Pope Says Sorry For Sins Of Church

By
The Man Who Saw God Face To Face
Raphael Okechukwu Nweze


Sweeping Apology
Sweeping Apology For Attacks On Jews, Women And Minorities Defies Theologians' Warnings Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic Church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders.

From the altar of St Peter's Basilica in Rome he led Catholicism into unchartered territory by seeking forgiveness for sins committed against Jews, heretics, women, Gypsies and native peoples. Fighting through trembles and slurrings caused by Parkinson's disease, the Pope electrified ranks of cardinals and bishops by pleading for a future that would not repeat the mistakes. "Never again," he said.

Centuries of hate and rivalry could not recur in the third millennium. "We forgive and we ask forgiveness. We are asking pardon for the divisions among Christians, for the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth, and for attitudes of mistrust and hostility assumed towards followers of other religions."

Plea for brotherhood
Defying warnings from some theologians that the unprecedented apology would undermine the church's authority, the 79-year-old pontiff asked God to forgive the persecution of the Jews. "We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood." Wearing the purple vestments of lenten mourning, the Pope sought pardon for seven categories of sin: general sins; sins in the service of truth; sins against Christian unity; against the Jews; against respect for love, peace and cultures; against the dignity of women and minorities; and against human rights.

Ethnic groups had endured "contempt for their cultures and religious traditions". Women were "all too often humiliated and marginalised". Trust in wealth and power had obscured the church's responsibility to the poor and oppressed.

There was no reference to homosexuals, who had asked to be included for suffering theocratic violence. The Pope did not identify guilty individuals or name the crusades, the Inquisition or the Holocaust, but the references were clear.

Five Vatican cardinals and two bishops confessed sins on behalf of the church during the ceremony. Cardinal Edward Cassidy recalled the "sufferings of the people of Israel" asked divine pardon for the "sins committed by not a few [Catholics] against the people of the covenant".

'Warped' view
Several Jewish leaders praised the sermon as historic and significant but Israel's chief rabbi said he was deeply frustrated by the Pope's failure to mention the Holocaust, and described the service as "a severely warped view of history".

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau joined other Israelis in expressing hope that the pope had omitted acknowledging the church's passivity during the Holocaust only because he was planning a specific apology during next week's pilgrimage to the holy land.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, confessed to the sins of the congregation's predecessor, the Inquisition. "Even men of the church, in the name of faith and morals, have sometimes used methods not in keeping with the Gospel," he said. Applause from the congregation greeted the Pope's arrival in the basilica. He kneeled before the Pieta, Michelangelo's statue of the dead Christ in the arms of his mother, before being wheeled to the altar. He leaned on his silver staff and it took several attempts for him to get out of his chair to kiss a crucifix. The Vatican no longer denies the Pope has Parkinson's disease. An operation to remove a tumour, several falls and an assassination attempt have left him hunched and stiff.

Seeking forgiveness has been a leitmotif of his papacy since his election in 1978. He has apologised for the crusades, the massacre of French Protestants, the trial of Galileo and anti-semitism. Yesterday's apology was by far the most sweeping and an unprecedented act for the leader of a major religion. One of the highlights of this year's jubilee, or holy year, it was the result of four years' research by a panel of 28 theologians and scholars. Disquiet that the apology was a beautiful gesture but a theological mistake bubbled to the surface last week.

Echoing widespread concern from liberal as well as conservative theologians, the Bishop of Como, Alessandro Maggiolini, said: "In whose name, exactly, is the holy father asking pardon? He is relying on a group of experts, but tomorrow another group of experts might come up with different examples."

Other churchmen said the gesture would be seen by Muslims as a sign of weakness and by secular enemies as a cue to launch further attacks. The Pope's persistence in ramming through the initiative, despite resistance inside the Vatican, has doused claims that he has effectively retired and abandoned policy-making. The document that provides the theological framework emphasises a distinction between the sins committed by the church's sons and daughters and the church itself, which remains holy and immaculate. Speaking after the ceremony to the crowd in St Peter's Square, the Pope stressed he was seeking forgiveness not from those who had been wronged, but from God. "Only he can do that."

