'Venerable' Pope John Paul II

Author: Edward Pentin | Source: NCRegister.com

Venerable Karol Wojtyla? Congregation reportedly recommends next step toward Pope John Paul II’s canonization.

Cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints reportedly voted in favor of the late Pope John Paul II having lived a life of heroic virtue, according to some Italian press reports.

They report that members of the congregation voted unanimously Nov. 16 to recommend that Pope Benedict XVI formally recognize that Pope John Paul II heroically lived the Christian virtues.

The Vatican would not deny or confirm the reports. The process is being carried out under strict secrecy, and officials are refusing to discuss any aspect of the cause for canonization.

But if true, Pope Benedict may sign a decree recognizing the heroic virtue of his predecessor before the end of the year (he generally signs a dozen or more decrees three times a year: in April, June or July, and in December). John Paul II would then be declared venerable, the penultimate step to beatification.

The congregation’s members meet regularly to study a “positio” (documents pertaining to the causes of proposed saints) and have been examining John Paul II’s since the summer. When the cardinals and bishops are satisfied that the “positio” is complete and demonstrates that the candidate for sainthood lived an extraordinarily holy life, they recommend the pope sign the first decree declaring him venerable.

But to be beatified, a second decree is needed to confirm a miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession. It follows three phases of approval by teams of doctors, theologians and the members of the congregation.

Many alleged miracles have been reported, but the promoter of John Paul II’s cause, Msgr. Slawomir Oder, has proposed the healing of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who was allegedly cured of Parkinson’s disease — the same disease that afflicted the late Pope.

Some have speculated that official approval of the miracle may happen soon, leaving the possibility of John Paul being beatified as early as next year, possibly on the fifth anniversary of his death.

Informed Italian Vatican watcher Andrea Tornielli contended the ceremony will “probably happen either in May or October next year,” but added it is “premature” to give a more exact date.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, recently ruled out any beatification before the spring. Others speculate that any miracle is unlikely to be approved until next fall at the earliest.

At the moment, much hinges on the Holy Father issuing the first decree, and he may choose to delay signing it for various reasons.

Two years ago, the same group of cardinals and bishops unanimously approved the cause of Pope Pius XII, but Pope Benedict XVI has still not promulgated the decree on the heroic virtues of Pope Pacelli, as he is reportedly waiting for the Vatican archives on Pius’ pontificate during the Second World War to be catalogued and opened to the public.

Usually, the Church does not allow the opening of a cause for beatification until five years after the candidate’s death, but as is well known, Pope Benedict waived this rule for John Paul II, citing his predecessor’s worldwide reputation for holiness.

While this has been welcomed, some in the Vatican hope the process becomes more deliberate, and this may also influence the Pope’s decision.

“We still don’t really know all there is to know about him [John Paul II],” one Vatican official told the Register. “If he is beatified too soon, there is a danger of beatifying the personality, not the person.”

Polish bishops have also been urging more caution lately, having previously wished for a hasty beatification.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul’s long-serving private secretary, said on a trip to Argentina at the end of November that “it all depends” on the Pope.

“We Polish bishops do not want to interfere [in the cause],” he told reporters. “We do not want the Pope to rush; he should analyze it properly.”

Meanwhile, as John Paul II’s beatification cause progresses apace, more about his life is being revealed, including testimonies that he would occasionally flagellate himself and sometimes pray continuously for many hours.

According to Sister Tobiana Sobodka, a Polish nun who worked for Pope John Paul in his private Vatican apartments and at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome, John Paul II would often put himself through “bodily penance.”

“We would hear it — we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo,” said Sister Tobiana, a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. “You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.” The testimonies appear in Santo Subito, a new book by Tornielli.

The Church’s tradition of corporal mortification is founded on Christ’s redemptive suffering and the Christian call to emulate him and join him in his passion. Usually, such mortifications take the form of fasting and abstinence, but some Catholics have undertaken greater sacrifices, such as frequent fasting, or using a hairshirt, a discipline (a small, cord whip) or a cilice (a small, light metal chain with little prongs worn around the thigh).

Many who have done so have been the Church’s greatest saints, including Sts. Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas More and Blessed Mother Teresa.

