Working Papers or "Veniam Pro Laudo Peto"

Why I blog

Sunday, July 25, 2004

JMJPT
I started this blog as a way of getting thoughts out. Sort of a internet diary or journal. In addition to personal blogs I have added websites and documents that I either find interesting and want to pass on or things that I belive in ( such as the Unfathomable Love and Mercy of Jesus Christ). I love my church--The Catholic Church and I love my daughter, my family (especailly my brothers and parents) and I love my country--USA!! There are some blogs here that are not favorable to the current administration. I may not agree with the administration (especially the current President) but I support the troops and the US. I am proud to be a American and to be a former US Marine. One of the wonderful things about democracy is that we can "agree to disagree". I think that most republicans want the very best for our nation and that they have good hearts and intentions. I also think that there are some democrats who have it wrong...I think that they caiter to fringe groups and forget about the people in the middle. I belive that the only true solution for the problems in the world and in our nation is Jesus Christ. It is only going to be when we as a nation and a world, especially our leaders, live the message of Christ and follow His Way that we can stop war, feed all the poor and heal all the sick. Change must begin with us.....each of us and the way we treat each other and how we treat our God. Change begins with me and you. Prayer is the key to change. May God bless you and may Mary keep you always.
Ed
JMJPT

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7/25/2004 10:37:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

Chaplain Emil Kapaun

Chaplain Emil Kapaun
**Fr. Kapaun an example of love in a prison of hate**
Army chaplain Emil J. Kapaun, armed during the Korean War only with the love of God, was described by those who served with him as the best and bravest foot soldier they ever knew.

Fr. Kapaun, a Wichita diocesan priest from Pilsen, died in a prison at 35 and was buried somewhere along the Yalu River in North Korea. "If I don't come back, tell my Bishop that I died a happy death," Fr. Kapaun told fellow prisoners as he was carried away to die.

He was honored Saturday, June 2, 2001 at Kapaun Mount Carmel High School, and Sunday, June 3, at Pilsen.

Fr. Kapaun was captured because he refused an order to try to escape through the surrounding enemy after the 8th Cavalry was overwhelmed on Nov. 2, 1950. Fr. Kapaun was seized by the enemy as he administered the last rites to a dying soldier.

He was taken to a POW camp run by the Chinese.

"It was obvious, Father said, that we must either steal food or slowly, starve," said fellow prisoner 1st Lt. Mike Dowe, who added that Fr. Kapaun risked his life by sneaking into fields around the prison compound to look for hidden potatoes and sacks of corn.

"The riskiest thefts were carried out by daylight under the noses of the Chinese," Lt. Dowe said. "The POWs cooked their own food, which was drawn from an open shed some two miles down the valley.

"When the men were called out to make the ration run, Father would slip in at the end of the line. Before the ration detail reached the supply shed, he'd slide off into the bushes. Creeping and crawling, he'd come up behind the shed, and while the rest of us started a row with the guard and the Chinese doling out the rations, he'd sneak in, snatch up a sack of cracked corn and scurry off into the bushes with it."

Fr. Kapaun would always put the corn into the communal pot, an example that other men, who would steal food for themselves, were shamed into following.

As the unsanitary conditions and unhealthy diet took their toll on the men, the priest from Kansas was there to help.

"Even when they died, he did not abandon them," Lt. Dowe said. "The POWs buried their own dead ... Men dodged this detail whenever they could. But Father always volunteered. And at the grave, as the earth covered the naked body -- the clothing of the dead was saved to warm the living -- he would utter for them the last great plea: 'Eternal rest grant unto him, 0 Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.'"

Fr. Kapaun would often escape to the houses where the enlisted men were held. He would hold a quick service, starting with a prayer for the men who had died in Korea and for their families.

"Then he would say a prayer of thanks to God for the favors He had granted us, whether we knew about them or not," Lt. Dowe said.,

"Then he'd speak, very briefly, a short, simple sermon, urging them to hold on and not lose hope of freedom. And above all, he urged them not to fall for the lying doctrines the Reds were trying to pound into our heads.

Somehow his presence could turn a stinking, louse-ridden mud hut -- for a little while -- into a cathedral, Lt. Dowe said.

Fr. Kapaun did much more for the men. He gathered and washed the foul undergarments of the dead and distributed them to men who could barely move because of dysentery.

"He washed and tended these men as if they were little babies," Lt. Dowe said. "He traded his watch for a blanket and cut it up to make warm socks for helpless men whose feet were freezing. The most dreaded chore of all was cleaning the latrines, and men argued bitterly over whose time it was to carry out this loathesome task. And while they argued, he'd slip out quietly and do the job."

Because of their diet, the POWs became sick and weak with many beginning to show signs of starvation. One day, though, their diet was different.
Father Emil J. Kapaun

Fr. Kapaun celebrates a battlefield Mass.

A crucifix handcarved in Fr. Kapaun's POW camp by a fellow prisoner is displayed at Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School.

**Books for further reading about Father Kapaun**
The Story of Chaplain Kapaun, Patriot Priest of the Korean Conflict by Father Arthur Tonne. Published 1954 by Didde Printing Company in Emporia, Kansas. (Currently out of print, but sometimes available at used book stores. Also available at the Chancery office.)

A Shepherd in Combat Boots, Chaplain Emil Kapaun of the 1st Calvary Division by William L. Maher, 1997, by Burd Street Press of Shippensburg, Pa.

Books that contain excerpts about Chaplain Kapaun:

Believed to be Alive by Captain John W. Thornton, 1981, by Paul S. Eriksson, Middlebury, Vt.; Memoir of a Cold War Soldier by Richard E. Mack, 2001, by Kent State University Press.

