"These are people, our brothers and sisters; maybe their life is unproductive, but productivity is not a justification for killing."
Clemens August Graf von Galen: Neue Forschungen zum Leben und Wirken des Bischofs von Muenster. Edited by Joachim Kuropka. (Muenster: Regensburg. 1992. Pp. 439. DM 48.) Clemens August Graf von Galen, Bishop of Muenster (and, after the war, Cardinal), earned the reputation of being a resister to National Socialism. At home and abroad, von Galen was depicted as a representative of the "other" Germany; the Germany which refused to be co-ordinated to Nazism's ideology. He received worldwide fame in August, 1941, when he delivered a series of sermons in which he took aim at Nazi policies, ...
During the Palm Sunday homily at Sacred Heart Church, Father McKenna brought up the heroic Clemens August Cardinal Graf Von Galen - some handle that.
Von Galen was beatified in 2005 by the Church and paid a mere nodding attention to that fact.
However, at the tiny French Mission Church in Washington Heights on the south side, Father McKenna sparked my interest.
Father McKenna mentioned the beating that Francis Cardinal George had been taking in media and from Chicago pols on the wrong side of the Notre Dame suck up to Abortion.
Father McKenna paralleled the heroic voice of Cardinal George to that of the forgotten German Cardinal Von Galen who defied Hitler and his Cult of Death.
Like Abortion, a political will that murders the elderly, the helpless and the undesirable is a cult of Death. Hitler hated smoking and loved Abortion and Euthanasia was aided and abetted by the cowed and the cowardly-Hitler advanced science and research over morality.
The Bishop of Muenster railed against this Cult of Death. Like the Archbishop of Chicago, Von Galen, a German aristocrat ( hence the Graf Von) was vilified by likes of Alfred Rosenberg, Joey Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, as well as the Agent of Change - Hitler. Cardinal George took a sucker slap from Bill Daley, the Mayor's Brother, probably because the Daley's want President Obama to lean on the Olympic Committees , so Pat Ryan can get some Insurance Business. Abortion can be a huge help to the Olympics! Yes! We Can!
Back in Hitler's Germany, where the Nazi's put on just a Swell Olympics, the mentally handicapped, the elderly, the insane, the deformed and the unwanted murdered as Research Tools to make health issues more viable. Cardinal Von Galen loudly attacked the Cult of Death and Racism - Yep, the Catholic Archbishop of Muenster loudly attacked the persecution of German Jews as well.
For his efforts, Hitler had Von Galen -placed under house arrest - he couldn't and didn't want to make the bishop a martyr. Can't have that - Nein!
Von Galen died shortly after the War and Progressive Revisionist history swept his heroic efforts under the carpet.
Like Cardinal George, Blessed Cardinal Von Galen is a heroic voice for the weakest and most vulnerable.