In 1986, in his annual “Letter to Priests,” John Paul wrote: “What one must see in these forms of penance — which, unfortunately, our times are not accustomed to — are the motives: the love of God and the conversion of sinners.”

Some members of Opus Dei use the cilice as a means of corporal mortification, the aim being to resist man’s natural drive toward personal comfort, which can often prevent Christians from answering the call to love God and serve others.

As well as mentioning this corporal discipline, Tornielli’s book also recalls the late Pope’s love of prayer.

“When Karol Wojtyla prayed, he was not distracted by anything,” said Emery Kabongo, a secretary of John Paul. “I remember that when serving in the papal apartments, you were told that when the Holy Father was praying, even if it was something important, you had to wait to tell him because for him prayer came first. God came before everything else, even the world’s problems.”

Arturo Mari, for many years the Pope’s personal photographer, recalled how the Pope would make a point of praying hard for the local people of the countries he visited. “It seemed that he identified with them in their suffering,” Mari said. “I remember in Vilnius, he remained praying on his knees for six hours without stopping.”

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.

'Venerable' Pope Pius XII

According to Pope Benedict XVI:

Holy Father declares World War II Pope is Venerable

Vatican City, Dec 19, 2009 / 12:12 pm (CNA).- In a recent round of authorizations by Benedict XVI on Saturday, Pope Pius XII was proclaimed as having displayed exemplary and “heroic virtue” in his life. The Holy Father's decision to move ahead with the declaration rebuffs claims that Pius XII did nothing to help the Jews during World War II. He now needs two miracles to be officially attributed to him to become a saint.

Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli, is most remembered for being the Pontiff during World War II. While some say he did little to protest the deportation of Jews and the Holocaust, written records and witnesses tell another story. They testify to his actions in defense of the Jews. Accounts of his intervention to save 4,000 Jews from a ghetto in Rome and place them in convents and Catholic schools refute claims of his passiveness.

In May of 2009, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former president of the Italian Bishops' Conference, a seminarian during the War, said that he couldn't remember anyone saying anything but good things about the Pope during that time. No one, he said, would have described the Pope's reaction as "silent," as would be said of him later.

In an article published in L'Osservatore Romano on May 28, 2008, Cardinal Ruini wrote, “it was obvious, in the atmosphere and ecclesial praxis of the time,” that if many “priests and religious communities, and the Vatican itself, had taken in and saved many persecuted Jews ... it could not have been done without the encouragement and consent of the Pope.”

Ruini called the claims of inaction nothing more than a "black legend."

Today's declaration on Pius XII was not the only news-making announcement.

Pope Benedict XVI also declared Pope John Paul II and eight others as having lived lives of “heroic virtue.” With the signature of the Pope and the support of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, they have all taken another step towards sainthood.

Wlodimir Ledochowski's Minions 'Venerable'- Pope Benedict XVI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venerable

In the Roman Catholic Church's Latin rite, The Venerable is the style used for a person who has been posthumously declared "heroic in virtue" during the investigation and process leading to possible canonization as a saint. Before a person is considered to be venerable he or she must be declared as such by a proclamation, approved by the pope, of having lived a life that was "heroic in virtue" -- the virtues being the Theological Virtues of faith, hope and charity and the Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. The next step is beatification, at which point the person is referred to as The Blessed, and then finally canonization, at which point the person is referred to as Saint.

Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pope Pius XII)

March 2, 1939 - October 9, 1958

Karol Józef Wojtyła

18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/venerable-pope-pius-xii.html

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/venerable-pope-john-paul-ii.html

Wlodimir Ledochowski 12-21-2012 'Day of Redemption'?!

(or 21-12-2012 as in Europe)

From One Evil.org:

Prussia's destroyer to become a 'saint' on December 21, 2012?!

http://www.one-evil.org/people/people_20c_Ledochowski.htm

(excerpt)

Key Facts Other names Włodzimierz Ledóchowski Born 1866 Location Sitzenthal in Loosdorf, near St. Pölten (Lower Austria) Bloodline Married No Children No Position Superior General (1915-1942) Died December 13, 1942 (aged 56)

Source of Facts and Important Announcement Status Under Article 64.6 of the Covenant of One-Heaven (Pactum De Singularis Caelum) by Special Qualification shall be known as a Saint, with all sins and evil acts they performed forgiven. Date of formal Beatification Day of Redemption UCA[E1:Y1:A1:S1:M9:D1] also known as Fri, 21 Dec 2012. Source of Facts Self Confession and Revelation of Sainthood by the Deceased Spirit as condition of their confirmation as a true Saint.