**Father Kapaun's prayers answered with a meal**
Editor's note: This is the second half of the article about Father Emil J. Kapaun, a native son of Pilsen, Kan., who died 50 years ago in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. Fr. Kapaun was honored on Saturday, June 2, at his namesake Kapaun Mount Carmel High School, Wichita. A statue of the hero chaplain was unveiled during a ceremony Sunday, June 3, in Pilsen. (Shown at top of page)

"The night before St. Patrick's Day, Father called us together and prayed to Saint Patrick, asking him to help us in our misery," Lt. Dowe wrote. "The next day, the Chinese brought us a case of liver-the first meat we had had-and issued us golian instead of millet. The liver was spoiled and golian is sorghum seed ... but to us they were like manna. Later he prayed for tobacco, and that night a guard walked by and tossed a little bag of dry, straw-like tobacco into our room."

As the prisoners continued to weaken, the communists intensified their propaganda. The prisoners would sit for hours in lectures while Comrade Sun, a fanatic who intensely hated Americans, assailed capitalism. After the lecture the men would have to comment on "the great truths revealed by Comrade Sun."

Some men were thrown into a freezing hole for their comments about the lectures, Lt. Dowe said. Others veiled their ridicule: "According to the great doctrines taught us by the noble Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Engels, Amos and Andy..." the men would say.

"Father was not openly arrogant, nor did he use subterfuge," the lieutenant said. "Without losing his temper 'or raising his voice, he'd answer the lecturer point by point, with a calm logic that set Comrade Sun screaming and leaping on the platform like an angry ape."

Fr. Kapaun was never punished, although he was threatened and warned.

In another incident, two officers who knew him well were tortured into accusing Fr. Kapaun of slandering the Chinese and of displaying a hostile attitude toward his captors, he said: "You never should have suffered a moment, trying to protect me."

Lt. Dowe said after the torture, the men expected a trial in which Fr. Kapaun would never return. "Instead, they (the Chinese) merely called him in and bullied him and threatened him. We realized then what we had known all along. They were afraid of him. They recognized in him a strength they could not break, a spirit they could not quell."

On Easter Sunday, 1951, Fr. Kapaun challenged his captors again, openly flouting their law against religious services.

"He could not celebrate the Easter Mass, for all his Mass equipment had been lost at the time of his capture ... He told the story of Christ's suffering and death, and then, holding in his hand a Rosary made of bent barbed wire cut from the prison fence, he recited the glorious mysteries."

The next Sunday, Fr. Kapaun collapsed while holding another service. Although he was weak, he battled dysentery, pneumonia and an infection in one of his legs and eyes.

During the last day Fr. Kapaun spent with his fellow prisoners, Lt. Walter Mayo Jr., said the chaplain was in great pain. "His face was contorted with pain every few minutes and we were all pretty much scared."

With tears rolling down his face he began telling the men the story of the Seven Macchabes in the Old Testament.

"There was an emperor who had an old woman brought up before him. He told her to renounce her Faith or he would torture and kill her. She replied that he could do anything he wanted, but she would not renounce it.

"The emperor then had her seven sons brought in and said he would kill them if she did not do as he said. She still refused and he then put them to death one by one. The old woman was crying and the emperor asked her if she was crying because she was sad. She replied that her tears were tears of joy because she knew her sons were in heaven."

"Father then looked at us and said he was crying for the same reason. He said that he was glad he was suffering because Our Lord had suffered also and that he felt closer to Him.

"By that time we were all crying," Lt. Mayo said. "Everyone in that room, who had seen scores of people die in the past few months and who thought they were pretty hard."

Soon after, the Chinese came to carry Fr. Kapaun to the hospital. "The Chinese saw a good chance to get this man they feared, now that he was helpless. They hated him because he had such an influence over all the prisoners.

"Three or four days later," Lt. Mayo said. "Father died among the men he served, up on a hill overlooking the Yalu River in that communist hospital of death."

(Information for this article, written by Christopher M. Riggs, was taken from Msgr. Arthur Tonne's 'The Story of Chaplain Kapaun' and the Jan. 16, 1954, edition of the Saturday Evening Post.)
Father Kapaun, second from right, assists a soldier in the field.
Father Kapaun's namesake is located on East Central in Wichita.

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7/25/2004 08:32:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

Sept. 11, 2001 Remembered

Sept. 11, 2001 Remembered
It is fitting that as we remember the military men and women who died in service to America, we also remember, as well, the first casualties of the War on Terrorism. They too, are American heroes who died in the line of duty.

As we honor our soldiers in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, let us also pause to remember other American heroes in special uniforms who died trying to help the first victims of this war - our country's first responders - firefighters, police officers and EMTs.

Remember our heroes in your prayers - and all our servicemen and servicewomen serving our great nation around the world - May God bless us all!

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7/25/2004 08:31:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

Veteran Watch - News of Unusual Interest to the Veteran Community

Veteran Watch - News of Unusual Interest to the Veteran Community

News of Unusual Interest to the Veteran Community

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Facts From Inside The Beltway (You Can't Believe All you Hear)

* * * *

The American public have been barraged with news out of the Nation's Capital that "Reinventing the government is working."

The claim is that the Federal employment dropped drastically, to the tune of over 300,000 since January 1993

Yes, that is an accurate figure but it seems that the details of this reduction never seems to be made available. Do you have any idea where the cuts have come from? If you are on active duty or a veteran you have been the target of the "Nation's Nabobs."

In the words of Sgt. Friday "Just the facts ma'am."

Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs were the real target of the budget cutters. Look at the actual figures!