2,000 years of violence and persecution

The Crusades
Pope Urban II, anxious to assert Rome's authority in the east, sent a military expedition in 1095 to reconquer the holy land. The crusaders ravaged the countries they passed through and massacred the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian population of Jerusalem after capturing it in 1099. After 200 years of conflict Muslim armies drove them out for good, but the crusaders' symbol of the red cross remains provocative.

The Inquisition
The attempt to combat suspected apostates, Jews and Muslims at the time of the Reformation spawned tribunals in Europe and the new world that tortured and executed thousands. Ecclesiastical queasiness about flowing blood led to the use of racks, thumbscrews and red-hot metal instead of blades; 2,000 people were burned at the stake during the tenure of Spain's first grand inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada.

The Holocaust
Pope Pius XII never publicly condemned the Nazis' persecution of Jews, even when they were being rounded up and deported from Rome. His silence is partly blamed for the failure of Germany's Catholics to resist Hitler. Anti-Jewish Catholic doctrines such as the claim that the Jews murdered Christ were said to have ideologically underpinned nazism. Vatican officials allegedly helped Nazis escape Europe after the war.

List of apologies made by Pope John Paul II
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pope John Paul II on 12 August 1993 in Denver (Colorado)
Pope John Paul II made many apologies. During his long reign as Pope, he apologized to Jews, Galileo, women, people convicted by the Inquisition, Muslims killed by the Crusaders and almost everyone who had allegedly suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church over the years.[1] Even before he became the Pope, he was a prominent editor and supporter of initiatives like the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops from 1965. As Pope, he officially made public apologies for over 100 of these supposed wrongdoings, including:[2][3][4][5]

• The conquest of Mesoamerica by Spain in the name of the Church[2][3][4][5]
• The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).[2][3][4][5]
• Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).[2][3][4][5]
• The Church's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).[2][3][4][5]
• The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's rights and for the historical denigration of women (10 July 1995, in a letter to "every woman").[2][3][4][5]
• The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (16 March 1998)[2][3][4][5]
• For the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (18 December 1999 in Prague). When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this matter "to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus among the Church's reformers, and acknowledged that "independently of the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity in his personal life and commitment to the nation's moral education." It was another step in building a bridge between Catholics and Protestants.[2][3][4][5]
• For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating "the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for their cultures and religious traditions". (12 March 2000, during a public Mass of Pardons).[2][3][4][5]
• For the actions of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204. (4 May 2001, to the Patriarch of Constantinople).[2][3][4][5]
On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic missionaries in colonial times.[6]

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded. — Pope John Paul II [7]

POPE GIVES APOLOGY TO ALL INJURED BY CHURCH
Pope John Paul II has made over a hundred confessions of Christian failure. Both Catholics and non-Catholics are a little weary and wary of all this apologizing. John Leo, in March 27, U.S. News & World Report, said, "That’s nice, but can you please be a bit more specific?" Perhaps John Leo and many like him do not understand the present Pope’s dilemma. It is hard to apologize for some sixteen centuries of very cruel and terrible history. This is especially difficult when one must apologize for those who were supposed to be the vicegerents of Christ on earth. How could Christ’s representatives have such a bloody and merciless history? His task is even more difficult when he must confess this long and dark history without acknowledgment of guilt. Somehow sins just happened but there are no specific sinners. Everyone of sound mind is sorry that these terrible things happened, but how does this help?

A historic confession in a formal theological statement, "Memory and Reconciliation," made by the pontiff at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and various cardinals was built into the liturgy of a papal mass. The church has begun to face up to the sins its members have committed through the centuries. However, those that committed many of these sins are long since dead and as far as anyone knows never acknowledged their sins. Some have been canonized as saints. What difference does sin make anyway? Can the present pope cast a mantel over the centuries past that will cover all the churches sinful acts?

