etoa, It's wonderful that you were able to see them flyover. I live very close to a small little known airport which has a rich history. In fact, Long Island has a very rich history of air flight but that is probably more well known. In any case, for many years there has been an airshow Memorial Day weekend in which our little local airport is utilized for all of the planes flying in it. I think that a different airport may have been used last year but in any case we have had the pleasure to see a mini airshow out the window of our home for several years. Today I had the pleasure of witnessing the following which I did not know about in advance. Vintage WWII airplanes to fly over Westchester today, writing out messages of thanks for front-line workers Isabel Keane, Rockland/Westchester Journal News Published 10:24 a.m. ET May 5, 2020 https://www.lohud.com/story/news/co...und-shore-long-island-connecticut/3083804001/ Messages thanking front-line workers serving during the coronavirus pandemic will be written out by vintage Navy planes flying over parts of Westchester this morning. A fleet of six World War II airplanes that were built for the Navy will be flown by members of the GEICO Skytypers Air Show Team between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The vintage airplanes will fly over hospitals in Westchester, the five boroughs, Long Island and Connecticut with positive messages of appreciation. The first message is expected to appear at approximately 11:30 a.m. over Manhattan. Flight course for GEICO Skytypers on Tuesday, May 5, 2020. (Photo: Submitted) They will then fly past the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River before delivering messages along the shoreline over parts of Lower Westchester. "We can't think of a better way to thank all New Yorkers for their commitment to health and safety, especially those on the front lines," said Larry Arken, squadron commander and flight leader for GEICO Skytypers. "We will deliver messages of hope and gratitude during these unprecedented times," he said. The pilots "skytype" by creating giant messages in the sky with five airplanes flying in a tight formation to produce 1,000 foot-tall messages that can be seen for 15 miles in any direction, according to a press release from GEICO Skytypers. Isabel Keane covers breaking news throughout the Lower Hudson Valley. Click here for her latest stories. Follow her on Twitter @ijkeane. Check out how to support local journalism here. It was nice to see this message even though I couldn't make the whole thing out. I was able to read the word "essential", I am pretty certain anyway and I was prompted to see if I could find any news about it. It was a small miracle imho that it was completely clear at the time of the flyover because soon after the flyover the sky became overcast with clouds and then it cleared up once again and now we have some rain clouds forming. It was a bit windy today and I think that is why the message was difficult to read entirely but I believe it was still a very nice gesture nonetheless. If any of you ever have the opportunity to visit Long Island our little airport has a small museum which opened in 1998. Here is a link to some information about it, American Airpower Museum, East Farmingdale, New York . There is also another aerospace museum on Long Island that is very rich in history also Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, New York We often see old airplanes flyover our home like a very mini airshow and for a fee you can fly in one, "A flight experience is available on board a C-47 aircraft which actually flew during the Normandy invasion on D-Day." Of course, we also have the following aerospace museum which is in Manhattan which you are probably more familiar with Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York, New York . Edited to add: I found another article about this and they did write "essential" in the sky, "We salute essential workers". They also wrote, "We salute first responders" and "We salute healthcare workers". In addition, they took off from "my" local airport. http://longisland.news12.com/story/...ffer-messages-of-support-for-first-responders
Catholic League Denounces Soros-Funded ‘Attack on Religious Liberty’ Catholic League president Bill Donohue has decried a coordinated left-wing attack on the project of the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights in an attempt to downgrade religious freedom and elevate LGBT and “reproductive” rights. Dozens of international left-wing organizations “recently signed a statement lecturing the U.S. State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights,” Dr. Donohue noted, including “the Center for Reproductive Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the International Women’s Health Coalition.” “Their opposition to religious liberty was on grand display,” Donohue said. “In their world, every time religious liberty clashes with abortion rights or the LGBT agenda, the former must bow to the latter.” Last