The Catholic Register - Readers Speak out

Written by Catholic Register Readers,

Christ compassionate

I was fortunate to attend Dr. Ruben Habito’s talk “Awakening to Compassion: Buddhist Wisdom for a Wounded World” at Scarboro Missions, and want to address Helene Pineau’s concerns regarding exposure to Buddhism (“Don’t waken faith,” Readers Speak Out, Feb. 10).

In actuality, Buddhism is not a religion; it is a philosophy characterized by compassion, “com-passio” meaning “I suffer/endure/undergo with (you).” Buddhism does not supersede one’s understanding of Holy Scripture or of church doctrine; it certainly does not undermine one’s faith in God. If anything, Buddhism is particularly complementary to Christianity in terms of its attention to the realities of suffering and death, and to the importance of mindfulness. Someone shedding light on Buddhist teachings as clearly as Dr. Habito did simply reflects Christ’s all the more powerfully.

Criticizing and dismissing those who think and act differently can cause one to forget that Jesus’ life was entirely one of compassion. To perennial Pharisees, Jesus’ all-inclusive love for everyone is anathema because He proves time and again that mercy trumps dogmatism.

However, we choose to view our neighbours, we are all aboard a precious and fragile planet in an immensity of space. Will we be judgmental? Indifferent? Or will we show loving kindness and compassion to our fellow passengers?

That was the theme of Dr. Habito’s message that lovely winter morning.

Emily Mandy
Toronto, Ont.

Divine guidance needed

There must be another way to respect diversity in the Ontario legislature rather than ending the daily recital of the Lord’s Prayer as suggested by Premier Dalton McGuinty. Judging by the loss of manufacturing jobs, hospital wait times, underfunding of nursing homes and colleges, I would think Premier McGuinty needs more and not less Divine guidance and assistance.

The premier was careful not to mention his idea in the recent election. If he had done so, it is unlikely he would be premier today. The 2006 federal census showed the Ontario population is predominantly Christian.

Many of our immigrants and others come here to participate in the opportunities we have inherited from the diligence and Christian faith of our forefathers. They are welcome and some bring needed skills. Some also come from countries where it is a crime to be a Christian, punishable by jail terms and even death.

The removal of the Lord’s Prayer in the House of Commons is cited as an example to follow. Some example. The Ottawa political scene has been described by a political columnist as “an upside-down world where truth is infinitely flexible and national interest hasn’t a chance against political ambition.”

Let’s not go down that road. Surely common sense will prevail and our legislators will acknowledge the biblical promise: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all other things will be added unto you.”

Des Burge
Toronto, Ont.

Galileo’s fate

In “Follow Christ’s sacrificial example,” Feb. 17, John Bentley Mays tells of a friend who became distraught on learning of the Inquisition and the trial of Galileo. The Holy Father has apologized for both.

The Inquisition was the legal system of the day which tortured heretics. Although punishment is less cruel, we enforce such laws today against people who upset us, such as hate mongers, child pornographers and holocaust deniers, to name a few. Equally cruel torture was used by the kings and queens of England against Jesuits and other Catholics whose presence they deemed upsetting to the established order. We do not expect an apology from that source, because we do not judge today’s monarch for the actions of her ancestors.

Galileo did not fully believe his own theories. They were proven correct only after his death. As he was intellectually superior to most of his contemporaries, his theories were deemed upsetting of the social order by those who did not understand them. That was a mistake. His punishment was house arrest where he continued his research. He was not tortured, as the common media would have us believe.

I trust Mays will convince his friend that ancient errors in no way detract from the splendour of today’s church, and do not diminish its message of love and hope.

Raymond Peringer
Toronto, Ont.

Poles maligned

It was with sorrow that I read the column by John Bentley Mays in which he asked: “How could nominally Christian nations, such as Germany and Romania and Poland, have willingly colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people?” (“Follow Christ’s sacrificial example,” Feb. 17). Such casual linking of Poland and Germany has been described by an historian and member of the International Auschwitz Council as “blurring the distinction between victim and aggressor.”

On behalf of the two million Polish Christians killed by the Germans and the one million killed by the Soviets (Germany’s allies for almost two years) during the Second World War, among whom were 12,000 children killed in kinderlager (concentration camps for Polish children) and 100,000 children taken away from their parents for purposes of Germanization; the Polish priests, who were the only clergy in occupied Europe to be used for medical experimentation at Dachau, and of whom, at war’s end 20 per cent had been killed; the nuns who fared little better and who never refused to take in a Jewish child knowing discovery would result in summary execution; the 900 families — parents, grandparents, infants in arms, school children, teenagers — killed when discovered sheltering Jews; the 6,000 women of the Polish underground resistance killed by the Nazis and the young Polish women used in medical experiments at the Ravensbruck camp; the 300,000-member underground army of whom so many perished; the Polish forces fighting with the allies on every front; the 20,000 officers executed while prisoners-of-war by the Soviets during the Soviet-Nazi alliance; all the civilians casually executed in prisons, in secret executions in forests and in public executions throughout Poland; the 2.5 million civilians sent to Germany as slaves and another million to the Soviet Gulag (again during the Soviet-Nazi alliance); and the millions more who were maimed, traumatized, orphaned and mourning their dead and missing; the students sent to concentration camps for studying in underground schools; and all the ordinary Poles who struggled for survival under the most brutal occupation in all of Europe, I would like to say that Mr. Mays’ identification of Poles with their oppressors is both cruel and unjust.

