Reality Check: Does Having Judeo-Christian Values Make You a Candidate for Genocide?

Leave a comment

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

The words–annihilation, extermination, carnage, and slaughter, to name a few, are synonyms for the word “Holocaust”. The word “genocide”not invented until 1941, fits right in there. But none of those words bring us to the core of what those words truly represent. They are the by-product of the malevolent, hideous, and hate filled evil that consumes and takes control of certain human beings.

During the 20th century, seven periods of genocide  took place. Beginning with the  Armenian Genocide of  1915-1918, moving  to the Holocaust of 1938 -1945, seeing the horrors of Rwanda in 1995 and jumping forward to today’s worldwide daily carnage, what has changed? Not a damn thing.

The pages of history are filled with countless numbers of people who have seen fit to perform evil, vicious acts against those of their own kind. It defies logic, common sense, and so many other traits that are part of the human condition. Supposedly “good” people, upstanding citizens, if empowered and able to hide behind a mantra of legality, turn on their own kind and subject them to the most incredulous pain and suffering they can conjure up. How many Nazi war criminals used the excuse of “just following orders” to justify their actions?

But we lose a sense of the horror when we talk about the “millions” of innocents annihilated. We somehow need to look at individual people to grasp a sense of what did  happen and is happening up and including this very day. In fact, history proves that the our humanity is tied together with our ancestors, those part of our present and those that will follow us in the future.

In early April I wrote about the only nun ever sentenced to death by a Nazi court. Her name was Sister Maria Restituta (now Blessed Maria). Blessed Maria’s “crime” was  that she refused to remove Crucifixes from hospital bedrooms. I would now like to mention the very first priest to die in a Nazi concentration camp. Just like Blessed Maria he was also born in Austria. His name was Otto Neururer.

Father Neururer was a parish priest and a young woman came to him seeking advice. She wanted to know whether or not she should marry a divorced man. The man had a shady past and Father Otto advised her against the marriage. She told this man what Father had told her and he promptly went to his friend who was a high ranking Nazi official in the area. Father Neururer was arrested for “slander to the detriment of German marriage” and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp. From Dachau he was sent to  Buchenwald which was under the command of Martin Sommer aka “The Hangman of Buchenwald”.

While at Buchenwald, Father Neururer performed a “forbidden” Baptism. He was caught, sent to the punishment block and Martin Sommer decided to have him hung upside down. Father Neururer was left that way until he died 36 hours later. He was 58 years old and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996.

Demonstrating the connection from yesterday to today and onward to tomorrow let us jump ahead to  April 7, 2014. The place is Homs, Syria. Creatures of habit, most of us more than likely went through our usual daily routine of showering, brushing our teeth, having coffee, getting dressed and doing the things we usually do in whatever order we do them which is unique to each of us as individuals.

And then there were those that did not have an ordinary kind of day. One of them was Father Frans Van der Lugt a 75 year old Jesuit who had spent 50 years in Syria helping the poor and needy. This day would be his last.    

On Monday morning, April 7, masked assailants stormed into the monastery where Father Frans was tending to the remaining few dozen Christians left in Homs, (down from the 60,000 a few years earlier). These ISIS cowards dragged the 75 year old priest from the church, beat him mercilessly and then shot him in the head, killing him.

Father Fran’s crime was for being a Catholic priest and serving Jesus and loving his neighbor. What was Father Otto’s crime 70 years earlier? He was a Catholic priest serving Jesus and loving his neighbors. And dear Blessed Maria, she was just a Catholic nun and a nurse who loved Jesus and was beheaded for refusing to remove a Crucifix from a hospital wall.

To tie the entire century together lets not forget the Armenian Martyrs of 1915 thru 1918. Being part of the Judeo-Christian world means we must always be prepared and always be ready to stand up for God and Jesus and Goodness. Not one of those mentioned and the millions of their  murdered brethren ever thought  a day like that would come their way. Were they all ready to die for their faith? Would you or I be ready? Maybe it is time for ALL of us to think about that.

