Ivanka Trump Prototype Dies at 88

There continue to be parallels between 1930-1940's Germany and 2018 America.  One is that both Germany of that era and America today had/have their "blonde princess" who brazenly refused to admit the ugliness and evil of their fathers.  For Germany, it was Gudrun Himmler, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler (for Fox News viewers, Hitler's second in command).  For 2018 America, it is Ivanka Trump Kushner.  The Washington Post looks at the death of Himmler's daughter who remained unrepentant to the end and denied the existence of the Holocaust and helped provide money and comfort to former Nazis convicted or suspected of war crimes.  After a visit to Dachau, Himmler's daughter described the experience as :very nice."  Under the regime of her father, Ivanka looks the other way as toddlers are ripped from their parents and now are being hauled before deportation courts alone and unaccompanied by adults known to them. Here are highlights from the Post coverage of the death of Himmler's daughter:

Gudrun Burwitz, the true-believing daughter of Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany’s highest-ranking official after Adolf Hitler, died May 24 in or near Munich. She was 88.

 Mrs. Burwitz, who was sometimes called a “Nazi princess” by supporters and detractors alike, remained unrepentant and loyal to her father to the end. Although she had visited a concentration camp, she denied the existence of the Holocaust and, in later years, helped provide money and comfort to former Nazis convicted or suspected of war crimes. 

At the time of her birth in 1929, her father was consolidating power as leader of the elite Nazi paramilitary corps known as the SS. Himmler also commanded the German secret police, the Gestapo, and established the system of prison and concentration camps in which more than 6 million people — primarily Jews but also Roma (or Gypsies), homosexuals and others — would perish.The only person who outranked Himmler in the Nazi hierarchy was Hitler himself.

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, the bespectacled, undistinguished-looking Himmler enjoyed having Gudrun at his side, as a blond, blue-eyed symbol of Aryan youth. In a diary later seized by Allied authorities, she noted that she liked to see her reflection in her father’s polished boots. She attended Christmas parties with Hitler, who gave her dolls and chocolates. 

When she was 12, Gudrun accompanied her father to the Dachau concentration camp, which was the site of Nazi medical experiments and the execution of tens of thousands of people.Gudrun recalled the visit in her diary: “Today we went to the SS concentration camp at Dachau. We saw everything we could. We saw the gardening work. We saw the pear trees. We saw all the pictures painted by the prisoners. Marvelous.  “And afterward we had a lot to eat. It was very nice.”

Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler was born Aug. 8, 1929, in Munich. Except for a brief interview in 1959, she is not known to have spoken in public about her father or her later life.

She did, however, often wear a silver brooch given to her by her father, depicting the heads of four horses arranged in the shape of a swastika. She was also known to be active in a group called “Stille Hilfe,” or silent help, which was formed in the 1940s to help Nazi fugitives flee Germany, particularly to South America, and to support their families.

The organization is “closely linked to a number of outlawed neo-Nazi movements and actively promotes revisionism — the notion that the Holocaust never happened and Jews caused their own downfall,” Andrea Roepke, a German authority on neo-Nazis, told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in 1998.

Among followers of the group, Mrs. Burwitz was “a dazzling Nazi princess, a deity among these believers in the old times,” according to German author Oliver Schrom, who wrote a book about Stille Hilfe.

Mrs. Burwitz attended underground reunions of Nazi SS officers, often held in Austria, possibly as recently as 2014. . . . Mrs. Burwitz also provided support, through Stille Hilfe, to convicted Nazi war criminals, including Klaus Barbie, an SS officer dubbed the “Butcher of Lyon,” and Anton “Beautiful Tony” Malloth, who was convicted of killing prisoners at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Am I being too harsh on Ivanka?  I don't believe so. 

Like Trump, Marine Le Pen Keeps Lying and Re-writing History’s

One of the common traits of the political right nowadays, both in America and in Europe is a total disregard for the truth and a desire to rewrite history.  Here in America, the white supremacists of the GOP base conveniently forget the injustices and horrors that took place against minorities - gays included - during the "good old days" that they seek to bring back.  America's past sins are whitewashed away and the myth of American exceptionalism inflated.  Hand in hand with this is a celebration of "traditional Christian belief" with all its bigotry and mistreatment of others.  Something similar is happening in France under the banner of Marine Le Pen and her National Front. Appeals to open racism are the norm and a whitewashing of ugly, inconvenient facts of France's history are underway.  An editorial in the Washington Post calls out Le Pen for her lies and denials of French culpability in the Holocaust.  Here are highlights:

WHEN A front-runner in France’s impending presidential election obliterates history by denying the country’s well- documented complicity in deporting tens of thousands of French and foreign Jews to Nazi death camps, it is clear something sinister is afoot in the birthplace of the Enlightenment.

