Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Jewish groups rap Pope's new book
Rome, Feb. 21 (CWNews.com) - The latest book by Pope John Paul II (bio - news), Memory and Identity has not yet made its formal debut. Yet advance copies of the book have already drawn harsh criticism from some Jewish readers, because of the Pope's comparison between the Holocaust and the tragedy of abortion.
Memory and Identity will be introduced to the press on Tuesday, February 22. But extracts from the book, circulated by the Polish Znak publishing house, have produced a controversy.
The Italian edition of the Pope's book will be available on February 23; translations into 10 other languages are already planned. The book will be launched at a media conference one day earlier, at which the director of the Vatican press office, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, will introduce the work along with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The book-- consisting of exchanges between the Pope and two old Polish friends, Krysztof Michalski and Jozef Tischner-- offers John Paul's reflections on the 20th century, and particularly the destructive influence of totalitarian ideologies. In one passage-- which was circulated to Polish reviewers by the Znak publishers-- the Pontiff draws a comparison between the legislation allowing unrestricted abortion and the Nazi policies to exterminate the Jewish people. In Germany, Jewish leader Paul Spiegel, decried that comparison, saying that it is "unacceptable" to compare "mass genocide" with 'the murder of one who is not born."
The Pope's work touched a delicate point in Germany, where Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne recently came under heavy criticism for making a similar comparison.
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Oh, I get it now. Mr Spiegel thinks gassing 6 millions of people by the roomful is absolutely awful, while chopping up hundreds of millions of babies isn't so bad, so long as it's done one at a time. Sounds like it wasn't that Hitler was a murdering bigot that makes him Mr. S's villain of all time, merely that he lacked patience.
DJ
Memory and Identity will be introduced to the press on Tuesday, February 22. But extracts from the book, circulated by the Polish Znak publishing house, have produced a controversy.
The Italian edition of the Pope's book will be available on February 23; translations into 10 other languages are already planned. The book will be launched at a media conference one day earlier, at which the director of the Vatican press office, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, will introduce the work along with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The book-- consisting of exchanges between the Pope and two old Polish friends, Krysztof Michalski and Jozef Tischner-- offers John Paul's reflections on the 20th century, and particularly the destructive influence of totalitarian ideologies. In one passage-- which was circulated to Polish reviewers by the Znak publishers-- the Pontiff draws a comparison between the legislation allowing unrestricted abortion and the Nazi policies to exterminate the Jewish people. In Germany, Jewish leader Paul Spiegel, decried that comparison, saying that it is "unacceptable" to compare "mass genocide" with 'the murder of one who is not born."
The Pope's work touched a delicate point in Germany, where Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne recently came under heavy criticism for making a similar comparison.
---
Oh, I get it now. Mr Spiegel thinks gassing 6 millions of people by the roomful is absolutely awful, while chopping up hundreds of millions of babies isn't so bad, so long as it's done one at a time. Sounds like it wasn't that Hitler was a murdering bigot that makes him Mr. S's villain of all time, merely that he lacked patience.
DJ