summer, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced the formation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights to provide advice on human rights “grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” One of the key “unalienable” rights is religious freedom, enshrined in the first amendmentto the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the “free exercise” of religion while prohibiting the establishment of a national religion. The letter addressed to the Commission on Unalienable Rights says, “we urge the Commission to reject the prioritization of freedom of religion as a cloak to permit violations of the human rights of women, girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.” “The hostility to religious liberty could not be more evident,” Donohue observes. “In their formulation, religious liberty is not a foundational right. No, it is a ‘cloak’ designed to rob people of their newly discovered rights.” Religious liberty “has long been recognized throughout the world as a foundational right,” Donohue states, and thus it “should never be put on the same moral or legal plane with reproductive or sexual rights” because to do so would “devalue” it. “This, of course, is exactly what these organizations seek to do,” he notes. Early on, the letter alleges that a right to abortion is “essential to the realization of fundamental human rights,” including the right to life. “These sages obviously don’t see the irony in mentioning the right to life in a statement that rejects it,” Donohue observes. Many of the most prominent organizations attacking religious liberty have a history of bashing religion, especially Catholicism, Donohue notes, beginning with the three organizers. The George Soros-funded Center for Reproductive Rights has repeatedly attacked the Catholic Church with “venom,” Donohue states, labeling the Holy See “an obstacle to women’s reproductive rights.” The Soros-funded Human Rights Watch also labels the Holy See as “obstructionist” for standing up for the rights of the unborn, Donohue states. The International Women’s Health Coalition has opposed the Commission on Unalienable Rights from the outset, alleging that the concept of natural rights and natural law “is rooted in 13th century theology and used anti-rights actors to attack women’s and LGBTQI rights.” In other words, “these left-wing organizations have long harbored an animus against the Catholic Church,” Donohue declares, and many would have folded were it not for “its atheist-billionaire benefactor, George Soros.” https://www.breitbart.com/faith/202...ces-soros-funded-attack-on-religious-liberty/
MORE: Byron York's Daily Memo: EXCLUSIVE - DNI to Schiff: The transcripts are ready to release EXCLUSIVE -- DNI TO SCHIFF: THE TRANSCRIPTS ARE READY TO RELEASE. A big development in the fight over 53 secret interviews the House Intelligence Committee conducted during its Trump-Russia investigation. Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has sent a letter to chairman Adam Schiff notifying him that transcripts of all 53 interviews, over 6,000 pages in all, have been cleared for public release. "All of the transcripts, with our required redactions, can be released to the public without any concerns of disclosing classified material," Grenell wrote to Schiff in a letter dated May 4. The Intel Committee did the first probe into Russia's 2016 campaign interference and allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. Even today, its findings make up most of what we know about the affair. As part of that investigation -- it was run by then-majority Republicans -- the committee interviewed some key witnesses in the Trump-Russia matter: Donald Trump Jr., Steve Bannon, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Michael Cohen, Hope Hicks, and many more. The interviews were conducted in secret. But by September 2018, with the committee's report long finished and made public, the Republicans who still controlled the committee decided the interview transcripts should be released to the public. In a rare moment of comity, Democrats agreed, and on September 26, 2018, the committee voted unanimously to release the transcripts. But there was a catch: The documents would have to first be checked for classified information by the Intelligence Community. So off they went to the IC -- never to be seen again. Now, in May 2020, they're still secret. Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal editorial boardreported that the IC had finished its review of 43 of the transcripts, but Schiff was refusing to release them. The paper said Schiff was also preventing declassification of the remaining ten transcripts. In the letter, Grenell revealed that the 43 transcripts have been finished since June 2019. Schiff has been sitting on them all that time. Grenell said the final ten have just been finished as well. "I urge you to honor your previous public statements, and your committee's unanimous vote on this matter, to release all 53 cleared transcripts to Members of Congress and the American public as soon as possible," Grenell said. Just in case Schiff is still not interested, Grenell added, "I am also willing to release the transcripts directly from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as to ensure we comply with the unanimous and bipartisan vote to release the transcripts." One more thing. In March 2019 -- that was when Democrats were newly in charge of the House and considering impeaching President Trump over the Russia matter -- Schiff requested that the DNI "under no circumstances...share House Intelligence Committee transcripts with the White House, President Trump, or any persons associated with the White House or President." Some Republicans viewed that as a dubious request, since some of the witnesses came from the White House. Nevertheless, Grenell complied. "Pursuant to your guidance, these transcripts have not been shared with the White House," he wrote to Schiff. The next move is up to Schiff. The chairman has shown no hesitation to keep secrets even when they involve non-classified information of great national interest. For example, Schiff is still concealing the committee's impeachment inquiry interview with Michael Atkinson, at the time the Intelligence Community Inspector General, in the Ukraine matter. As for the Trump-Russia interviews, Republicans remember when Schiff claimed he had "direct evidence" of collusion -- a charge special counsel Robert Mueller was never able to establish. Some GOP lawmakers believe the transcripts will help show that Schiff was making it up all along. It's time for the public to learn that, too. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...o-schiff-the-transcripts-are-ready-to-release
Uh oh.....in proceeds w/ any excuse.... It Begins. California Official Announces Program to Remove People with COVID-19 From Their Homes to Quarantine Centers (VIDEO) And here we thought Democrats were against internment camps? Guess not. Ventura County officials in California announced plans to remove infected residents with the Wuhan virus from their homes and place them in quarantine centers. On Wednesday, Ventura County Health Director Robert Levin announced that the forcible quarantines are underway and will continue. Robert Levin: Some of the people we find are going to have a hard time being isolated. If they live in a home where there is only one bathroom and there are three or four other people living there and those people don’t have covid infections we’re not going to be able to keep that person in that home. Every person who we’re isolating needs to have their own bathroom. So we’ll be moving people like this in to other kinds of housing that we have available. As Victoria Taft pointed out Ventura County has 846,000 people and only 595 total cases since March. This is insane. WHAT WOULD YOU DO if your six year old son or daughter tested positive for COVID19 and was taken from your home to a quarantine center by Ventura Health Authorities? This SHOCKING VIDEO demands that you plan ahead. #BeBrave #HistoryRepeating Read more here. 'Every One of Them': California Begins Forcibly Quarantining People – Separating Families – Over COVID-19 https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politi...ple-separating-families-over-covid-19-n388732 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/20...ople-covid-19-homes-quarantine-centers-video/
Planned Parenthood CEO: At-Home Tele-Abortions ‘Silver Lining’ of Pandemic The acting CEO of Planned Parenthood said last week in an interview that the “silver lining” of the coronavirus pandemic is that her abortion chain has used telehealth technology to provide drug-induced, at-home abortions. Alexis McGill Johnson told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman the fact that many states have attempted to include elective abortions among other procedures that should be temporarily banned to preserve scarce medical equipment for healthcare workers treating coronavirus patients is “unconscionable.” Johnson said the “silver lining” of the pandemic has been the launch of Planned Parenthood’s new tele-abortion service in which women seeking an abortion have a virtual meeting with an abortion provider and obtain a prescription for abortion-inducing drugs they take at home. “It is actually a silver lining in this pandemic, that Planned Parenthood and many other health providers have actually been able to really lean into telehealth infrastructure and provide service,” she said: Planned Parenthood has been touting an increase in at-home abortions since its tele-abortion services began nationwide, though many pro-life advocates have concerns about the practice. Specifically, mifepristone, one of the drugs used in a medication abortion, is not approved under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), but women are obtaining it illegally from overseas. On Monday, national pro-life leaders sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, urging him to take action to block the illegal Internet sale of abortion-inducing drugs that are produced overseas and then shipped to