---------------------

Along The Amber Path 10 - What About Prussia?

http://carlosquiles.com/indo-european-language-blog/2009/02/konigsberg-aka-kaliningrad-under-international-law-russian-german-polish-lithuanian-or-simply-prussian/

Königsberg (AKA Kaliningrad) under international law: Russian, German, Polish, Lithuanian, or simply Prussian?

February 24, 2009 by Indo-European

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The progress of the ’star wars’ (AKA missile shield) affair, which Russia seemed willing to aggravate by talking about plans to station missiles in Kaliningrad, without any concerns whatsoever for the welfare of Kaliningraders and Europeans, should make the European Union reexamine its current policy under the Kaliningrad Strategy, of collaborating with Russia by facilitating the transit of goods and persons and helping its socio-economic development.

Instead of just hearing what Russians have to claim before the international community, the EU should ask the international community by which right keeps the Russian Federation hold on Königsberg territory, and should demand from Russia a date for devolution, no matter how hard Russian media propaganda tries to avoid the question:

Although disputes over the status of Russia’s westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad have practically ceased, this should be regarded as a signal that all the parties concerned are aware of the serious repercussions that instability in that region could cause.

Geopolitical Stability has been by far the most repeated pro-Russian argument since the 90’s, also in official European Union forums (see Freedom to Kaliningrad thread); it is easily summed up into a “let’s maintain the statu quo to avoid destabilizing the region”. The murmuring of those plans to use Kaliningrad as missile base made by Russian military officials to the press, to escalate tensions in the missile shield affair, has shown how the Russian Federation respects the will of Europeans for stability in the region. Not to talk about Russia’s lack of respect for the lives of thousands of European citizens in this winter’s gas disputes, or its lack of respect for Estonian democratic decisions, or its support for the authoritarian Belarusian regime of Lukashenko…

Other great arguments made by pro-Russians include “Nazi Germany”, “World War II” and “Mother Russia”, and are easily read elsewhere in Russian media and blogs when the Kaliningrad question is mentioned. Nevertheless, most Kaliningraders – whether ethnic Russians or not – show often an open mind about the return options. And even official Russian media like Russia Today recognize still in 2009 (only in English texts for outsiders) the Lithuanian claims to the territory and its return; East German rights are still taboo in Russian ‘free’ media, while Polish claims are probably too weak to be worth mentioning:

The region became an administrative unit of Russia [sic] in 1946 after the Potsdam conference and the partition of Germany. Although it solidified as an administrative entity, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issue of reassimilating the Kaliningrad region into its historic entity of Lithuania arose.

According to a thorough study on the question (The Kaliningrad Challenge, 2003) Russia has been always concerned about the risk of separatism in Kaliningrad, which might be greater than expected if the European Report The EU and Kaliningrad (2002) is correct in assessing that Kaliningrad’s level of development is closer to Lithuania and Latvia than previously thought. In that sense, ethnic Russian Kaliningraders see Kaliningrad in the future as another Baltic Republic, either still somehow federated to Russia with great autonomy or fully independent. Moreover,

There are opinion polls – now more frequently held within blogs and forums – which show that Kaliningraders occasionally imagine their future not so much as a fourth Baltic Republic, but as part of a return to Germany

As it has been already argued on the situation of Königsberg/Kaliningrad region and the Northern Territories/Southern Kuril Islands under international law:

In a similar way, the Soviets also refused to discuss the final peace settlement in Europe after the Second World War. It is important to emphasize that neither the United States nor Britain agreed at Potsdam or anywhere else to the transfer of East Prussia or part of the Königsberg Region to the Soviet Union. Thus, although the Kaliningrad Region is currently administered by Russia, it is not a legal part of Russia.

Stalin was seeking a deal on East Prussia at the Tehran conference in 1943, drawing a line in red pencil on the map “to illustrate the fact that, if part of eastern Prussia, including the ports of Könisberg and Tilsit, were given to the Soviet Union, he would be prepared to accept the Curzon line [...] as the frontier between the Soviet Union and Poland.”

