As you know, although Holy Souls Hermitage is also a finalist for the Readers’ Choice Best Catholic Blog, I’ve been asking you NOT to vote for HSH, but rather TSW, that is, These Stone Walls. Some have said that Father Gordon MacRae’s (about) These Stone Walls is just about one thing, justice, one cause. But that’s not true. For example, in this weeks post, just today, over at These Stone Walls, we read this:
Why should the news accounts about Benedict XVI be treated with any more respect for truth and accuracy than those of Pius XII? There is actually a connection between these reports in the news media. In a comment on that post about Pius XII, reader Dorothy Stein wrote that it was largely disgruntled Catholics with an agenda, and not the Jews of the generation that lived through World War II Europe, who became the loudest slanderers and detractors of Pius XII.
A similar phenomenon is now true of Benedict XVI. I have read repeated praise of him, of his papacy, of his brilliance, of his justice – the latest coming from the Chief Rabbi of Rome – while Catholics with varying agendas cast shadows over him, some subtle and some overt. I don’t buy any of it. Most of these Catholic critics are simply using the story of this historic papal transition the same way they used the story of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The agendas of disaffected, disgruntled and sometimes sadly misled Catholics are typically given a soap box in the news media.
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
Thanks for the reminder…just voted (again)! Looks like we’ve managed to move the needle a tick to 38%!
Amen and Amen
it’s stuck at 38%.
There is no excuse for calling anyone names.
May God forgive you.
My dearest Brother Rolf! I do believe you are having me on for a laugh. So, I shall indulge you…
Let us recall the great Jeremiah, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, threw out a rather bold image, saying his listeners are like “a frenzied she-camel, coursing near and far, breaking away toward the desert, snuffing the wind in her ardor. For who can restrain her lust? No beasts need tire themselves seeking her!”
Instead of ratbags, perhaps I should call those criticize Pius XII and Benedict XVI a bunch of she-camels in heat!
And then there is the greatest of all the prophets, Saint John the Baptist, who spoke of serpents and broods of of vipers.
And then there’s our dear Lord, who had lots of insults for people, calling them hypocrites, blind guides, full of plunder and indulgence, whitewashed tombs, full of dead men’s bones and all manner of filth, evil doers and murderers.
I could go on with, say, the end of Romans chapter one, and on and on. But, you get the idea.
Anyone who criticizes Pius XII and Benedict XVI is a ratbag, at the least.
Peace to you, dear Brother.
P.S. And then we recall the saints. My favorite: Saint Jerome writing to Saint Augustine. And vice versa. Yikes! And Augustine in his sermons! And Chrysostom! Yikes and Yikes again!!!
“ Veni, creator, Spiritus,
Mentes tuorum visita,
Imple superna gratia
Quae tu creasti pectora.”
I read on wikipedia that this extraordinarily beautiful hymn is sung at the entrance of Cardinals into the Sistine Chapel when electing a new pope!
It is 39 percent now so we keep on voting for Fr McRae.
Two Cardinals still not in Rome yet. From what we heard from a well known prelate we need to implore heaven for the Cardinals. Not easy job! All the parishes here are saying Masses for the college of Cardinals.
OREMUS
In his book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, after carefully establishing the history of the Popes’ benevolence toward the Jews in general and laying waste to the slanderous claims against Pius XII in particular, Rabbi David Dalin makes precisely Fr. MacRae’s point about the anti-Pius XII crowd: they are liberal Catholics co-opting the Holocaust and bashing Pius XII in order to further their agenda in the Church.
Anita: I wish I could have caught up with the great Rabbi last Summer at the ever so mysterious retreat along the North shore of Lake Superior with Father Zed and the rest. That was two years in a row I’ve missed that. Perhaps, as he says, this Summer!
The Rabbi is a class act. His book came to my attention when I saw him on C-SPAN, giving a talk about it when it first came out. That made me read it, and launched me into further reading about our saintly wartime Pope. May he be raised to the altar soon.