Characterizing France as a victim rather than a willing and even enthusiastic participant in World War II’s mass liquidation of French and foreign Jews, Marine Le Pen, head of France’s far-right National Front, tried to remove the indelible stain left by that shameful chapter in her country’s history. Instead, she only ensured the stain attached to her own candidacy.

Founded by her father, the racist Holocaust minimizer Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front spent several decades mainly at the extremist margins of French politics. Since taking the party’s reins in 2011, Ms. Le Pen has presented herself as a gentler sort of immigrant-bashing nationalist. But, evidently loath to alienate the party’s old guard, she has negated her efforts to detoxify the National Front with dog whistles to the party’s nativist base. With her willfully denialist remarks last weekend, she went even further — squarely into the realm of historical revisionism.

“I think France was not responsible for the Vel d’Hiv,” she said, referring to the Winter Stadium in Paris where more than 13,000 Jews — mostly women and children — were rounded up in July 1942 before being sent to their deaths in Nazi gas chambers. “I think generally, if anyone is responsible, then it is those in power at the time, not France as such. It wasn’t France.” She added that “France has been mistreated, in people’s minds, for years.”

Actually, it was very much France that carried out the stadium roundups — specifically, some 4,500 French police, deployed in pairs, fanning out through the City of Light beginning at dawn on July 16, 1942, and acting on the direct orders of French officials. In all, 13,152 Jews were picked up over five days: 5,919 women, 4,115 children and 3,118 men; nearly all of them were then deported and murdered.
 Following the war, more than 50 years passed before the French government officially acknowledged the nation’s guilt and collaboration in abetting the Holocaust, in which, of 6 million Jews who died, more than 76,000 were deported from France. Nonetheless, denialism and willful historical ignorance have maintained their grip, thanks partly to Mr. Le Pen, who advanced the idea that the Nazi gas chambers were “a detail” of World War II.

[T]he party, which leads in next weekend’s first-round presidential races, according to some opinion polls, hasn’t really been remade, just recast. Ms. Le Pen has made that clear.

Again, it is not lost - at least for me - that those who talk the most about traditional Christian values are the ones who most want to harm and persecute others.  Religion is a pestilence on mankind. 

Scott Lively Warns of “Outbreak of Homosexuality” In Moldova

Speaking of the clinically insane, anti-gay douche bag and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively - who not too long ago supposedly swore off anti-gay demagoguery in foreign countries - is at it again. This time the self-loathing homophobe is in Moldova - a portion of the former Soviet Union - ranting about an alleged secret plan by the homosexual powers of the EU to push an anti-discrimination law based on sexual orientation through the Moldovan government. Given the insane drivel found in Lively's "The Pink Swastika" which claimed that homosexuals were behind the Nazi Party, I guess it should be no surprise that Lively sees a conspiracy under every bush. The bigger question is why anyone remotely rational would even listen to the man. Here are highlights from Box Turtle Bulletin on Lively's latest effort to disseminate lies and hatred:
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A Moldovan news report: Public Association “Pentru Familie” / “For the family / states that a recently adopted Government bill threatens the institution of family and social morality as homosexuality is increasing in the Republic of Moldova. An international expert in the field of human rights, Lively Scott, warned of “an outbreak of homosexuality” in Moldova, if the parliament adopts the bill, reports Info-Prim Neo.
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Chairman of the association “Pentru Familie” Vasile Filat said at a news conference on Monday that if this law is passed in parliament, this would entail the legalization of same-sex marriages, adoption of children couples gay acceptance of homosexual practice as the norm in schools.
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Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively is up to his old tricks again, even though it was not even two months ago that he said he was through with anti-gay activism. Shocking, I know.
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Lively is adding a new twist to his vast worldwide homosexual conspiracy. Again, from the Moldovan web site: Lobbying for the legalization of homosexuality is made from outside the Republic of Moldova, by agents of millionaire George Soros, who is interested in the fact that homosexuals have become a force, said Lively, Scott.
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I wish I had just a tenth of the the imagination it takes to to make this up. The unfortunate thing however is that Moldova has a serious problem with severe anti-gay violence. In 2008, a gay pride march was in the Moldovan capital of Chisina was attacked and broken up by a mob of skinheads and Moldovan nationalists. Violence and calls to violence has a habit of following Lively around, which is just one of many reasons for his “ministry” being among the very few in the U.S. who is listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

More Christianist Batshitery: “Recruit-Proofing’’ Your Child From Gay Activists

In light of my last post on parents accepting their LGBT children, I cannot pass up the opportunity to comment on the vile bullshit coming from the mouth of Holocaust revisionist and certifiable lunatic Scott Lively (pictured at left). The Boston Globe - once again - is irresponsibly providing Lively with a platform from which to disseminate lies and documented medical and mental health care falsehoods. The largely suck-up article, while mentioning Lively's role in the "kill the gays" bill in Uganda, fails to point out other than in passing that Lively and his anti-gay organization have been registered as a hate group.

