Cardinal Condemns “Revisionist” History of the Holocaust

by USCCB on December 16, 2006 · 0 comments

 

In a statement entitled We Must Remember the Shoah, Cardinal William H. Keeler said the US bishops stand in solidarity with the Universal Church in condemning "revisionist history" that seeks to minimize the horror of the Holocaust.

The Cardinal cited a December 12 statement issued by the Holy See alluding to the teaching of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI: "The Shoah (the Holocaust) was an enormous tragedy, before which one cannot remain indifferent…the memory of those terrible facts must remain a warning for consciences with the aim of eliminating conflicts, respecting the legitimate rights of all peoples and calling for peace in truth and justice."

"Here in the United States, we have a wide range of resources to use in fostering Holocaust education not only in Catholic schools but in private and public schools as well," Cardinal Keeler said. He noted that in preparing those resources, the US Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs cited two major reasons why studying the significance of the holocaust should be central to the curriculum of Catholic education:

"First, the Holocaust was not a random act of mass murder but ‘a war against the Jews as the People of God, the First Witness to God's revelation and the eternal bearers of that witness through all the centuries,'" the Cardinal stated. "Second, future generations need to be ever vigilant so that ‘the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism (will) never again be allowed to take root in the human heart'."

Cardinal Keeler issued the statement against the background of a December 11-12 conference in Iran at which speakers sought to diminish the scope of the holocaust.

Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore, is Episcopal Moderator for Catholic-Jewish Relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Click here to read the full text of the statement of Cardinal Keeler.

By United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

  • Guest

    I think it is just as important to remember the saints who stood up to the Nazis. To study their holiness, their bravery, their refusal to abandon the teachings of their Lord and Saviour. Too many Holocaust events I’ve been to locally have had elements of Catholic bashing and pope bashing–much of it from fallen-away Catholics grinding an axe.

  • Guest

    Pope bashing – Across WWII, Pius XII was so focused on helping Jews as he could through his offices and orders, the head Jewish Rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism.

    WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT THAT IN TWELVE YEARS OF CATHOLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION?

    And, I wonder – How ever were they Catholic, these fallen away? And, now what have they so proudly theirs that they can think to bash Catholicism? These weirdly cultish modern Protestant congregations?
    *
    I remain your obedient servant, but God’s first,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @mail.catholicexchange.com or …yahoo.com)

  • Guest

    “”First, the Holocaust was not a random act of mass murder but ‘a war against the Jews as the People of God, the First Witness to God’s revelation and the eternal bearers of that witness through all the centuries,’” the Cardinal stated.”

    Gee, that’s funny, I thought the war against the Jews by Hitler was (as he put it) a war against Jewish Bolshevism, which itself nearly took control of Germany in the 20′s through anarchy and fighting in the streets. (Guess who faced them in these German cities?) Later these same tyrannical agents instituted Collectivization, starving to death millions of Christians in the Soviet Union.

    Bolsheviks also turned families against each other and outlawed Christianity while blowing up churches and dealing bullets to the head for people of God. It is the biggest crock to play the game that blames only Germans. The Germans knew what the Bolsheviks were going to do and said “We’re taking over EVERYTHING.” Is that God’s way? No. But it’s Darwin’s who many Jews profess faith in; funny that it’s these same voices who condemn Nazis the loudest.

    Were the Germans right to launch preemptive war? Again I say NO. But that’s not the question here. The question is “Should historical inquiry for sensitive subjects be a right of freedom to all peoples?” YES!!!

    The cardinal is being so politically correct he can’t even think for himself. Why doesn’t he stop pretending his deference is being given to God’s Chosen rather than to the power of the world media. (A power btw, which helps spew more pornography and abortion on our children than any other) I humbly request he ask our Lord for wisdom. It’s not surprising the church is having so many problems with leadership after Vatican II.

    I also pray for a blessing upon the Jews, they will turn to the Lord.

  • Guest

    While the current state of Israel takes more pseudo-diplomatic abuse than it should, it can be noted that the Jewish people, in part from desperation to be empowered and in part out of clinging to a fringe movement as they were a fringe part of the various populations, have been complicite in some pretty awful trafficking in violence. I can’t say that such violence, however, came out of some Judeao-Bolshevik philosophy. Marxism just doesn’t of itself marginalize ethnic groupings but vague economic groupings.

    The again, too, Jews had no compunction against stoning Stephen. Saint Paul wasn’t off to Damascus for ‘ongoing dialogues’, eh?

    However – if Christian populations did not so marginalize and persecute Jews, for centuries and with inquisitions and various exiles, would they have been vulnerable to Marxist-Bolshevik-communist-collectist vampings, as they were and continue to be? For, many Jews nowadays do demonstrate that they are just like so many of the rest of us – still clinging to socialistic stupidity and entitlism like a wet blanket thinking to warm ice. E.g., forty-plus percent of Catholics voting for Kerry?

    That said, the cardinal was showing his Shoah leanings from being integrally involved in the Catholic-Jewish dialogues. And, of course, he is too typical of our ordinaries in trying to be, yes, politically correct. Would to God that they were so Catholicly correct.

    I remain your obedient servant, but God’s first,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @mail.catholicexchange.com or …yahoo.com)

  • Guest

    I might be willing to agree with you except for the fact that people are receiving jail time for stating personal opinions. This isn’t the Soviet Union we’re living in. (Or Israel for that matter where it’s illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews.)

  • Guest

    Jews need dispensations to marry non-Jews – that is Orthodox even in the Church. You can’t just up and marry out of the Faith.

    However, zephyr, who is getting jail time where for expressing personal opinions? And, even if you name names, elaborate your point relative to the topic of the cardinal’s statement.

    I remain your obedient servant, but God’s first,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @mail.catholicexchange.com or …yahoo.com)