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"Are you the kind of guy we should trust unsubstantiated assertions from? "
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Yes trust but verify. That is why they call this a forum.
Pope Pius IX is the kind of guy that makes the ADL look like a responsible and good natured organisation.
http://www.adl.org/presrele/vaticanJєωιѕн_96/3630_96.asp
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ADL Statement on Beatification of Pope Pius IX
New York, N.Y., September 3, 2000 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed concern at the Vatican’s beatification of Pope Pius IX, who was responsible for the 1858 abduction of a six-year old Jєωιѕн child.
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
"The beatification of Pius IX is troubling for the Jєωιѕн community. Pius was responsible for the case of Edgardo Mortara, who at the age of six was abducted from his family in Bologna and taken to the Vatican by Papal police after it was reported that the Jєωιѕн child has been secretly baptized. Many European heads of state protested the 1858 kidnapping, as did Jєωιѕн leadership. As a result, Pius blamed Rome’s Jєωs for what he believed was a widespread Protestant conspiracy to defeat the papacy and levied medieval restrictions on the community.
While ADL respects the beatification process as a matter for the Catholic Church alone, we find the selection of Pius IX as inappropriate based on policies he pursued as the head of the Church. It is in the context of the many years of positive progress in Catholic-Jєωιѕн relations, including the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel and his asking for the forgiveness of the Jєωιѕн people, that the beatification of Pius IX, whose role in denying Edgardo Mortara his family and his right to be who he was, is most unfortunate."
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
http://markhumphrys.com/christianity.killings.htmlPope 1846-78) (and here) was beatified in 2000.
* Pius IX refused to support a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. He said that: "such an association could not be sanctioned by the Holy See, being founded on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any duties to animals."
* Pius IX was the last Pope to have temporal power, and to be able to abuse those unlucky enough to live in the Papal States.
* In 1858, Pius IX's police brutally removed a 6 year old Jєωιѕн boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his parents and forcibly raised him as a Catholic. The pleas of Edgardo's distraught parents counted for nothing. They never got their little boy back.
This is minor compared with the brutality of the church throughout history, but the sheer cruelty of it makes Pius IX a disgusting figure that no decent person should respect. * Anti-Defamation League Statement on Beatification of Pope Pius IX