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Sadly, one can only wonder when the Globe will be doing a puff piece that provides a platform for the Imperial Wizard of the Klu Klu Klan or some similar leader of a despicable hate group. Apparently, the Boston Globe aspires to National Enquirer status. I hope that the article's author, Michael Levinson, will be fired - but only after a thorough horse whipping. This is NOT an example of responsible reporting. Worse of all, some parents may well stupidly buy into Lively's bogus bullshit. Oh, and isn't it instructive that Lively - like so many in the anti-gay industry admits to being a "former" alcoholic and drug addict? Here are highlights from the Globe's yammering:
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SPRINGFIELD — He gained international attention after he was accused of stoking violence against gays in Uganda. One of his books, “Pink Swastika,’’ argues that Hitler and other Nazi leaders were gay. Another provides seven steps to “recruit-proof’’ your child from gay activists. But Scott Lively says he is toning down his antigay rhetoric and shifting his focus to helping the downtrodden. And he’s found a home and a receptive audience in this struggling city where many, but not all, have embraced his mission to “re-Christianize Springfield.’’
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But some in the city are wary. Gay rights and civil rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, have labeled Lively’s longtime organization, Abiding Truth Ministries, a hate group.
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Lively, 53, has been a prominent activist denouncing gays for decades, mostly on the West Coast. But he leapt into the world spotlight in March 2009, when he traveled to Uganda, and addressed members of parliament at a seminar on “exposing the homosexuals’ agenda.’’
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Lively warned the gathering that gays are a serious threat and their lifestyle “will lead to social chaos and destruction.’’ “The gay movement is an evil institution that’s goal is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity,’’ he told the conference, according to a video of his remarks.
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Lively’s role in the anti-homosexuality bill was featured prominently in The New York Times, on ABC News and National Public Radio, and he was mocked on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.’’ Rick Warren, the prominent evangelical pastor, released a statement saying he had never met Lively during his own work in Uganda, and added, “I would certainly not associate with anyone who denies the Holocaust.’’
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He says he has not changed his view that gays are “agents of America’s moral decline’’ but has refocused his approach to fit his flock in Springfield, which he said includes many homeless people, drug addicts, and alcoholics.
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Lively continues to denounce homosexuality. Paul said that when he invited Lively to preach at his church earlier this year, Lively delivered an “old-time, hellfire message’’ condemning gays.
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[Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Episcopal priest from Zambia] said he doubts Lively and others who denounced gays in Uganda have truly changed. “When they are in Africa, they preach hatred; when they come to America, because they know Americans are going to hold them accountable, they become moderates,’’ he said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t believe a thing from Scott Lively. I don’t even think he’s capable of toning down his anti-gay rhetoric.’’
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For those might want to do so, the article's author, Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com,

Another Far Right Terrorist Killing

George Tiller had barely been buried for more than a few days and now another deranged far right shooter has killed another person motivated by their hate-based beliefs that discriminate against others who are different. This time the scene of the shooting was the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the victim was an innocent security guard, Stephen T. Johns (pictured at left). The shooter? A white supremacist who has a trail of tirades against Jews and African Americans - I can only assume that he was not likely to have been a fan of LGBT Americans either. As the Washington Post is reporting, the killer, James W. von Brunn, stepped through the doors of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, took two paces, lowered his rifle at a security guard and, before anyone could react, opened fire. I hate to say it, but Von Brunn sounds like he would have eagerly participated in a Sarah Palin campaign rally last year. Increasingly, Von Brunn, Tiller's killer, and others like them are the face of the GOP and they are rallied to act by the talking heads of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and many of the professional Christian organizations who denigrate not only gays but Jews, Hispanics and blacks as well. As I have said before, these far right organizations are a clear and present danger to society and need to be exposed for the hatred that they foster. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

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The guard, who did not have time to draw his gun, fell bleeding and fatally wounded to the polished floor. Other guards fired back, cutting down the assailant. Terrified patrons, many of them children, dived for safety. And what moments before had been a bright weekday in June became a tableau of violence.