                                 ©Larry Peterson 2016 All Rights Reserved

Witnessing the Genocide of the American Moral Fiber

Leave a comment

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

The 100th Anniversary of “The Great Crime” is upon us. The killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire began on April 24, 1915. That was the day the Ottoman authorities rounded up 250 Armenian leaders and intellectuals in Constantinople and began the killings. The starving, the death marches, the drownings, shootings, hangings and other various implementations of painful death ended sometime after the end of World War I. Records indicate that over 1.5 million people perished in the first recorded genocide of the 20th century. This “Great Crime” is also known as the Armenian Genocide.

Last week, Pope Francis used the word “genocide” when he was describing what happened a century ago. The Turkish Foreign Minister immediately recalled his ambassador to the Holy See for ‘consultations’. The Turkish government (Turkey is the nation that replaced the Ottoman Empire) does not like it when you call the Armenian Genocide a genocide. They would probably prefer to make believe nothing ever happened in the first place.

Unlike Pope Francis, President Barack Obama avoided offending the Turkish government.  He refused, once again, to call Armenian carnage a ‘genocide’. He had promised to do so when campaigning for president in 2008. Now, seven years later, he never has but the White House issued a statement read by an official which said,  “We know and respect that there are some who are hoping to hear different language this year. We understand their perspective, even as we believe that the approach we have taken in previous years remains the right one — both for acknowledging the past, and for our ability to work with regional partners to save lives in the present.”

The  Armenian-Americans were hurt and disillusioned at the disrespect they had been shown. Ken Hachikian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America said, “President Obama’s surrender to Turkey represents a national disgrace. It is, very simply, a betrayal of truth, a betrayal of trust.”

To date, twenty-three countries have recognized the mass killings as genocide. The United States of America is not among them. In fact, because of “political expediency”, it never has called these mass killings genocide. Interestingly, the word genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin who, during the Nazi Holocaust, came up with the word based on the Armenian annihilation.

Ignoring the Armenian Genocide is just the very “tip of the iceberg”. Lies are told all the time across the politically charged American landscape. It does not even seem to matter anymore. WIN! WIN! WIN! is the pathetic mantra of our young 21st century political environment. I know politics has always been a “dirty game” but there was some honor and integrity involved, especially when we were talking about the very fabric of our nation. Common sense did take priority over “political correctness”. Not anymore.

Former Senate Majority leader, (now Minority Leader) Harry Reid, took to the floor of the United States Senate and accused  the Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney, of not paying taxes for over ten years.  Recently, when asked about it, he admitted he lied. He smirked smugly and said, “He didn’t win, did he?” And lying from the Senate floor as Majority Leader, Harry Reid  could not be held accountable for it. A fine example for Americans young and old.

We are witnessing the genocide of virtually all Catholic/Christians in the Middle east. We see and hear of it every day. With modern technology it is up close and personal. We see beheadings, shootings, burning people alive, even crucifixions within hours after they happen. Where is the outcry from the people of the world? Where is the demand to slam these barbaric, satanically fueled monsters perpetrating these acts back into the hell they crawled out of?

The President of the United States does not even call them “terrorists”. The mainstream media in America puts the stories on the back pages. We are told our worst enemy is “Climate Change”.  Ignoring truth and preaching for political expediency is an insult to all of us and an abomination of the American character. We could be, in addition to the genocide of Christians, be witnessing the genocide of the American moral fiber.

What ever is going on? What ever has happened to a country that  was the “Shining City on the Hill”?  I guess it has been taken hostage by self-serving impostors who care, before all else, about power, position and money. In 20 months maybe we can recapture that “Shining City”. And maybe I am just an old fool who still believes in the slogan from the old Superman comics: Truth; Justice; and the American Way.  Did they really say that?

                                  ©2015 Larry Peterson All Rights Reserved