Reduction in Department of Defense................. 283,801

Reduction in Department of Veterans Affairs.... 42,076

TOTAL REDUCTION........................................ 325,877

Jim Guirard, a government affairs consultant in Washington, points out that when we combine DoD and VA reductions, we see that the reduction in big government "has come out of the hides of the military and former military, and the civilian bureaucracy is just as big and intrusive as ever."

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7/25/2004 08:29:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

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7/25/2004 08:12:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

Biography of Father Walter Ciszek

Biography of Father Walter Ciszek
FATHER WALTER J. CISZEK, 1904-1984

You can't find this place on any map. You can't buy a ticket at your travel agent to go there. But it exists, even today. It is an archipelago, a geographical term that means a chain of islands. It is a chain of islands across the face of Russia. It is the GULAG archipelago, as Solzhenitsyn described it in his book of the same name. Solzhenitsyn compared it to a sewer system down which were flushed millions of people. Who would want to go there? Who could survive such a place? Yet this man smiling in the above photograph did just that.

In 1929 Pius XI was very much aware that the Russian Orthodox Church was on the brink of annihilation by the Communist regime as witnessed by the decimation of the 148,000 religious 157,000 married priests, 21,000 celibate monks, 15,000 deacons, and 53,000 nuns to would be an all-time low of 4,000 priests by 1939. The pope called upon the Jesuits to go into Russia to aid those starving in mind and body and soul.

The 1929 establishment of the Russian Center [Russicum] in Rome was the initial training ground for those Jesuits who volunteered to respond to the Pope's call. Walter J. Ciszek, a Polish-American, born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 1904, was one of those early volunteers. His mother and father were of Polish peasant stock and had gone to America in the 1890s and settled in the coal region of Shenandoah.

To judge by outwards appearances, he seemed to be a bully, a street fighter, and most of the fights he picked on purpose, just for the devilment. His father once took him to the police station and begged them to put him into reform school. In eighth grade Walter made up his mind to be a priest. His father, of course, refused to believe it. But he fooled them all and entered the Polish minor seminary.

"And I had to be tough. I'd get up at four-thirty in ing to run five miles around the lake on the seminary grounds, or go swimming in November when the lake was little better than frozen. I still couldn't stand to think that anyone could do something I couldn't do, so one year during Lent I ate nothing but bread and water for the forty days --another year I ate no meat at all for the whole year --just to see if I could do it. " [With God in Russia]

Then Ciszek read the life of St. Stanislaus Kostka, another tough Pole who fought his family and at fourteen walked from Warsaw to Rome to join the Jesuits. Ciszek was three years from ordination. He hated the idea of "perfect obedience. But at age twenty-four without asking anyone's advice he presented himself to the provincial at 501 East Fordham Road in the Bronx and said, "I'm going to be a Jesuit. On September 7, 1928 he reported to the novitiate in Poughkeepsie, New York. Early in his first year he volunteered to go to Russia and, surprisingly, he was accepted. Only one condition, he had to finish the course of studies first.At the end of his second year of philosophy, however, he was informed that he was to sail to Rome to begin his theological studies at the Russian College. On June 24, 1937 he was ordained and said his first Mass in the Russian rite.

Since no priest could travel directly into Russia, Ciszek was sent to Albertyn Poland to work for two years teaching ethics to Jesuit seminarians and to be "a horse-and-buggy priest. But on September 1, 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. The novices were sent home. And then the Russians invaded from the east. Ironically, Russia came to him.

The Russians took over the college, threw the books from the library into a dump truck, and left the Jesuits with nothing but the chapel. Then one day Ciszek went into the church to say Mass and found the tabernacle open, the altar cloths strewn about, and the Blessed Sacrament gone. It was the end of the Jesuit mission in Albertyn

Father Ciszek and his inventive friend Father Makar managed to con their way onto one of the jammed trains going south to Lvov, the Jesuit theologate. For awhile Ciszek got a job driving a truck, but the one idea that plagued him was that this was the perfect time for his "invasion" of Russia. The roads were aswarm with refugees. A man could easily lose himself among them. The Russians were hiring large crowds of people to work the factories in the Urals. Finally, his superior said yes.and he obtained the permission of the Ukrainian Archbishop,of Lvov Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytzky with special powers.

For the tricky Makar false identity papers were no problem. So Ciszek presented himself at the office of a big lumber combine as 'Vladimir Lypinski, " a widower whose family had died in a German air raid. On March 15, 1940 he boarded boxcar 089725 with twenty-five other people, an oil-drum stove, a slop bucket for a toilet, and not much else for the fifteen hundred-mile trip to Chusovoy in the Ural Mountains. The trip took two grinding, tedious weeks.

Through the summer of 1940 Walter worked as an unskilled laborer hauling logs from the river and stacking them in long rows on the bank. He was paid by the number of logs stacked, but with old-timers juggling the tallies and lodging deducted from his pay, he was broke within two weeks and had to begin pawning his few possessions to buy food. He had to sneak out into the woods to say Mass. In his spare time he memorized the prayers of the Mass against the time when his Mass kit might be discovered and confiscated. But for the time being his apostolate was loading logs and keeping his ears open.

Then one night early in June at 3 a. m. the barracks were surrounded by secret police. They searched everything. In Ciszek's suitcase they found two bottles of white wine, a can of tooth powder, and some sheets of paper he had used to teach a little boy how to write. The agent claimed they were "bottles of nitrogylcerine, a tin of gunpowder, and a secret code. Wladimir Lypinski was arrested as a German spy.

For two months he was kept in a cell thirty by thirty feet with about a hundred other prisoners, never the same men, since as new prisoners were shoved in, others were taken out, never to be seen again. Those who did return were battered black and blue.

