follow the example Blessed von Galen.
That everyone oppose Euthanasia as there station and opportunity permits.

We ask this with Blessed von Galen, all your saints, and your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit.
AMEN



Related

Death by Government

Never Again and Again and Again
Rwanda and Darfur Compared
Cause Not Harm
Abraham Lincoln on Terri Schaivo
Who Needs a White Sheet

Perpetua and Felicity – Martyrs

Today is the Feast day of the Perpetua and Felicity and Companions. They were martyred in Carthage in 203. The account of there passion is widely anthologized. When I first read it in a public library (pre-internet) I had to fight back the tears. Widely popular in the early Church, so much so that Augustine had to remind his congregation it was not part of Scripture. Of note is that part of the account is in Perpetua’s own words, one of the very few examples of a feminine voice in the early Church or from that era of history.

Most often the martyrs death in the arena is excerpted, instead I am excerpting Perpetua’s account of the trial. Note that at any point she could have offered a token sacrifice to the Emperor and walked away free.

If the current trends of trying to force medical persons to engage in abortion and handle contraceptives against their will, requiring religious institutions to support gay marriage contrary to thier faith as a condition to operate, and generally praticing religious intolerance in the name of tolerance, this sort of scene may be reenacted all to often.


[W]e were still under legal surveillance and my father was liked to vex me with his words and continually strove to hurt my faith because of his love: Father, said I, Do you see (for examples) this vessel lying, a pitcher or whatsoever it may be? And he said, I see it. And I said to him, Can it be called by any other name than that which it is? And he answered, No. So can I call myself nought other than that which I am, a Christian.

Snip

A few days after, the report went abroad that we were to be tried. Also my father returned from the city spent with weariness; and he came up to me to cast down my faith saying: Have pity, daughter, on my grey hairs; have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be, called father by you; if with these hands I have brought you unto this flower of youth- and I-have preferred you before all your brothers; give me not over to the reproach of men. Look upon your brothers; look upon your mother and mother's sister; look upon your son, who will not endure to live after you. Give up your resolution; do not destroy us all together; for none of us will speak openly against men again if you suffer aught.


This he said fatherly in his love, kissing my hands and grovelling at my feet; and with tears he named me, not daughter, but lady. And I was grieved for my father's case because he would not rejoice at my passion out of all my kin; and I comforted him, saying: That shall be done at this tribunal, whatsoever God shall please; for know that we are not established in our own power, but in God's. And he went from me very sorrowful.

Another day as we were at meal we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the forum. Therewith a report spread abroad through the parts near to the forum, and a very great multitude gathered together. We went up to the tribunal. The others being asked, confessed. So they came to me. And my father appeared there also, with my son, and would draw me from the step, saying: Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child. And Hilarian the procurator - he that after the death of Minucius Timinian the proconsul had received in his room the right and power of the sword - said: Spare your father's grey hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperors' prosperity. And I answered: I am a Christian. And when my father stood by me yet to cast down my faith, he was bidden by Hilarian to be cast down and was smitten with a rod. And I sorrowed for my father's harm as though I had been smitten myself; so sorrowed I for his unhappy old age. Then Hilarian passed sentence upon us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully we went down to the dungeon.



HT: Amy Welborn’s Open Book

Update (09/19/2009):

Catholic Hero’s of the Faith has produced a video on St Perpetua. Avaliable at Amazon

Intended for younger people 8 and up, but it seems suitable for all ages. There is also a documentary and a Fun Page

Checkout the trailers


HT: Fathers of the Faith

Abraham Lincoln on Terri Schiavo

In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrent of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

Lincoln Douglan debate June 26,1857


Ok, he is talking about the Dred Scott decision. But with minor changes for gender and place to indict the guilty who could tell. At least Dred Scott was not starved to death.


Christopher Blosser does round ups better than any one. Check it out.