Rev. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: since 1980 the prestigious "preacher to the papal household"
by Michael Hoffman, Good Friday, 2010
"By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it. He said:
"I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours undoubtedly have different elements, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter."
--Rev. Fr. Cantalamessa
Homily in the presence of the Holy Father at the Liturgy of Good Friday, April 2, 2010
This would be hilarious if it were not so depraved and disgusting. The crypto-rabbi wing of Judeo-Churchianity (Rev. Fr. Cantalamessa, Pope Benedict) trying to curry favor, on Good Friday, with the rabbis of the Judeo wing, compare the uproar over the culture of child-molestation facilitation in the Catholic hierarchy (Mahony, Driscoll, Skylstad still in power; Bernard Law, fugitive from justice, made Arch Priest of a Roman basilica) with the persecution of the "Jews" ("antisemitism"),"collective guilt" and "collective violence."
Here we have prima facie evidence that Cantalamessa and his enabler, Pope Benedict, are not Catholic. "Persecution of the Jews" is the historic cry of the Freemasons and rabbis against the saints and theologians of the early and medieval Church.
To claim that worldwide anger over child molestation facilitation by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is comparable to unjust "persecution of the Jews" is self-indicting. To make this claim on Good Friday is blasphemy. It signifies that the current usurpers who occupy the Church are as phony as the paranoid and megalomaniac ADL that sees "persecution of the Jews" in every stubbed Zionist toe.
Moreover, what is the definition of "persecution of the Jews"? Is it "persecution" when freedom of speech is in place to permit educating the public concerning the murderous racism in the Talmud that inspires Israeli mass murder in Palestine? Is it "persecution" when the stories of execution gas chambers in Auschwitz are questioned by scientists and publishers? Is it "persecution" when Israeli generals are compared to Nazis when they butcher the people of Gaza?
As for "collective" punishment, what of the collective punishment of German civilians during and after World War II? What of the ongoing collective punishment of the populations of Lebanon and Palestine by the "state of Israel," egged on by homicidal maniacs known as Orthodox "settler" rabbis?
If the Vatican was truly Catholic and Christ-like it would announce to the world that every child-molestation facilitator, beginning with Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles, has been removed from office and shipped to a Trappist monastery while they await state prosecution -- with the Vatican fully cooperating with the prosecutors. Bernard Law would be extradited from Vatican City back to Boston to face justice. Instead, the Vatican continues to keep these and other evil bishops (Skylstad, Driscoll,
ad nauseum) in power while the Vatican sobs about "exaggerated" charges of a culture of child molestation facilitation existing within the Church.
The Vatican is the enemy of the Catholicism of the early and medieval Church, and thus today it appears without shame, on Good Friday, like Martin Gray, author of
For Those I Loved, a book filled with his sorrowful ordeal as a persecuted Judaic "Holocaust Survivor" who was supposedly forced to help clear bodies out of the Treblinka "gas chamber." In truth, Gray and his book were both fakes. In fact, he was a decorated officer in the Soviet NKVD responsible for the murder of Christians and gentiles, posing as a poor persecuted Chosen One. This is the pattern of despicable fraud and shetl chicanery which the pope and his papal household preacher, sunk in the ethos of Holocaustianity, mount as an alibi and imitate as a form of self-defense.
Alas, the rabbinic racketeers will never surrender their monopoly on persecution to the hated papacy, even when the "Holy See" is occupied by a co-conspirator who is so inept he imagines he can grab a share of the persecution paranoia and co-opt Judaism's most cherished, trademarked brand. Consequently this disgraceful Vatican pandering to the ideological heirs of those who demanded the death of Jesus, is now backfiring.
In a palimpsest of falsification, the Zionist media keeps the pressure on Benedict by portraying this agent of the Synagogue as quasi antisemitic. This ruse serves a two-fold function: 1. it keeps Benedict pandering ever more to the rabbis, offering ever more craven concessions and servile compromise; and 2. it gives the 39-watt filaments of the
Remnant newspaper types in traditional Catholicism the opportunity to claim that poor, pitiful Pope Benedict is a Catholic bastion against the synagogue! (Somewhere the masters of the Zohar are grinning).