Finally one day he was called to the interrogation room. 'Who are you?" He began the sad story of the widower Lypinski. The interrogator interrupted him: "No, no, no. You are not Lypinski, you are not Russian, and you are not a Pole. You are a priest and your name is Ciszek and you are a spy for the Germans. Now why don't you tell us about it?"

He was stunned. He had no way of knowing how they had found him out. He admitted the story but for an hour uselessly denied that he was a spy for anyone. It was the first of many interrogations. Some were accompanied with rubber clubs, pressure devices on his head, starvation of his body, rubber tubes around his mid section, interrogation at all hours of the night, drugs in his blood stream, and these first three months of solitary confinement and punishment were increased to six and a cell mate was added in order to obtain a confession. During the six month period, Father Walter maintained his by religious thought and in fact accomplished priestly work in the religious interrogation of his interrogators. Finally, after severe, brutal mind manipulation by the Lubianka interrogator and drugging by a medical doctor, Father did signed a paper of rigged confession. He describes this as one of the darkest moments in his life and yet out of the darkness came a deep conversion, a conversion to do always the will of God. [He Leadeth Me, p. 73] Several weeks later on July 26, 1942 he was summoned before a commissar at two o'clock in the morning. He had "confessed" and had been found guilty of espionage. The sentence was fifteen years at hard labor in Siberia. He did not know then that it would be four more years before he left Lubianka.

The next four years he calls his years of education at "Lubianka University. "Besides his previous routine, he did forty-five minutes of calisthenics every day, polished the floor twice a day, and sewed his clothes with needles he had made of fishbones from his soup. Since he had been convicted, the prison officials allowed him one book at a time and he read his way through Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Gogol, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Goethe--all in Russian. There were interrogations at irregular intervals, threats, offers of "deals," but they became little more than irritating interruptions in his

It may be eighteen hundred miles as the crow flies from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk, halfway across the Russian subcontinent, but it was all part of the same archipelago. By train it is twenty-five hundred miles. By boxcar with thirty men in a car, it takes two weeks and a large can of deodorant.

But Krasnoyarsk was not his destination Two days after he had arrived there, he was herded with two thousand other men onto barges in the Yenisei River for a twenty-day journey north to Norilsk. When they left Krasnoyarsk, it had been a sweltering hot day. When they arrived in Norilsk, it was stinging cold and snowing. They were now ten degrees north of the Arctic Circle. It was a motley collection of men: thieves, deserters, murderers, political prisoners--and one convicted Vatican spy. For twelve hours a day in the bitter cold Ciszek shoveled coal into freighters, still dressed in light cotton summer clothes with rags for shoes. Winter clothing was not issued until October when the temperature was thirty degrees below zero.

But for the first time in five years he met another priest and was able to say Mass. Polish prisoners had made wine out of stolen raisins, the paten was a cover for a gold watch, the chalice was a shot glass. "But my joy at being able to celebrate Mass again cannot be described. . . . I heard confessions regularly and from time to time was even able to distribute Communion secretly after I'd said Mass. The experience gave me new strength. I could function as a priest again, and I thanked God daily for the opportunity to work among this hidden flock, consoling and comforting men who had thought themselves beyond His grace."

In December he was transferred to mining coal, ten hours at a stretch, with no breaks for food or rest. There was no running water in the new camp, so the men simply washed their faces and hands with snow. Everything froze- -the food, the dynamite and tools, hands and feet. With the railroad tracks three feet under snow and the river solid with ice, the camp was cut off from all supplies. in the spring thaw, at the end of May, the place was a sea of mud.

Walter Ciszek worked in the mines "about a year," then in 1947 he became a construction worker in an ore processing plant, a better job since there was water to drink and blankets on the beds. Once every ten days, the men got a shower and turned in their old underwear for a clean set. Their other clothes were washed every three months. After work he heard confessions as the men walked around the prison yard. And once the commandant's quarters had cleared for the day, he said Mass undetected right in the offices. At times he said Mass in the hospital examination rooms. He even began giving retreats.

In October, 1953 Ciszek was again sent to work in the mines. It was bitter cold and the work was brutalizing, but he was able to make thirty dollars a month which meant he could eat a little better. He worked in the mines for two more years--in this story "years" have the danger of looking like "days." But as his sentence drew agonizingly toward a close, his one fear was that he would have an accident in the mine within days of his release.

Finally on April 22, 1955 with three years off for work quotas surpassed, his sentence was up. He walked out of the prison a free man. The scene was quite humorous. [He Leadeth Me, p. 168] He had survived fifteen years of hell. He had survived the GULAG but not he was cast adrift on the vast sea of Siberia. His freedom of movement was limited to the town of Norilsk, so for three years he worked there in a chemical factory. Most of the girls in the plant knew he was a priest and they covered for him if he came in late or had to leave early for a Mass or wedding or baptism. He even made several converts among them. After awhile he became so busy that he had to rotate the places for his three Sunday Masses.

One of the first things Ciszek had done when he was released from the labor camp was to get permission from the secret police to write to his sisters in America. Suddenly a letter came. They were astonished that he was alive. For the first time since 1939, almost twenty years, someone in America knew that Walter Ciszek was still alive.