An apology is better than no apology. At least there is an admission of wrong doing that injured, perhaps more correctly, killed, maimed, tortured, persecuted and relentlessly pursued those stalwart souls who stood apart from the corruption and vice of enthroned papal splendor. In some countries the persecution was so terrible that the Protestant Reformation could not take root. Spain under Muslim rule was an advanced nation in medicine, science, and cultural freedom.

When the Catholic Church came to power in Spain this all changed into a totalitarian state, driving Jews and Muslims out. The Holy(?) Inquisition, the most cruel and diabolical torture ever devised by man flourished—let no man call this Christian love. Science and freedom of every kind withered, while the church and state exercised totalitarian control over every aspect of society. This brought about the Dark Ages as all of Europe succumbed to the same authoritarian rule.

In 1160 Peter Waldo, the earliest reformer, started the movement that became known as the Waldenses. The papal authorities drove the Waldenses, women and children, out of their homes in mid-winter without food or sufficient clothing. Anyone who sheltered them or offered them refuge would be killed. Later, Wycliff, Huss, Zwingli, Tyndale, Luther, etc. provided the momentum to start and consummate a reformation in Europe.

The Catholic Church is painfully aware of its very dark history. Let no one think this applies only to ancient times. In our lifetime, we saw the Catholic Church in league with the Nazi-Fascist regimes that overran Europe while trying to raise the Nazi flag over the whole world. The Nazi’s deliberately murdered some six million Jews and Gypsies in death camps. Did the Catholic Church protest the death of innocent people? No! Yet the present pope intervened to save a murderer from a death sentence. They also operated the "Ratlines" after the war that provided false passports to countless thousands of Fascist criminals who then were sent to South America to escape prosecution for their war crimes. When the Nazi’s invaded Russia they made no provisions for the captured Russians. Their homes were burned and destroyed and thousands and tens of thousands were left to die without shelter or food in open fields. Did Pius XII protest against this inhuman treatment? Pius XII signed the Lateran Treaty with Italy and the axis powers in 1929 and never renounced it. Over fifty million people died because of Axis aggression.

Does the present pope really own up to the churches responsibility? Does Confession of Sin Release from Punishment? Somehow, the idea is promoted that confession of sin automatically brings forgiveness with an automatic release from all punishment. When a man confesses to murder does society release him from punishment? No! When God passed before Moses he proclaimed, "The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty" (Ex. 34:6, 7). As Abel’s blood cried out for retribution, so all the righteous blood that has been shed cannot go unrequited.

When David sinned by coveting his neighbor’s wife, by taking his neighbor’s wife, and by killing his neighbor it did not go unnoticed by God. While the Lord did forgive David and he did not die for these sins, yet his punishment may have been worse than death. God said, "therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house" (2 Sam. 12:1-14). David lived to see his son, Absalom seek his life, the nation leave off following him; his kingdom divided and experienced continual warfare. David showed greatness of character in living down his sin and showing a lifetime of contrition. God’s forgiveness in no wise cleared the guilty.

"Garnishing the Tombs of the Righteous"
The religious leaders in Jesus’ time came under his scathing criticism. He said, "Ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up the measure of your fathers" (Matt. 23:29-33). The very arguments they used to show themselves above the vices of their fathers was the very same argument Jesus turned upon them. They were the "children" of those who killed the prophets and in line for punishment. God has kept record of all the righteous blood spilled, and not one drop will go unrequited.

In Revelation we read about souls under the altar, that is in the ashes, crying out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, doest thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth" (Rev. 6:9,10)? In Revelation 16:4-7 we read of when finally the righteous blood is brought into account. "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. … Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."