the United States. In a press release, the leaders observed that, under REMS, the drug “cannot legally be sold in pharmacies or online due to the risk of serious complications.” However, websites such as AidAccess and Rablon sell and distribute the drugs regularly. “This is a medication that definitely has dangers associated with it,” Dr. Christina Francis, an Indiana-based OB/GYN and chairman of the board of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly recently. Francis said some immediate complications of mifepristone could be: hemorrhage, the immediate possibility of infection, and the possibility of failure, where the pregnancy doesn’t fully pass from the medication and then leading to sometimes the requirement for emergent surgery for that woman because of either ongoing bleeding or the risk of infection. Francis added that because of the uncertainties associated with the pandemic, many women “are being influenced by fear right now, and this is being perpetuated by the abortion industry.” One Planned Parenthood official in New York State touted that the organization’s new tele-abortion service is so much in demand that one mother began her drug-induced abortion “at home with her children running around behind her.” Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, told the Associated Press (AP), “We provided a medication abortion to an EMT while she was sitting in her ambulance. We provided abortion care to a mother who was at home with her children running around behind her.” Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explained in his videos about various abortion procedures that mifepristone blocks the action of progesterone, which the mother’s body produces to nourish the pregnancy. When progesterone is blocked, the lining of the mother’s uterus deteriorates, and blood and nourishment are cut off to the developing baby, who then dies inside the mother’s womb. The drug misoprostol (also called Cytotec) then causes contractions and bleeding to expel the baby from the mother’s uterus. As Catholic News Agency reported, Gynuity Health Products, a New York-based company that has been sponsoring tele-abortion technology, tweeted recently, “The ability to get abortion medications from a health care provider by mail is particularly crucial in the COVID-19 crisis”: In his Washington Update column Monday, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins wrote that Planned Parenthood’s Johnson referring to more tele-abortions as a “silver lining” of the coronavirus means “more deaths – more innocent, unborn, child fatalities made possible by their money-hungry network.” With Planned Parenthood’s tele-abortion expansion to all 50 states, Perkins said, more women will have at-home “chemically-induced procedures that carry significant risks”: They tell women that it’ll be simple, natural, safe, and private process. They’ll recover in a day, maybe two. What they don’t tell them is that they might deliver a tiny, perfectly-formed child. Or that they’ll experience labor pains, heavy bleeding, vomiting, or lose consciousness. They don’t talk about the depression, anger, anxiety, panic attacks, and substance abuse that follow. Or the weeks to months of recovery time, usually managed alone. “This is Planned Parenthood’s ‘silver lining,’” Perkins concluded. “Babies who don’t have a chance at life, women who are haunted and harmed.” https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...o-home-tele-abortions-silver-lining-pandemic/
Would encourage people to sign this. Four Cardinals have done so calling on governments to restore our freedoms. SIGN Appeal for the Church and the World here
Problem is, I watched the video twice, and the only place where the doctor said "all the states are doing it" was in reference to adding many many more contact tracers.
Yeah, I agree. No sense in getting up in arms over something like this. The media is used to push fear tactics as well as distract us from what is important and we have to remember that. Just consider the story about the Asian hornet spreading all over the place for an example. Remember all the killer bee stories. I am wondering though since CA and four other states have all agreed to using similar metrix for their stages of reopening what exactly their contact tracing procedures and policies entail. Remember your rights, we are under no moral or legal obligation to be tested or answer their questions if they show up on our doorsteps. No need to be nasty about it either, just calmly and politely decline. I have looked at WA states health dept website and found very little besides a few forms published that address contact tracing. I also highly doubt that the health department is going to be able to find people for 15$ an hour or whatever they are giving them to go door to door and deal with uncooperative people when they had issues getting census workers to actually go to peoples homes for the same reason. On a side note, maybe they will hire all the nurses and doctors who are being furloughed for their door to door visits.