By Easter of 1958 there were so many people in Norilsk for his midnight Mass that there was hardly room in the converted barracks for anyone else. Several men from the secret police, however, found space. The following Wednesday he was summoned by the KGB and given ten days to leave Norilsk "and never think of coming back." Ten days later a KGB jeep took him to the airport and put him on a plane to Krasnoyarsk. After twelve years he was leaving the Arctic."By my second month at Krasnoyarsk, I had thriving mission parishes on the Pravi Biereg and in the outskirts and suburbs of the city. One German settlement out beyond the Yenisei station took over a whole barrack when I said Mass. More than eight hundred people attended, and there were baptisms and marriages before and after Mass sometimes for hours. I served another German community in a kolkhoz farther out and, since I still had my regular parish and the 'missions' on the Right Bank, I had to hold these suburban services on Saturday. . . . I worked sometimes around the clock, getting no sleep at all for more than seventy-two hours."[With God in Russia] He was called into the KGB office, his passport was canceled, and he was given forty-eight hours to get out of town.

He got a job as an auto mechanic in Abakan, one hundred miles south of Krasnoyarsk and remained there for four more years. Once again "'years" begin to sound like "weeks." In April of 1963 he received a letter from his sister Helen saying she had finally received a visa to visit Russia in June. The KGB which had denied it over and over again, miraculously gave Ciszek permission to meet his sister in Moscow, but only for twelve days. June came and went. There was a delay in his sister's visa. He waited.

Then, abruptly, in early October he was summoned late at night by the KGB, told to quit his job, and be ready to leave for Moscow in three days. He left the meeting knowing nothing of where he was going or why. The prison camps again? Lubianka? Merely to meet his sisters?

He was met in Moscow by agents of the KGB, taken to a hotel, and for three days, inexplicably, given a VIP tour of the capital. They still refused to answer his questions. Without warning on October 12, 1963 Ciszek was told to pack; he was taken to the Moscow airport and introduced to a man named Kirk from the American consulate. "I couldn't figure anything out. The KGB agent was nervous. Kirk was nervous--but about what? Everybody stood around for a moment in silence, as if they were at a wake. Finally, Kuznetsov said, 'Well, shall we get it over with?'

"'Good,' said Kirk, 'let's get it over with." The two of them shook hands, then Mr. Kirk turned to me. 'Father Ciszek, would you come over here?' I went over to the table as Mr. Kirk pulled a paper from his inside coat pocket. 'Would you sign this?' He handed me a pen and I signed; I was so badly confused I hadn't even the sense to notice what I was signing.

"'Now, Father Ciszek,' said Mr. Kirk, 'you're an American citizen.'

"'Really?' I asked, momentarily stunned. 'It's all like a fairy tale,' I mumbled.

"'Yes, it's a fairy tale, but a fine fairy tale. And it's true."' Even at that moment, he had no idea that he was to be exchanged for a Russian spy apprehended in the United States. Numbly he boarded the plane. "Suddenly, the plane gathered speed. I blessed myself, then turned to the window as we took off. The plane swung up in a big circle; there were the spires of the Kremlin in the distance. Slowly, carefully, I made the sign of the cross over the land that I was leaving." [With God in Russia]

Father Ciszek continued his priestly work in the John XXIII Center at Fordham University [which now is known as the Center For Eastern Christian Studies and is located at the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania] by giving retreats, talks, counseling to many people who came to see him until his death on the feast of Our Lady, December 8, 1984.

Almost immediately after his death, a petition to recognize his heroic virtues and outstanding holiness was circulated by Mother Marjia, the superior of the Byzantine Carmelite monastery Father Ciszek had helped to found. Five years later Bishop Michael J. Dudick began the official diocesan process of investigation for the Eparchy of Passaic and the Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League was formally incorporated as the Official Organization for the Promotion of the Cause of canonization of Father Walter Ciszek. With the arrival of Bishop Andrew Pataki as the head of the eparchy of Passaic, the cause was transferred to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown [in which see Shenandoah is located]. The Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League is now located at 231 North Jardin Street in Shenandoah, PA 17976-1642.

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7/25/2004 08:02:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Eliahu :: permalink

CatholicMil.org | Archiocese of Military Services

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7/25/2004 07:56:00 PM :: 0 comments

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Impeach Bush, Resist the Bushoccupation

Impeach Bush, Resist the Bushoccupation
Whitewashing 911
by Mike Hersh and E. O'Connell, April 30, 2004

George Bush's double-secret-probation 911-liefest is now over. CNN quotes 911 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean saying it was "marvelous". Indeed we have something to marvel over. The administration is getting away with its failure to protect us on 911.

Bush's negligence is finally and officially forgiven. No one shall be held accountable. Ever. The majority of Americans believe Bush did a fine job protecting us from terrorists.

Except of course, for the one little slip-up.

When asked at a recent press conference if Bush could think of any mistakes he'd made during his first term, he drew a blank. Couldn't think of a thing. If we still had a free mainstream press in this country, someone would have had the balls to ask:

"Um, Mr. President, remember that vacation? We know, you take a lot of them, but this was sort of...special? Condi briefed you that Al Qaeda was determined to strike in the US? After getting this briefing… you went fishing, remember?"

"Do you still think fishing was the appropriate response to this information?"

But there is no longer a free press—only a half dozen global corporations spewing infoganda, occasionally balancing one press release against another, but more often simply parroting the party line. The commercials never end.

Operation: Vacation couldn't be interrupted for anything mundane as the looming terrorist threat. Let's face it, if our president has to actually show up at work more than two or three months out of the year haven’t the terrorists already won?

The truth is out there, laid bare in a bunch of widely read, thoroughly documented books by former counter-terrorist czar Richard Clarke, Bob Woodward, and Greg Palast whose new expanded edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy could be called "The REAL 911 Commission Report".

These books, and Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty quoting Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, reveal the Bush Administration placed priorities like tax cuts, "Star Wars," carving up Iraq, anti-porno and anti-prostitution efforts on the front burner, and took anti-terrorism off the stove entirely.

