Tired of ignorant Irish bishops likening Gaza to a prison? Or prejudiced German bishops comparing Jewish self-defence to Nazi behaviour?

Let us recall some good Catholics. The German bishops who likened Israel to their own Nazi forebears might learn a lesson from this Polish woman. Irena Sendler was among their victims.

Irena Sendler saved nearly 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis, organizing a ring of 20 Poles to smuggle them out of the Warsaw Ghetto in baskets and ambulances.

The Nazis arrested her, but she didn’t talk under torture. After she survived the war, she expressed regret - for doing too little.

The German Catholic bishops should humbly note the following detail.

Lawmakers in Poland’s Senate disagreed Wednesday, unanimously passing a resolution honoring her and the Polish underground’s Council for Assisting Jews, of which her ring of mostly Roman Catholics was a part.

Reminder: the bishops were not even brave enough to criticize Israel while they were there, but waited until they were safely in the land of her enemies.
It took additional courage for these Polish Catholics to do so much for Jews, not just in the face of Nazi dangers, but threats from fellow Poles.

Allegations of anti-Semitism in Poland have continued to the present day.

Kaczynski’s government has been chided for its coziness with Roman Catholic Radio Maryja, which aired a commentary last year accusing Jews of ”trying to force our government to pay extortion money disguised as compensation payments” for property lost during World War II, saying it was part of a ”Holocaust business.”

Poland’s chief rabbi was punched and attacked with what appeared to be pepper spray in downtown Warsaw last year in what police said may have been an anti-Semitic attack.

And let us not forget the heroic Odoardo Focherini.

The Catholic journalist Odoardo Focherini saved more than 100 Jews before he died in a concentration camp during World War II, at the age of 37.

He was remembered recently by the Catholic Union of the Italian Press on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. "The journalist was the administrative director of L'Avvenire d'Italia and president of the Italian segment of Catholic Action."

Focherini organized a network to move Jews out of Italy to safety in Switzerland. He was arrested for this on March 11, 1944. After stops in several prisons, he died from an infected leg wound on Dec. 27, 1944, in the Hersbruck concentration camp in Germany

The leopard cannot change its spots, we are told. Christian Aid is not a leopard, though – it is an organization made up of human beings with free will, who can make choices either for or against evil. In their case, the spots are more like boils, filled with… oh, never mind. You might be eating something as you read this.

Christian Aid supports Palestinian terrorists who have stated openly that they will “drink the blood of Jews”, and refuse to recognize the Jewish State.

Lift boycott on new Palestinian government says Christian Aid

The UK government must engage with Palestinian political leaders to end the humanitarian crisis and revive the peace process, following the formation of a national unity government. If the crippling boycott of the Occupied Palestinian Territories continues public administration will collapse, Christian Aid has warned.

Rival politicians from Hamas and Fatah announced the formation of the national unity government on Saturday after months of negotiations. This is a bold initiative that deserves international recognition and support.

Just because two terrorist gangs have joined up to form one big terrorist gang doesn’t make them any better.

The Palestinian Authority has been starved of funds since Hamas was elected in January 2006. Israel has also been withholding millions it owes the Palestinian Authority in tax revenues.

Ah, poor things! But, wait a minute – what’s this?

Palestinian aid rises to $1.2 b.

International aid to the Palestinians grew from about $1 billion in 2005 to more than $1.2 billion in 2006, despite a boycott of the Hamas-led government, officials said Wednesday.

Much of it was emergency aid from Europe, the United Nations and the Arab world that was funneled to people outside the government to ease a humanitarian crisis largely triggered by the international sanctions.

But Christian Aid prefers it to go the Combined-Terrorist-Government which refuses to recognize Israel or to renounce violence.

Some damage limitation has been operating since the German Bishops told us how they really felt about Israel. Is it cynical to suspect that this is only because there were so many protests about them likening Israelis to Nazis?

More Catholic and Anglican failure to see the obvious is demonstrated in Dr Irene Lancaster’s The Blind Leading the Blind

Interesting that the Catholic Tablet of March 10th devotes a long article to a Catholic Bishop who supports Venezuelan 'acclaimed populist leader, Hugo Chavez'. The author of this article states that Chavez 'has ... been the object of charater assassination - not least in Britain - which suggests, mendaciously, that he is an anti-Semitic dicator ....'

I think people can judge for themselves.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1157913656782

But then, there was another populist leader once and the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to that one as well, when it wasn't actually endorsing him.

So no wonder it can report the recent statement made by Catholic German Bishops here in the 'Holy Land', in which the Warsaw Ghetto (as seen in Yad Vashem) is compared to the 'Ramallah ghetto', not as a Catholic prejudice but simply as 'Germans re-open old wounds'

Irene points out something forgotten by those who are keen to blame Israel for all the problems of the Palestinians.

As my grandmother, who I never knew, died in the Warsaw Ghetto at the hands of German and Polish Catholics, I take great exception to the present generation of German Catholics comparing Ramallah, which is under the jurisdiction of Hamas, and before that of Arafat and his cronies, to the unspeakable cesspit in which my grandmother and millions like her, perished for the crime of being Jewish.

The writer of the Tablet article (Hugh O’Shaunessy) also dismissed Chavez reference to Bush as “the Devil” as a mere ‘diplomatic blunder’. If Bush called Chavez the Devil, would he laugh that off as a little diplomatic blunder, also? I could make a diplomatic blunder or two about the writer, but enough of that. Mention of the Devil has just reminded me of the St John Chrysostom theory of road resurfacing in hell. Maybe it's paved with a few skulls of journalists as well as bishops.

