VeryOT Catholic Stuff
Which seems appropriate here, since GSTRF needs lots of prayer!
At your invitation Maurice, I am responding to our exchange on the main GSTRF Board.
You said: "It does seem very weird for The Chief Rabbi of Rome to convert to Catholicism - surely that was while Hitler was still ascendant and a way to escape murder? Not a real conversion."
Au contrare! It was after the war, when the Pope's actions on behalf of Italian Jews became known. Faith comes to us unbidden, and in this case it was the quiet efforts of Pius, as head of the church, to save Italian jews that so moved the rabbi to conversion. If it can happen to Saul of Tarsus and to me [a Catholic convert], it can happen to anyone.
And when I asked what you would do under the same circumstances, I was not asking you as a private citizen. Being a soldier is dangerous as hell, but is easy compared to the moral responsibility and peril heads of state who have a conscience can experience [Bill Clinton obviously excluded]. For you to suggest that the Pope should flip off his cassock, pick up a gun, start killing Germans, and to leave the entire church hierarchy which has existed for two thousand years and has been entrusted to his care to be crushed out of existence at the whim of a madman is way too glib. Pius walked a tough line, and did it excedingly well, considering his responsibilities. FDR did much the same thing before Pearl Harbor, walking a line doing as much as he could for the British Empire but without the option of going directly to war which the American people would not have allowed until after the Japs bombed us. I'm no fan of FDR, but I won't vilify him for doing the best he could given his responsibilities, and I'd suggest you cut Pius the same break. Risking your own death is bad enough. To risk the death of the hierarchy of the faith of a billion people is more of a burden than I'd like to take. Hand me a gun instead.
I really do believe in matters of faith you would be wise to defer to me, since I still hold my shares of GSTRF, although only God knows why. Obviously I am drunk with faith.
BTW, I loved the jet-powered beer cooler that GG posted. Hilarious.
BlaineK |