As for honoring those front line workers in our hospitals and clinics... In midst of pandemic, Oregon hospitals cut workers’ pay, require furloughs By Jeff Manning | The Oregonian/OregonLive After being celebrated for their courage and compassion in the first wave of the coronavirus, Oregon healthcare workers are suddenly getting pay cuts, furloughs and layoffs. Legacy Health notified employees last week that it will require nearly 6,000 of them to take temporary pay cuts or 10-15-day furloughs or both. Other hospitals, big and small, have instituted similar cuts just weeks after the first wave of COVID-19 began to taper off. Last month, for example, Oregon Health & Science University announced pay cuts and other cost reductions. Providence Health & Services and PeaceHealth have also cut costs and didn’t rule out more. In early April, Oregon hospital executives predicted they would likely have to cut more than 1,100 positions this spring, according to a survey conducted by the hospital trade association. “Three weeks ago they were putting up signs, ‘You’re the hero,’ they even threw us a parade,” said Eric Quinn, a CT scan technician at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver. “And now, it’s more like, ‘You’re done. Go home. We don’t need you anymore.’” Quinn’s employer, PeaceHealth, has frozen salaries and put hiring on hold. It is encouraging qualifying employees to take sabbaticals and early retirement. The COVID effect has hit even a second wave of employees in related industries. Moda Health, the large, Portland-based health insurer, put about 100 employees on indefinite furlough in recent weeks. Most of Moda’s furloughed employees worked in a dental claims call center. With the dental business largely shut down under the “stay-at-home” order they didn’t have much to do, Moda spokesman Jonathan Nicholas said. At the heart of the hospitals’ financial problems is the ban on elective surgeries. Between the ban and people generally avoiding hospitals for fear of the virus, some hospital departments have seen revenue plummet 40%-70%. The overwhelming COVID-19 surge health authorities warned about never materialized in Oregon. But in some Portland hospitals there were several frenzied weeks of COVID-19 activity, which seemed to justify the temporary hold on other surgeries. In many rural hospitals, it’s been a far different story. Take the case of Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay. With more than 1,100 people on the payroll, it is the largest employer in Coos County, said Kelli Dion, Bay Area’s chief quality officer. Everyone at Bay Area knew that eliminating elective surgeries would be hard on the institution’s financial health. When management asked for volunteers to go on furlough, 73 people raised their hand. Gary Salcedo, a longtime nurse at the hospital, was one of them. He could afford it, he figured, and it would be good for the rest of the hospital and his fellow-nurses. Like Salcedo, most are members of the Oregon Nurses Association. Anticipation built for COVID-19 to finally arrive in the area. And it did. At least 25 inmates at the Shutter Creek Correctional Institute in nearby North Bend tested positive. But none of the inmates were sick enough to need hospitalization. In fact, Bay Area has not had a single confirmed COVID-19 patient in its hospital. “It’s been a bit surreal to be honest with you,” Dion said. “We’ve had some COVID-19 rule-outs. But not a single COVID-positive. We’re a little isolated and insulated out here.” Salcedo is relieved that his hospital wasn’t overwhelmed. But he also feels he’s taken a bullet for the team for no good reason. What was the point of shutting down elective surgeries if the hospital didn’t get a single COVID-19 patient? “Early on, the feeling was, we’re going to get the surge, it’s going to happen,” he said. “With that not really happening, it does kind of put things in a little more frustrating light for staff who stayed home.” The end of elective surgeries took a toll on Bay Area’s finances. In response, it has cut the pay of managers and executives. It is also “flexing” all of its employees -- a practice intended to match the workforce with that day’s daily needs. Flexing is unpopular with many workers as they could be sent home unpaid. Back in Portland, Legacy Health informed employees it will temporarily reduce some employees’ pay and require furloughs as well. “As you know, we have experienced a significant decrease in patient volumes (between 40%-70%),” said Dr. Brian Young, president of Legacy Medical Group, in a memo obtained by The Oregonian. “These reductions are very much in line with what other medical groups and organizations are facing locally and across the nation.” According to Legacy documents, doctors and other “providers” will take some of the biggest cuts. Effective April 26, Legacy suspended all compensation plans to all providers. Instead, they were put on salary for May, June and July with an across-the-board 15% pay reduction from last year. Legacy intends for this to be a temporary, 90-day cut. The hospital chain is also requiring its providers take 15 days off, unpaid, between now and September. Other workers will be required to take 10 days off by July. The cost-cutting strategies will impact more than 5,200 employees. The local health