No one knows this as well as the families of the victims, the people who forced the administration to investigate 911. Many think the attacks could have been prevented—and unlike our President, they’ve done their homework. Many of them, life-long Republicans, have said that while the Clinton administration may not have done enough, the Bush Administration did absolutely nothing to prevent the attacks.

Absolutely nothing.

Those not blinded by lifelong loyalty to the GOP know the administration is guilty of far more than doing nothing. Knowingly or unknowingly, they directly aided and abetted the terrorists.

The "Visa Express" program, initiated by the Bush administration in 2001, obtained the passports for three out of the eleven of the 911 terrorists—without a background check. The brainchild of a long-time State department appointee, "Visa Express" was instituted during a period in which the administration was struggling to mend fences with our good allies, the Saudis.

Bush's palpable disinterest in the middle-east (he joked about the Clinton administration’s strenuous efforts for peace there) had caused a lapse in the usual US / Israeli / Palestinian dialog. Instead of our measured indignation at over-active Israeli reprisals for Palestinian terror, Bush praised Ariel Sharon as a "man of peace." Over and over again.

Angered, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan wrote a scathing letter to the White House, threatening a major rift if the US abdicated its fair broker role in the Middle-Eastern conflict. If we weren't going to pretend to be fair to the Palestinians, the Saudis would take their oil and service contracts elsewhere.

The Bush Administration went to appeasement 'battlestations'. Bush ordered FBI, CIA and other national security and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigation of Saudi nationals—including known terror suspects. Assured by Saudi officials that al Qaeda wouldn't strike, the Administration relaxed Clinton-era protections against terrorism and eased pressures on the Taliban.

The Bush Administration delivered a letter promising the Palestinians a "viable" homeland. The crisis averted, the Bush family's precious relationship with the house of Saud secure, Bush took time for another well-earned vacation.

Weeks later, Saudi terrorists led by Saudi expatriates—supported by prominent wealthy Saudis and funded by Saudi money, educated in Saudi funded fundamentalist Madras schools—killed 3000 innocent Americans.

And the administration started blaming Clinton, whose advice vis-à-vis Osama they had ignored. This fact is documented in John Ashcroft’s memo detailing the justice department’s priorities under the new administration. Terrorism was dropped from the list entirely.

Under Ashcroft, the FBI and the Department of Justice were more interested in prosecuting pornographers, draping the naughty bits of the statues in his office building, and holding daily prayer sessions than fighting terror. When personally requested to authorize wiretaps in on-going domestic surveillance operations, Ashcroft declined, claiming not to understand the process.

After downgrading terror as a justice department priority, he stopped flying commercial aircraft, commandeering the Justice department’s private jet, and monopolizing it. He justified this behavior on the basis of a ‘threat assessment.’ When it came to saving his own skin, Ashcroft could somehow process the information. When it came to protecting his fellow Americans, well, let’s just say that John had other priorities.

The People for the American Century, (PNAC) in documents freely distributed on the internet, wished for another Pearl Harbor type attack on the United States, to allow them to realize their Pax Americana in a single generation.

When powerful people wish for hideous crimes, they have a tendency to occur. When a mob boss does this, it's called racketeering. When the People for the New American Century, also known as the Bush Administration, wished for another Pearl Harbor, it was called patriotism.

And their wish came true.

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Welcome to the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA

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International Single Parents Meetup Day -- Join other Single Parents near Minneapolis, MN

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Theodore Roosevelt: Icon of the American Century

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Questia - The Online Library of Books and Journals

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Book 1, Chapters 1-10 of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis - Cyber Library

Book 1, Chapters 1-10 of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis - Cyber Library
BOOK ONE
THOUGHTS HELPFUL IN THE LIFE OF THE SOUL

The First Chapter
IMITATING CHRIST AND DESPISING ALL VANITIES ON EARTH
HE WHO follows Me, walks not in darkness," says the Lord.[1] By these words of Christ we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we wish to be truly enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ.

The teaching of Christ is more excellent than all the advice of the saints, and he who has His spirit will find in it a hidden manna. Now, there are many who hear the Gospel often but care little for it because they have not the spirit of Christ. Yet whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ.

What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.

This is the greatest wisdom -- to seek the kingdom of heaven through contempt of the world. It is vanity, therefore, to seek and trust in riches that perish. It is vanity also to court honor and to be puffed up with pride. It is vanity to follow the lusts of the body and to desire things for which severe punishment later must come. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life. It is vanity to be concerned with the present only and not to make provision for things to come. It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.

Often recall the proverb: "The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing."[2] Try, moreover, to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God.

The Second Chapter
HAVING A HUMBLE OPINION OF SELF
EVERY man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars. He who knows himself well becomes mean in his own eyes and is not happy when praised by men.

If I knew all things in the world and had not charity, what would it profit me before God Who will judge me by my deeds?

Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise.

Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life eases the mind and a clean conscience inspires great trust in God.

The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?

If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain in good estate. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself.

The Third Chapter
THE DOCTRINE OF TRUTH
HAPPY is he to whom truth manifests itself, not in signs and words that fade, but as it actually is. Our opinions, our senses often deceive us and we discern very little.

What good is much discussion of involved and obscure matters when our ignorance of them will not be held against us on Judgment Day? Neglect of things which are profitable and necessary and undue concern with those which are irrelevant and harmful, are great folly.

We have eyes and do not see.

What, therefore, have we to do with questions of philosophy? He to whom the Eternal Word speaks is free from theorizing. For from this Word are all things and of Him all things speak -- the Beginning Who also speaks to us. Without this Word no man understands or judges aright. He to whom it becomes everything, who traces all things to it and who sees all things in it, may ease his heart and remain at peace with God.