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The attack inside the famed Holocaust museum, as described by bystanders and authorities, turned the crowded building and Washington's nearby tourist-thronged Mall into a scene of fear and chaos, with black-clad SWAT teams, hovering helicopters and racing emergency vehicles. Stunned witnesses described a fusillade of gunfire -- five shots or more -- the blood-streaked floor and the screams of frightened visitors inside the museum and on the street.

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The suspect, identified by law enforcement sources as James W. von Brunn, 88, of Annapolis, was said to be a longtime, "hard-core" supremacist whose Internet writings contain extensive, poisonous ravings against Jews and African Americans.

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Police recovered a notebook in the suspect's possession that apparently contained a list different District locations, including Washington National Cathedral. Police bomb squads were sent to at least 10 sites.

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Von Brunn is said to have been a leading writer in the white supremacist fringe for many years. He also appears to be the author of a recent Internet posting suggesting that President Obama's background is being hidden from the public.

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His online book, "Kill The Best Gentiles," contains hundreds of pages of conspiracy theories that include Holocaust denial, the ancient hoax of the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" and wild webs of fantasy about Jewish plotting against white people.

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"This is a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite approaching the end of his life who may have decided to go out shooting," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group in Alabama that tracks right-wing extremists.

German Pope Disgraces the Catholic Church

UPDATED: CNN is reporting that the Conference of German bishops is demanding that Williamson must go. Would that they'd grow more balls and challenge some of Benedict's other lunacy. Here are highlights:

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Germany's Catholic bishops are calling for the expulsion of a bishop, recently brought back into the church by Pope Benedict XVI, after new reports that Richard Williamson denies the Holocaust. . . . "Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible," Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, told the magazine in an article published Saturday. "I now see no room for him in the Catholic Church."

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The German publication, Der Spiegel, has a lengthy and anything but flattering article on Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI which among other things suggests that Benedict may be kept in a cocoon much like that in which the Chimperator liked to remain. The result, of course is that he's utterly out of touch with the reality of the outside world - not to mention being locked in a Medieval mindset. The rehabilitation of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson combined with the ongoing cancer of the world wide sex abuse scandal - at least to me - indicates that the Vatican refuses to understand that we are no longer living in the 12th Century where the Pope/Church can in essence tell the world to go screw itself.

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Preaching the same old tired "natural law" mantra despite ever increasing advances in medical and mental health knowledge at some point will drive away those who represent the Church's future. True, the Church's membership is growing in ignorant, uneducated parts of the world (Africa in particular), but it is falling else where, especially in the modern western world that provides most of the cash flow that supports the entire structure. If Papa Ratzi isn't careful, he may do to the Catholic Church what the Chimperator did to the USA. On the other hand, perhaps only a free fall in Church membership and severe drop in monies will force change on what has become a very corrupt and out of touch Vatican. Here are some highlights from the Der Spiegel article:

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The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to reinstate the bishops of this brotherhood of St. Pius, who were excommunicated in 1988, has been the source of astonishment, disillusionment and outrage both inside and outside the Vatican. . . . What triggered the scandal, as SPIEGEL reported two weeks ago, was the fact that one of the priests brought back into the fold, Bishop Richard Williamson, is a notorious Holocaust denier.

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During a visit to Germany only two weeks ago, the British cleric told Swedish television: "Not a single Jew died in a gas chamber." . . . With a single, perhaps imprudent gesture, Benedict XVI has reignited old fears among Jews the world over, fears that the Catholic Church has in fact never really shed its old anti-Semitism. . . . And then there is the question that has the entire world worried: How can it be that a German pope, of all people, is pardoning a Holocaust denier?

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"How can such a liar be granted the protection and pardon of the leader of the Catholic Church?" It is a question that many Catholics are asking themselves, especially in the pope's native Germany. "People here are simply dismayed," says Klaus Mertes, a Jesuit priest and rector of the Maria Regina Martyrium Church, a commemorative church for the victims of the Nazi era in Berlin's Charlottenburg neighborhood. This sense of outrage, he says, is reason enough to speak out on the incident. "There is outrage over Bishop Williamson, on the one hand, as well as over the decision coming from Rome.

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In the northern city of Münster, where Joseph Ratzinger was once a theology professor, almost the entire Catholic faculty signed a sharply worded letter of protest and criticized the shift in the Vatican. . . . Some German Catholics have already made their way to their local registry offices to officially leave the church. The mood among many is reflected in the succinct words of Helmut Reinhard, a 62-year-old Munich Catholic: "I've had it!" Fifteen members of his family were lost in Auschwitz-Birkenau. "They were all gypsies," he says, "and all Catholics." His cousin Markus Reinhard, 50, lives in Cologne. Last Tuesday, on Germany's Holocaust Remembrance Day, he, his wife and his four sisters left the Catholic Church.