As the German governor of occupied Poland, Hans Frank, said of his policies towards Poles: “Finis Poloniae.” I respectfully ask the editor of The Register to print my objection and I cordially invite Mr. Mays for a cup of coffee and a conversation.

Fr. Jan Kolodynski, Pastor
St. Jerome’s Parish
Brampton, Ont.

Review the facts

Regarding the column, “Follow Christ’s sacrificial example,” by John Bentley Mays, Feb. 17 edition, the statement “How, could nominally Christian nations, such as Germany and Romania and Poland, have willingly colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people?” is not true with respect to Poland and strongly blackens Poles. I hope that you will review the historical data (for example see the web page of the Yad Vashem: wwwl.yadvashem.org/righteous/index righteous.html which provides statistical data on the Holocaust) and do what is appropriate for a Catholic newspaper.

Andrzej Strzelczyk
Pickering, Ont.

Poles didn’t collude

I have been a Catholic Register regular subscriber for years. I was shocked to find in the Feb. 17 issue the column by John Bentley Mays, “Follow Christ’s sacrificial example,” the following insulting statement:

“How could nominally Christian nations, such as Germany and Romania and Poland, have willingly colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people?”

How you can compare a nation such as Germany which elected democratically Adolf Hitler and started the Second World War and committed the most horrible crimes with a victim nation? The only country in Europe that had no collaboration of any sort with Germany was the one you chose to select. I didn’t expect such a thing in a national Catholic newspaper. I hope for a correction.

Andrew Rychlicki
Toronto, Ont.

Poles suffered greatly

John Bentley May’s charge that Poland “willingly colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people” (Follow Christ’s sacrificial example Feb. 17) is not only baseless, it is also abhorrent.

Allow me to quote no less an authority that Yisrael Gutman, the director of historical research at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and author of numerous studies, who has been unequivocal in lambasting such remarks.

“I should like to make two things clear here. First, all accusations against the Poles that they were responsible for what is referred to as the ‘Final Solution’ are not even worth mentioning. Secondly, there is no validity at all in the contention that Polish attitudes were the reason for the siting of the death camps in Poland. Poland was a completely occupied country. There was a difference in the kind of ‘occupation’ countries underwent in Europe. Each country experienced a different occupation and almost all had a certain amount of autonomy, limited and defined in various ways. This autonomy did not exist in Poland. No one asked the Poles how one should treat the Jews.”

Poles — more than 6,000 of them and growing — form the largest group by far of any nation recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles. Poland was the only country in Europe where the Germans routinely imposed the death penalty for any form of assistance to Jews. More than 1,000 Poles — men, women and children — were put to death for helping Jews.

Unlike other occupied countries, the Poles were also targeted for genocidal policies targeting their “elites” including the Catholic clergy and their vibrant underground. In addition to three million Polish Jews, three million Christian Poles were also murdered by the German invaders

Hanna Sokolski
Media Relations
Canadian Polish Congress
Toronto District
Toronto, Ont.

We don’t deserve this

In John Bentley Mays’ (Follow Christ’s sacrificial example - Feb. 17) column, “Peter” makes the observation that Germany, Poland and Romania “all colluded with the Nazis in their attempted destruction of the Jewish people.”

I write on behalf of Poles; my knowledge does not permit me to defend the Romanians. With so many Poles still alive who suffered terribly under the Nazis, it is perhaps thoughtless to have included this example in Peter’s musings (which later you refer to as “historical facts”). The Inquisition or Galileo are far enough behind us to make them tiresome examples of the failings of the Catholic Church. With respect to the extermination of the Jews in the Second World War, it is incorrect to combine the name of any country with that of Nazi Germany. The blame for the concept and undertaking of the final solution lies entirely with Hitler’s German nation. Pockets of anti-Semitism did exist in Poland, such as the well publicized, tragic massacre at Jedwabne, however, many examples of heroic defence of Jews also exist. Other European countries have been blamed for greater betrayals of their Jewish brothers.

Mentioning Poland in the same sentence as Nazi Germany is a grave injustice. Poland suffered greater loss of life, freedom and hardship than did other European countries and as a nation it never collaborated with the Nazi regime. Other European countries did. Poland also had the misfortune to have the most notorious Nazi death camp on her soil but notice that the world knows it by its German name, Auschwitz, and not by its Polish name, Oswiecim.

Sheila Russek
Toronto, Ont.

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