O God, You Who are the truth, make me one with You in love everlasting. I am often wearied by the many things I hear and read, but in You is all that I long for. Let the learned be still, let all creatures be silent before You; You alone speak to me.

The more recollected a man is, and the more simple of heart he becomes, the easier he understands sublime things, for he receives the light of knowledge from above. The pure, simple, and steadfast spirit is not distracted by many labors, for he does them all for the honor of God. And since he enjoys interior peace he seeks no selfish end in anything. What, indeed, gives more trouble and affliction than uncontrolled desires of the heart?

A good and devout man arranges in his mind the things he has to do, not according to the whims of evil inclination but according to the dictates of right reason. Who is forced to struggle more than he who tries to master himself? This ought to be our purpose, then: to conquer self, to become stronger each day, to advance in virtue.

Every perfection in this life has some imperfection mixed with it and no learning of ours is without some darkness. Humble knowledge of self is a surer path to God than the ardent pursuit of learning. Not that learning is to be considered evil, or knowledge, which is good in itself and so ordained by God; but a clean conscience and virtuous life ought always to be preferred. Many often err and accomplish little or nothing because they try to become learned rather than to live well.

If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations. On the day of judgment, surely, we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken but how well we have lived.

Tell me, where now are all the masters and teachers whom you knew so well in life and who were famous for their learning? Others have already taken their places and I know not whether they ever think of their predecessors. During life they seemed to be something; now they are seldom remembered. How quickly the glory of the world passes away! If only their lives had kept pace with their learning, then their study and reading would have been worth while.

How many there are who perish because of vain worldly knowledge and too little care for serving God. They became vain in their own conceits because they chose to be great rather than humble.

He is truly great who has great charity. He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and makes nothing of the highest honor. He is truly wise who looks upon all earthly things as folly that he may gain Christ. He who does God's will and renounces his own is truly very learned.

The Fourth Chapter
PRUDENCE IN ACTION
DO NOT yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God's will. For very often, sad to say, we are so weak that we believe and speak evil of others rather than good. Perfect men, however, do not readily believe every talebearer, because they know that human frailty is prone to evil and is likely to appear in speech.

Not to act rashly or to cling obstinately to one's opinion, not to believe everything people say or to spread abroad the gossip one has heard, is great wisdom.

Take counsel with a wise and conscientious man. Seek the advice of your betters in preference to following your own inclinations.

A good life makes a man wise according to God and gives him experience in many things, for the more humble he is and the more subject to God, the wiser and the more at peace he will be in all things.

The Fifth Chapter
READING THE HOLY SCRIPTURE
TRUTH, not eloquence, is to be sought in reading the Holy Scriptures; and every part must be read in the spirit in which it was written. For in the Scriptures we ought to seek profit rather than polished diction.

Likewise we ought to read simple and devout books as willingly as learned and profound ones. We ought not to be swayed by the authority of the writer, whether he be a great literary light or an insignificant person, but by the love of simple truth. We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord remains forever. God speaks to us in many ways without regard for persons.

Our curiosity often impedes our reading of the Scriptures, when we wish to understand and mull over what we ought simply to read and pass by.

If you would profit from it, therefore, read with humility, simplicity, and faith, and never seek a reputation for being learned. Seek willingly and listen attentively to the words of the saints; do not be displeased with the sayings of the ancients, for they were not made without purpose.

The Sixth Chapter
UNBRIDLED AFFECTIONS
WHEN a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought.

True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man.

The Seventh Chapter
AVOIDING FALSE HOPE AND PRIDE
VAIN is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things.

Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud.

If you have wealth, do not glory in it, nor in friends because they are powerful, but in God Who gives all things and Who desires above all to give Himself. Do not boast of personal stature or of physical beauty, qualities which are marred and destroyed by a little sickness. Do not take pride in your talent or ability, lest you displease God to Whom belongs all the natural gifts that you have.

Do not think yourself better than others lest, perhaps, you be accounted worse before God Who knows what is in man. Do not take pride in your good deeds, for God's judgments differ from those of men and what pleases them often displeases Him. If there is good in you, see more good in others, so that you may remain humble. It does no harm to esteem yourself less than anyone else, but it is very harmful to think yourself better than even one. The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger.

The Eighth Chapter
SHUNNING OVER-FAMILIARITY
DO NOT open your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who fears God. Do not keep company with young people and strangers. Do not fawn upon the rich, and do not be fond of mingling with the great. Associate with the humble and the simple, with the devout and virtuous, and with them speak of edifying things. Be not intimate with any woman, but generally commend all good women to God. Seek only the intimacy of God and of His angels, and avoid the notice of men.

We ought to have charity for all men but familiarity with all is not expedient. Sometimes it happens that a person enjoys a good reputation among those who do not know him, but at the same time is held in slight regard by those who do. Frequently we think we are pleasing others by our presence and we begin rather to displease them by the faults they find in us.

The Ninth Chapter
OBEDIENCE AND SUBJECTION
IT IS a very great thing to obey, to live under a superior and not to be one's own master, for it is much safer to be subject than it is to command. Many live in obedience more from necessity than from love. Such become discontented and dejected on the slightest pretext; they will never gain peace of mind unless they subject themselves wholeheartedly for the love of God.

Go where you may, you will find no rest except in humble obedience to the rule of authority. Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have deceived many.

Everyone, it is true, wishes to do as he pleases and is attracted to those who agree with him. But if God be among us, we must at times give up our opinions for the blessings of peace.