care community is bracing for what Providence, the big kahuna of local hospital operators, will do. So far, most employees have been left largely untouched. In a written statement, Providence said it will also leave certain vacant positions unfilled and will reduce the use of temporary workers and eliminate business travel while “considering further steps.” Providence had cut executive compensation 10%-50%. The salary of Lisa Vance, named CEO of Providence’s Oregon operation in 2018, is not yet public. Rod Hochman, head of Providence’s entire seven-state system, received total compensation of $10 million last year. Until COVID-19, most large Oregon health systems were thriving. Legacy, which like most of its major competitors is a non-profit, took in $2.2 billion in revenue in 2019. Revenue exceeded expenses by $103 million. Legacy operates three hospitals in the Portland area. Providence’s Oregon operation generated $5.2 billion in revenue in 2019, up more than $100 million from the prior year. Revenue exceeded expenses by $412.6 million. Organized labor is seeking protection for health care workers from Oregon political leaders. The Oregon Nurses Association and other unions are demanding that Gov. Kate Brown make any financial assistance to hospitals contingent on the industry’s agreement to some worker protection. The downsizing is tremendously short-sighted, said nurses association organizer Kevin Mealy. COVID-19 is not over. It could return in waves, particularly if the social-distancing requirements are eased. “It’s like the Twilight Zone,” Mealy said. “We’re sitting here watching hospitals tell nurses and other health care workers they’re not needed during a pandemic.“ Plus, personal protective equipment is still in short supply. Surgeons and nurses repairing knees and replacing hips will use some protective gear potentially needed by their peers treating COVID-19 patients. On Thursday, the American Federation of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents workers at OHSU, staged an event with U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, calling on the federal government to include worker protection in its expected aid package to state and local government. The cost-cutting promises to contribute to an already daunting economic slowdown stemming from the virus. Hundreds of thousands of Oregonians have lost their jobs or are suffering pay cuts of their own. Demonstrators have taken to the street to protest the stay-at-home orders, issued by Brown and most other governors. Few in the healthcare industry question Brown’s strategy, not even the ban on elective surgeries. “Based on what we knew at the time, the governor made the right decisions,” said Becky Hultberg, CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. “We’re also very happy she’s made the decision to allow us to restart. We’re ready to get back to work.”
I expect we will see much more about this in the MSM shortly. I knew it would not be long before someone found a "earth shattering" smoking gun to condemn Pope Pius XII and the church's handling of the situation. I doubt highly though that it has much to do with stopping his beatification. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/scholars-dispute-charge-of-pius-xii-holocaust-cover-up-12021 Scholars dispute charge of Pius XII Holocaust cover-up by JD Flynn Denver Newsroom, May 1, 2020 / 12:15 pm MT (CNA).- Scholars say charges that Pope Pius XII covered-up the Vatican’s knowledge of the Holocaust are based on exaggerated claims and do not represent the truth. Fr. Hubert Wolf, a professor of history at the University of Munster, claimed last month that in the Vatican’s recently opened archives on Pope Pius XII, he had found an anti-Semitic memo which suggested that Pope Pius XII knew about the Holocaust in Europe before the U.S. government did, but made efforts to conceal his knowledge. But Ronald Rychlak, a professor at the University of Mississippi’s law school and the author of “Hitler, the War, and the Pope” told CNA that Wolf’s argument doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny. What Pope Pius XII knew and did during World War II has been a source of controversy for years. That controversy was reignited in early March, when the Vatican opened to researchers its archives on Pius XII. Wolf was among the researchers. But a week after the archives were opened, the coronavirus lockdown in Italy forced researchers to pause their work. Undeterred, Wolf told German and American media this month that he had found a key document which, he said, could prove that Pius XII lied to the U.S. government by claiming in 1942 that he could not verify intelligence reports, which came from the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Geneva, about death camps for the mass murder of Jews in Poland and Ukraine. When the U.S. entered World War II in 1942, it did not yet have knowledge of the scale of atrocities committed against Jewish people across Europe, especially the mass murder of Jews in Eastern Europe. It had received reports of those atrocities, however, and was making efforts to verify them. In 1942, the Vatican, too, had received reports, mostly from Church leaders, about the mass murder of Jews by Nazi forces. Nevertheless, in September 1942, when a U.S. official asked