...but I didn't. Catholic Friends of Israel comments on the German Bishops who likened Israel to the Nazis.

'Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the Archbishop of Cologne, added, as the group crossed an Israeli counter-terrorism checkpoint into eastern Jerusalem, “This is something that is done to animals, not to people." He said the security fence sparked memories of the Berlin Wall.'

What memories, Herr Meisner? Memories of German Catholic equivocation with regard to the two Germanys? I've got a news flash for you, comrade, the Berlin wall was put up to keep people inside a totalitarian country. Israel's security barrier was constructed to keep your friendly, peaceful Palestinians from turning Jewish busses into portable Auschwitz ovens.

Where are these smug bastards when the body parts of Jewish children are strewn all over the wreckage of Sbarro's Pizza? Where are our "pro-life" Bishops when an eight-month pregnant Jewish mother and her three daughters are executed by Palestinians who will later get a heroes welcome in the PA-controlled areas?

Read the rest of it, too.

Hours after historic visit to Jerusalem holocaust museum, group of German bishops tour Palestinian Authority, say Israel behaving like Nazis

Not only did they liken Ramallah to the Warsaw Ghetto, this bunch of cowards lacked the courage to make such an immoral comparison while they were among the Jews. They waited until they were among a people who had inherited the hatred of the Nazis from their Palestinian Nazi leader during WWII, friend of Hitler Haj Amin al-Husseini.

During their time in Israel the bishops uniformly made moderate and balanced statements, but once in the PA they provided German reporters accompanying them with a plethora of harsh proclamations against Israel.

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, told reporters: "This is something that is done to animals, not people." Meisner, a resident of eastern Germany, said that the fence reminded him of the Berlin Wall and that in his lifetime he did not believe he would see such a thing again. As the Berlin Wall was brought down so will this wall be brought down, he said, adding that the fence served no purpose.

No, of course, saving the lives of innocent Jews from genocidal terrorists – that’s ‘no purpose’ in the eyes of Meisner. “Why bother?” he must be thinking, “They’re only untermenschen.”

The delegation's visit to Ramallah took place several hours after their visit to Yad Vashem and several of the bishops chose to equate the situation in the Palestinian Authority with the Holocaust.

So the people of Ramallah are being deliberately starved to death, and those who survive will be carted off to gas chambers? And the Jews in 1930’s Germany used to carry out suicide bombings against the Nazis? Just how ignorant are these bishops?

Where else can you read the claim that there are Palestinian concentration camps? On anti-Semitic websites like Jew Watch of course.

And who was it who declared that “hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”? It’s been attributed to various Fathers of the Church; St John Chrysostom is one popular choice but there are others:

Even Saint John Eudes tells us: 'The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops'. This is a take on Saint Athanasius' original statement: "The floor of hell is covered with the skulls of bishops."

Here are some more:

There is an oft-quoted remark, one I have never been able to track down, variously attributed to St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. John of the Cross, St. Athanasius, and, who knows, probably even Attila the Hun, to the effect that the floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.

The idea seems to have occurred to a lot of people. I imagine the Highways Department of the Fiery Lower Regions are looking forward to the eventual arrival of the German Bishops, to assist them with some road re-surfacing.

A high school in southwest England is to host an anti-Israel event for students today.

Sherbourne High School in Dorset is hosting an event entitled "The Occupation: Up Close and Personal, Living in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

And who is involved in this exercise to corrupt the minds of school pupils with hatred and prejudice? Would you be surprised if I said Christian Aid, the Quakers and the World Council of Churches?

Scheduled to speak is Sharen Green, a reporter with a local newspaper who has spent time in the Palestinian Territories with the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Accompaniment Program.

The event is open to all and advertised on the Web site of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign: "Sharen will be telling us about her experiences as an Ecumenical Accompanier, and about the problems of daily life in Palestine."

Would you be even more surprised to learn that the Anglican School Chaplain is also responsible?

Simon McIlwaine, director of Anglicans for Israel, expressed concerns about this "propaganda exercise billed as a lecture and the very biased premises."

"Among other things, it is incredible to us, as faithful Anglicans, that a school chaplain should apparently be promoting blatantly anti-Israel propaganda. Christian Aid are not neutral and have been condemned for essentially anti-Semitic advertising campaigns where the Middle East is concerned," he said.

Jonathan Hoffman, a financial analyst from north London, wrote to the school's chaplain and headmaster, saying they "did not understand the nature of the speaker they had invited." He said: "Under the camouflage of a humanitarian organization, she would present a nakedly anti-Israel political view."

Jonathan Hoffman is evidently a decent man, who assumes the best about other people and their motives. The school chaplain and headmaster may, of course, understand the nature of the speaker very well, but share her prejudice.

Note the way the head tries to evade accusations of bias by pointing out that the school observes Holocaust Memorial Day. If the talk was simply about politics, why would he hide behind a Holocaust memorial event, or the fact that Judaism is one of the religions studied at the school? It’s because he knows that this is not simply a political matter – it is about anti-Semitism. It is about stirring up prejudice against Jews.

It is such stimulation of hatred which led to pogroms in the past, and eventually the Holocaust.