Furthermore, who is so wise that he can have full knowledge of everything? Do not trust too much in your own opinions, but be willing to listen to those of others. If, though your own be good, you accept another's opinion for love of God, you will gain much more merit; for I have often heard that it is safer to listen to advice and take it than to give it. It may happen, too, that while one's own opinion may be good, refusal to agree with others when reason and occasion demand it, is a sign of pride and obstinacy.

The Tenth Chapter
AVOIDING IDLE TALK
SHUN the gossip of men as much as possible, for discussion of worldly affairs, even though sincere, is a great distraction inasmuch as we are quickly ensnared and captivated by vanity.

Many a time I wish that I had held my peace and had not associated with men. Why, indeed, do we converse and gossip among ourselves when we so seldom part without a troubled conscience? We do so because we seek comfort from one another's conversation and wish to ease the mind wearied by diverse thoughts. Hence, we talk and think quite fondly of things we like very much or of things we dislike intensely. But, sad to say, we often talk vainly and to no purpose; for this external pleasure effectively bars inward and divine consolation.

Therefore we must watch and pray lest time pass idly.

When the right and opportune moment comes for speaking, say something that will edify.

Bad habits and indifference to spiritual progress do much to remove the guard from the tongue. Devout conversation on spiritual matters, on the contrary, is a great aid to spiritual progress, especially when persons of the same mind and spirit associate together in God.

Address to the Diplomatic Corps
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS

Monday, 13 January 2003

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. This meeting at the beginning of the New Year is a happy tradition which affords me the joy of welcoming you and in some way of embracing all the peoples whom you represent! For it is through you and thanks to you that I come to know their hopes and aspirations, their successes and their setbacks. Today I wish to offer your countries my fervent good wishes of happiness, peace and prosperity.

At the threshold of the New Year I am also pleased to offer all of you my best wishes, as I invoke upon you, your families and your fellow citizens an abundance of divine blessings.

Before sharing with you some reflections inspired by the present situation in the world and in the Church, I must thank your Dean, Ambassador Giovanni Galassi, for his kind words and for the good wishes which he has thoughtfully expressed, in the name of all present, for my person and for my ministry. Please accept my deep gratitude!

Mr Ambassador, you have also pointed to the legitimate expectations of modern men and women, all too often frustrated by political crises, by armed violence, by social conflicts, by poverty or by natural catastrophes. Never as at the beginning of this millennium has humanity felt how precarious is the world which it has shaped.

2. I have been personally struck by the feeling of fear which often dwells in the hearts of our contemporaries. An insidious terrorism capable of striking at any time and anywhere; the unresolved problem of the Middle East, with the Holy Land and Iraq; the turmoil disrupting South America, particularly Argentina, Colombia and Venzuela; the conflicts preventing numerous African countries from focusing on their development; the diseases spreading contagion and death; the grave problem of famine, especially in Africa; the irresponsible behaviour contributing to the depletion of the planet’s resources: all these are so many plagues threatening the suvival of humanity, the peace of individuals and the security of societies.

3. Yet everything can change. It depends on each of us. Everyone can develop within himself his potential for faith, for honesty, for respect of others and for commitment to the service of others.

It also depends, quite obviously, on political leaders, who are called to serve the common good. You will not be surprised if before an assembly of diplomats I state in this regard certain requirements which I believe must be met if entire peoples, perhaps even humanity itself, are not to sink into the abyss.

First, a "YES TO LIFE"! Respect life itself and individual lives: everything starts here, for the most fundamental of human rights is certainly the right to life. Abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, for example, risk reducing the human person to a mere object: life and death to order, as it were! When all moral criteria are removed, scientific research involving the sources of life becomes a denial of the being and the dignity of the person. War itself is an attack on human life since it brings in its wake suffering and death. The battle for peace is always a battle for life!

Next, RESPECT FOR LAW. Life within society – particularly international life – presupposes common and inviolable principles whose goal is to guarantee the security and the freedom of individual citizens and of nations. These rules of conduct are the foundation of national and international stability. Today political leaders have at hand highly relevant texts and institutions. It is enough simply to put them into practice. The world would be totally different if people began to apply in a straightforward manner the agreements already signed!

Finally, the DUTY OF SOLIDARITY. In a world with a superabundance of information, but which paradoxically finds it so difficult to communicate and where living conditions are scandalously unequal, it is important to spare no effort to ensure that everyone feels responsible for the growth and happiness of all. Our future is at stake. An unemployed young person, a handicapped person who is marginalized, elderly people who are uncared for, countries which are captives of hunger and poverty: these situations all too often make people despair and fall prey to the temptation either of closing in on themselves or of resorting to violence.

4. This is why choices need to be made so that humanity can still have a future. Therefore, the peoples of the earth and their leaders must sometimes have the courage to say "No".

"NO TO DEATH"! That is to say, no to all that attacks the incomparable dignity of every human being, beginning with that of unborn children. If life is truly a treasure, we need to be able to preserve it and to make it bear fruit without distorting it. "No" to all that weakens the family, the basic cell of society. "No" to all that destroys in children the sense of striving, their respect for themselves and others, the sense of service.

"NO TO SELFISHNESS"! In other words, to all that impels man to protect himself inside the cocoon of a privileged social class or a cultural comfort which excludes others. The life-style of the prosperous, their patterns of consumption, must be reviewed in the light of their repercussions on other countries. Let us mention for example the problem of water resources, which the United Nations Organization has asked us all to consider during this year 2003. Selfishness is also the indifference of prosperous nations towards nations left out in the cold. All peoples are entitled to receive a fair share of the goods of this world and of the know-how of the more advanced countries. How can we fail to think here, for example, of the access of everyone to generic medicines, needed to continue the fight against current pandemics, an access — alas — often thwarted by short-term economic considerations?

"NO TO WAR"! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between States, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say t