the Vatican to verify a report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Vatican officials said they could not independently confirm the information it contained regarding the existence of death camps, but that the Vatican did know, and had received reports, about atrocities committed by Nazi forces, adding that “the Holy See is taking advantage of every opportunity offered in order to mitigate the suffering.” Rychlak told CNA that the Holy See’s concern to be judicious about verifying any report “can logically be traced to WWI, when false stories of atrocities were often circulated,” But after examining the Pius XII archives for a week in March, Wolf pointed journalists this month to a 1942 memo from a staffer in the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Msgr. Angelo Dell'Acqua, who later became a cardinal. The memo, which has not been released to the public, apparently cautioned against verifying the report from the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Wolf told journalists that the memo warned against believing the report because Jews “easily exaggerate.” “This is a key document that has been kept hidden from us because it is clearly anti-Semitic and provides background information on why Pius XII did not speak out against the Holocaust,” Wolf told a Munster Catholic newspaper. German journalist Michael Hesemann was also among the researchers who examined Pius XII’s archives in March. In a statement sent to CNA, he said that Wolf has made his claim about Pius XII without understanding the meaning of the memo he found, or its significance. He added that the memo “warns not to draw premature conclusions on the new information, [stating]: ‘It is necessary to assure that they are true, since exaggerations happen easily, also among Jews.’ With other words: Trust but verify!” “For Wolf, this is evidence for the Vatican’s anti-Semitism during the pontificate of Pius XII. For him, it means, and this is how he paraphrases it in several interviews with German media: ‘All Jews are liars,” Hesemann said. “But it means nothing like that, Hesemann said, explaining that the memo was intended to urge caution against any exaggeration. “And indeed the Jewish Agency’s report contained several rumors which were not true at all, as we know today. It claimed that ‘in all Eastern Poland and the occupied Russian territories, not a single Jew is alive anymore.’ We know that thousands survived in the underground or became partisans.” “No government in the world would act on a single report, but waits for an independent verification – that’s why President Roosevelt asked the Vatican, in the first place,” Hesemann added. In either case, Hesemann said, the memo “did not influence papal policy, which remained the same before and after, nor does it contain any new information. It is one man’s reminder to trust and to verify and nothing more.” The memo is not included in an 11-volume cache of Vatican documents from the Second World War. To Wolf, this is a reason to be skeptical about the volumes, according to the Washington Post. But to Hesemann, the memo was not included “not because of a Vatican cover-up, but because it’s irrelevant.” Hesemann cautioned that Wolf, who has “promoted conspiracy theories” about Pius XII in the past “draws premature conclusions, blames the Vatican of a cover-up and creates sensationalist headlines,” to further “his own agenda,” namely, “stop the ongoing beatification process of Pius XII – at least until he and his team have evaluated the last of the pages Pope Francis made available for historical research.” Rylchak pointed out evidence, presented in his book, of Pius XII’s concern to oppose the Nazis, which he says was well-recognized by journalists and bishops during the Second World War. He also pointed out that Pius XII, through “ a long series of communications with the American bishops,” encouraged opposition to Nazi ideology. “Despite all of this, Wolf would have us believe that Pius did not make his opinion known due to a cover note from a low-level assistant,” Rylchak said, calling the assertion “ridiculous.”
Wow, compare and contrast. I wonder who the public will believe. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-Catholic-Church-admits-confession-guilt.html
Non e of this surprises me. Why is it SO important to discredit him (just like Archbishop Sheen) The rabbi of Rome during WWII converted to the Church because of PXII. The NY Times extolled him as the only one helping the Jews. That was 1940. My how times and Times change.
It’s so important to discredit him because he was a holy Pope, and Archbishop Sheen was holy and taught the Truth to the public. Worldly people don’t get it. “Why do the heathens rage and the people devise vain things?” Psalm 2 You know how “history” is being rewritten. There is “history” and then there is the truth about what really happened and why.
Our youngest daughter was one of 600 hospital employees who lost their jobs this past Friday. This is a huge lay off for our small Massachusetts coastal community, and moving forward will have a direct impact on the quality of patient care.
I heard some people talking about this on EWTN Radio last week. Apparently this "bombshell memo" is one that people have known about for decades and considered not significant.