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The slip-up involving the St. Pius bishops could not have turned into a scandal but for two, closely-related problems associated with this pontificate. The first is the growing isolation of Benedict XVI. And the second is his trepidation when it comes to interacting with the modern world.

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The pope, says one member of the Curia, has surrounded himself with a team of yes-men, devoid of any critical voices. The team even shields the 81-year-old pontiff from unfavorable reports in the media. "As a rule," says the official, "he is only presented with excerpts from the international press. And in many cases, his staff members say: No, no, we cannot show him that article."

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"His current life," says a German theologian, "is reminiscent of Louis XVI. He hears snippets of what is happening in the world, signs something here and there, performs his duties, studies documents and has generally made a comfortable life for himself at court. But he is not the master of the machine that surrounds him."

Ich Bin Ein Big Stoopid

Mike Tidmus had this on his blog and it was just too good to pass up. Enjoy!!

Rehabilitation of Holocaust Denier Fall Out Continues

The fall out from the Nazi Pope's rehabilitation of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson just keeps on exploding. Particularly in Papa Ratzi's home country of Germany where he is under fire both from senior Catholic clerics and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is almost entertaining to see Benedict XVI - who is all to accustomed to sycophants kissing his ass and groveling to him - find himself with the political equivalent of shrapnel exploding all around him. One theologian is even calling on Benedict to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church - certainly something I would applaud. Breitbart.com has stories on both the reactions within the German Church hierarchy and Merkel's calls for Benedict to clear up his position on the Holocaust. Here are highlights from Merkel's demands:

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BERLIN (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Pope Benedict XVI to make a "very clear" rejection of Holocaust denials after a former bishop was rehabilitated by the Vatican. Her rare and public demand came amid increasing outrage among Germany's Roman Catholic leaders over the pope's decision to lift the excommunication of British-born Richard Williamson, who questioned whether 6 million Jews were gassed during the Nazi Holocaust.

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Merkel said she "does not believe" there has been adequate clarification of the Vatican's position on the Holocaust amid the firestorm of controversy that broke out after Williamson's rehabilitation by the German-born pope. . . . The issue is particularly sensitive in Germany, where denial of the Holocaust is a crime and Roman Catholic leaders have worked hard to restore relations with the Jewish community. As a young man in Germany, Benedict, then called Joseph Ratzinger, served briefly in the Hitler Youth corps.

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As for the growing firestorm within the Church in Germany over the rehabilitation of Richard Williamson, here are some additional highlights from Breitbart:

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Attacks on Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier escalated Monday, with one theologian calling on him to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Criticism following the pope's January 24 announcement has been particularly cutting in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable with a jail sentence.

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"If the pope wants to do some good for the Church, he should leave his job," eminent liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering told the German daily Tageszeitung. "That would not be a scandal, a bishop has to relinquish his position at 75 years, a cardinal loses his rights at 80 years," he said. Pope Benedict is 81.

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[I]n Germany, high-ranking Catholic officials said the pope risked losing vital support. "There is obviously a loss of confidence" in the pope and "rehabilitating a denier is always a bad idea," the bishop of Hamburg, Werner Thissen, told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday. The bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Gebhard Furst, meanwhile spoke of his "uncertainty, incomprehension and deception" in the national Bild.

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In Austria, where Pope Benedict last week named a controversial ultra-conservative priest as auxiliary bishop in Linz, criticism also came from within the Church. Vienna's cardinal and archbishop, Christoph Schoenborn, on Sunday lashed out at the decision to bring Williamson back into the fold, saying that "he who denies the Holocaust cannot be rehabilitated within the Church."

Pope Benedict XVI Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier - Update II

I have posted twice - most recently here - about the Nazi Pope's rehabilitation of extreme far right Bishop Richard Williamson who denies that the Holocaust occurred and claims that there were no Nazi gas chambers. It was on January 27, 1945 that Allied troops liberated Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz concentration camp. For those of us who live in the real world and not some parallel universe like Papa Ratzi and the rest of the Vatican leadership, here are some photographs from Civil Commotion that remind us of what really happened. I guess Williamson thinks these photos were created via photo shop. The Roman Catholic Church leadership has truly become a horrible institution.

Auschwitz corpses

Auschwitz gas chamber