An Excellent Commentary On The Pope's Holy Land Visit...

...by blogpal, author and Women in Green leader Naomi Ragen:

The Pope's recent visit to Bethlehem was one of the most blatant displays of capitulation to terrorism that has been seen in recent years. How well I remember the way Christians were treated by Arafat's henchmen, including Mahmoud Abbas his right hand man, during the Intifada. The Christian community was decimated, and is now only twenty percent of the population, when it was once the majority. Christian girls were kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. Christians were kicked out of their homes by gunmen, who used Christian neighborhoods to set up sniper nests from which they shot into Jewish homes in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, and passing cars on the road (Dr. Shmuel Gillis, on whom I patterned the hero of my book, The Covenant, was killed on his way home from treating cancer patients at Hadassah Hospital by such a sniper.)

And then there was the siege of the Church of the Nativity. The priests and children held hostage by Arafat's gunmen. The church desecrated. Priests holding up signs at the windows to Israeli soldiers "Please help us!"

The Pope, standing side by side with Abbas, chose to forget these things. His words: "Mr. President, the Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers, secure and at peace with its neighbors, within internationally recognized borders."

This is the voice of a religious leader, a moral force in the world? For choosing to forget all that happened to Christians in one of Christianity's holiest sites, he has chosen the way of appeasement, not peace. Of cowardly acquiescence to evil, instead of forthright defense of the helpless. He has nothing to teach us Jews. Indeed, he has nothing to teach Catholics. The only people who may learn from him are Muslim terrorists. And the lesson is clear. The leader of the Catholic world --once again-- in the face of evil, has decided to side with the oppressors against the oppressed.

One would think a German Pope would have something wiser to impart.

Well said, Naomi. The irony of this Pope standing next to Arafat's Holocaust denying number two in Bethlehem,where Abbas and Arafat presided over the decimation of a once majority Christian town is a permanent stain on the Church.

Pope Benedict may not have consciously decided to side with th eoppressors against the oppressed, but he has decided to accomodate, appease them and not confront them -which amounts to the same thing.That kind of moral deliquency is exactly how Pius XII dealt with the Nazis.

Benedict macula Templum per dedecus...