The present confessions of the church will not absolve centuries of spilling righteous blood. They are only admitting that they are the children of those who spilled all this blood and caused all this pain to so many for so long. If they are truly penitent, they should be willing as was David to take humbly and graciously the punishments of the Lord, which will surely overtake them.

Three Crusades to Take the Holy Land
Referring to the Crusades and the Inquisition, the papal, "Memory and reconciliation, says, "Isn’t it a bit too easy to judge people of the past by the conscience of today … almost as if moral conscience were not situated in time?" John Leo says, "Correct answer: No. Many of the valiant crusaders used to warm up for their long trip to the Holy Land by butchering some local Jews, just for practice. The Christian moral conscience should have judged acts like these just as clearly in 1099 as the pope and most of the world would today." One of the definitions of love is: "Love is kind." We should never hold anyone who claims to be the vicegerent of Christ to a lesser standard. Let us never forget that the papal Crusades against the Holy Land were driven by the express purpose of securing Jerusalem. Every Bible student, even a neophyte, knows that the Kingdom of God must be founded in the possession of Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3 says, "For out of Zion [the place of David’s throne] shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Rome will not do. The Bible never ever associates God’s Kingdom with Rome. Remember, Jerusalem "is the city of the great King" (Matt. 5:34,35).

After three crusades that failed to gain Jerusalem for the papal powers, we now find the present pope trying to wrest the Holy City away from the descendants of Abraham. If the papal powers had taken the Holy City in their Crusades, it is doubtful if they would be eager to share the Holy City with Arabs and Jews today. However, if they can’t possess that city they do not want the Jews to have it, even though never has there been greater religious liberty in that city than now. Every Bible student knows that when the Jews possess the Holy City the Kingdom of God on earth cannot be far off. The Catholic Church’s claims to be God’s Kingdom on earth are hollow unless they possess Jerusalem. Consequently the pope is trying to wrest Jerusalem from Israel by making it an international city. If they can’t have it, they are desperate to take it away from the rightful heirs of that city.

Three Crusades failed to take Jerusalem and the present pope’s Crusade to take the Holy City by diplomacy will also fail. Jesus said, "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). The real reason why the papacy has bitterly persecuted Jewry is out of fear of the truth that the Kingdom of God is to come through the Jews. What happens to the papal claims to be the Kingdom of God? Rome just doesn’t cut it as the Kingdom of God. Even Jesus said, "Swear not all, neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: nor by earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King [Jehovah]" (Matt. 5:34, 35).

When King David finally confessed his sin, he said, "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Sam. 12:13). All sins are against God, but sins of murder are sins that cannot receive acquittal by a mere confession of guilt much less by a general apology for wrongdoing somewhere at sometime. The present pope means to show that the Catholic Church is not presently engaged in mass murder and torture of those who possess another faith. That is welcome. However, it is in vain for him to think that tens of thousands, yes, even millions who have died because of the Catholic Church's involvement, to expect acquittal by God. If there is a God in heaven righteous blood must be accounted for with just punishment. It is not in the power of people or nations to grant the Catholic Church acquittal from their sins. Only God can do this, and he has said he "will not clear the guilty"—never. The Lord chose to allow guilt to accumulate to avoid blotting out whole generations. As the Israelites were destroyed in the wilderness over a forty year period, allowing them to raise their families as the next generation. Jesus said to the Jews, "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom he slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation" (Matt. 23:35, 36). God simply tallied up the total bloodguilt as an adding machine, and required payment of the Jews in the overthrow of nation in CE 70. This is the pattern that will be followed at the end of this age as well.

This is not what many want to hear, but God will not be mocked—righteous blood spilled must be at last be accounted for. Not only has the pope been making a lot of apologies lately, but also he has set the stage for greater ecumenical movement between Catholics and Protestants and among Protestants themselves. What will come of all this activity? Read this online twenty-one page booklet, Church Union and the AntiChrist: The Ecumenical Movement in God’s Plan, available from our Literature List.