For those who own a copy of my book
Judaism Discovered, you will find a dossier on the lies and deceitful word games played by the crypto-rabbi "preacher of the papal household," Raniero Cantalamessa. Cf. pp. 389-390 and 414-418.
At Vatican Service, Persecution of Jews Is Invoked
NY Times April 2, 2010
ROME — A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack.
The remarks, on the day Christians mark the crucifixion, underscored how much the Catholic Church has felt under attack from recent news reports and criticism over how it has handled charges of child molestation against priests in the past, and sought to focus attention on the church as the central victim.
In recent weeks, Vatican officials and many bishops have angrily denounced news reports that Benedict failed to act strongly enough against pedophile priests, once as archbishop of Munich and Friesing in 1980 and once as a leader of a powerful Vatican congregation in the 1990s.
Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said.
Father Cantalamessa quoted from what he said was a letter from an unnamed Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole word,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”
Even as the priest spoke out against attacks on the church, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, head of the German Bishops Conference, said that sex abuse victims were not helped enough “out of a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church.”
The church, he said, was shaken by “the suffering inflicted on the victims, who often for decades could not put their injuries into words.” Bishops around Europe have been offering similar remarks in recent days, following up on a major statement on molestation in the Irish church by the pope.
Father Cantalamessa’s comments about the Jews came toward the end of a long talk about scripture, the nature of violence and the sacrifice of Jesus. He also spoke about violence against women, but gave only a slight mention of the children and adolescents who have been molested by priests. “I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here,” he said.
Disclosures about hundreds of such cases have emerged in recent months in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and France, after a previous round of scandal in the United States earlier this decade.
A leading advocate for sex abuse victims in the United States, David Clohessy, called comparing criticism of the church to persecution of the Jews “breathtakingly callous and misguided. Men who deliberately and consistently hide child sex crime are in no way victims,” he said. “And to conflate public scrutiny with horrific violence is about as wrong as wrong can be.”
The comments could cause a new twist in Vatican-Jewish relations, which have had ups and downs during Benedict’s papacy. Rabbi Riccardo di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, who hosted Benedict at the Rome synagogue in January on a visit that helped calm waters after a year of tensions, laughed in seeming disbelief when asked about Father Cantalamessa’s remarks.
“With a minimum of irony, I will say that today is Good Friday, when they pray that the Lord illuminate our hearts so we recognize Jesus,” Rabbi Di Segni said, referring to a prayer in a traditional Catholic liturgy calling for the conversion of the Jews. “We also pray that the Lord illuminate theirs.”
In 2008, Benedict ruffled feathers with Jewish groups when he issued a ruling making it easier to use the Latin Mass including that Good Friday prayer, which had fallen out of widespread use after the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In January 2009, he stirred outrage when he revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, one of whom turned out to have denied the scope of the Holocaust.
The legacy of the wartime pope, Pius XII, has been another sticking point. Some say he didn’t do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust; on a visit to the Rome synagogue in January, Benedict said that the Holy See had “provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way,” to help Jews.
Father Cantalamessa’s remarks come after weeks of intense scrutiny of Benedict, which some Italian media have seen in conspiratorial terms. Last week, the center-left daily La Repubblica wrote, without attribution, that “certain Catholic circles” believed the criticism of the church stemmed from “a New York ‘Jewish lobby.’”
Father Cantalamessa is a longtime fixture in the papal household, having been its official preacher since 1980. It is an ancient role, established by Pope Paul IV in the middle of the 16th century. The job is reserved for a member of the Franciscan Order of Capuchin Friars Minor. The apostolic preacher, as he also is called, gives meditations — especially during Advent and Lent — for the pope, cardinals, bishops and leaders of religious orders...
Nicholas Kulish contributed reporting from Berlin.
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