Thirteen years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe. What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust. The researchers have cataloged some Read more
New evidence that Venerable Pius XII saved Jews from the Holocaust has been unearthed by a British author who was given access to previously unpublished Vatican documents and tracked down victims, priests and others who had not told their stories before. A report in The Guardian newspaper says Vatican insiders believe this new evidence will Read more
The breakaway traditionalist group Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) expelled on Wednesday Bishop Richard Williamson, a British prelate. Williamson sparked a global crisis in Jewish-Catholic relations in 2009 for denying the Holocaust shortly before Pope Benedict XVI readmitted him to the Church. The SSPX announced that Williamson had been “excluded” from its ranks on Read more
More internal strife has arisen in the breakaway Catholic Society of St. Pius X, after Bishop Richard Williamson made an unapproved visit to a large group in Brazil. Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, the society’s district superior of South America, said the bishop’s visit was “a serious act against the virtue of obedience” that did not respect Read more
Everyone’s welcome at this month’s opening of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. Dignitaries from all walks of life will converge on Wellington to officially open the centre, with the ceremony including the unveiling of two suitcases belonging to children sent to New Zealand to get away from war. Director Inge Woolf says it’ll be Read more
The controversy that broke out three years ago surrounding the Holocaust denier prelate, shows no signs of abating. During a visit to Germany, Williamson had denied the Jewish Holocaust had taken place and that the gas chambers and Nazi concentration camps had existed. He was subsequently jailed for these comments.
Now, however, “just because of a procedural error”, the trial held against the ultraconservative prelate will have to be repeated.
Read the article...Mormon church leaders apologised to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized, a controversial ritual that Mormons believe allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but offends members of many other religions.
Read the article...Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel on February 14, 2012, addressing the controversial Mormon baptism of deceased Holocaust survivors. It was recently revealed that a Mormon church member had posthumously baptized the parents of Simon Wiesenthal, the late Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter.
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New Zealand/Aotearoa Maori tattoos made up part of the agenda for an unusual conference which took place on Tuesday at a Vatican university about the role of tattoos in shaping identity. “Into the Skin: identity, symbols and history of permanent body marks” was the brainchild of a Christian arts association and Israel’s ambassador to the Read more
Mordechay Lewy, Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, on Thursday praised Pope Pius XII for helping Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome. On Sunday he “backed off” the comment, saying his analysis was “premature” and that it was a personal judgement. Lewy’s initial comments were made at a ceremeony on Thursday night to honour an Italian Read more