This line goes roughly along the current border between the Kaliningrad Region and Poland, but Stalin’s red line on the map went virtually through the cities of Königsberg and Insterburg (see the Map). Charles E. Bolen, the interpreter for the American delegation, says in his memoirs that during their discussion, Stalin and Churchill virtually agreed on the future borders of Poland, but the official American record of the conversation says that “although nothing was stated, it was apparent that the British were going to take this suggestion back to London to the Poles.”

On February 11, 1945, at the Crimea (Yalta) Conference, the Big Three agreed on the Curzon Line as the boundary between Poland and the USSR. However, the archival material clearly shows that there had not been any legally binding agreement made between the allies about the transfer of the Königsberg Region to the Soviet Union at any of the Second World War conferences. This is why Stalin attempted to secure his gains at the Potsdam conference in Berlin, which took place from July 17 to August 2, 1945.

After the end of the Second World War, the Kaliningrad question began by Stalin’s personal will of revenge against Germany:

Königsberg was neither appended outright to the Soviet Union nor was it to be considered part of the Soviet zone of occupation, which had been outlined earlier in the agreement.

[The Soviet Union] acted decisively to completely eradicate the German presence in Königsberg and replace it with Soviet presence. This began even before the end of hostilities with the Reich:

Königsberg was destroyed in the last weeks of the war when there was no real reason to assault it. When the soldiers of the Byelorussian front were dying in its streets in the first week of April, 1945, the rest of the Red Army was already besieging Berlin. Seven centuries of history went up in smoke in one week of shelling and bombing. By then, the decision to annihilate East Prussia and grant Königsberg to the Soviet Union had already been taken, so the reason for its destruction remains a mystery. Did Stalin take the decision in a fit of war revenge? Did he think that the setting of an ancient bourgeois city would hamper the development of the new Soviet city he wanted to build in its place? Or did he fear that, unless turned into a pile of ruins, Königsberg might not be conceded to him by the Allies after all? Pictures and models in the bunker-cum-museum where the capitulation of the city was signed are revealing. Most of the destruction was done after-wards, when the victors took to the task of building a new city on the ruins of the old…

While the destruction of the city’s infrastructure was underway, an equally brutal purge of its population through gang rapes and indiscriminate crimes was carried out:

The demography of that part of Lithuania Minor which is under direct Soviet administration, the “Oblast,” has changed in the most radical way in all its history. The original population of the area — German as well as Lithuanian — has disappeared completely. Many had fled before the Soviet armed forces invaded the area in 1945; those who remained — several hundred thousand — either perished from hunger or disease or were deported to Siberia; the others were expelled to Germany in 1949. They all — about 1,200,000 before World War II — were replaced by about 600,000 settlers from the northern and central parts of Russia. The administration and economy of the “Oblast” has been reorganized to conform with Soviet models and practices. It has been fortified to serve the strategic aims of the Soviet Union.

Modern Claims in Europe

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there were 4 main alternatives for the future of Kaliningrad, following Raymond A. Smith’s article The Status of The Kaliningrad Oblast Under International Law (1992), which argues in favour of the Lithuanian claim, but which also addresses some historical and political questions:

From the historical [point of view] sovereignty over the territory of the Kaliningrad Oblast passed over the course of centuries from the the indigenous Old Prussian population, to the Teutonic Order, to the Kingdom of Poland, to the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and finally, perhaps, to the USSR/RSFSR. It is not surprising, then, to find that each of these entities (with the exception, of course, of the Teutonic Order) has a conceivable claim to this territory. This section examines the legal basis, or lack thereof, of the actual or potential claim of each entity, as well as the potential claim of the indigenous population.

• The German Claim: Some Germans challenge the validity of both the Final Settlement and the original “dismemberment” of the German Reich.
  Their arguments are complex but can be reduced in essence to two claims:
  1. the Allies had no power to allow German territory to be annexed by other countries
  2. the West Germany and even the modern Federal Republic of Germany are not coextensive with the German Reich and are therefore not competent to speak for it in its entirety

  The first proposition is supported by numerous charges: that the guarantees of self-determination in the Atlantic Charter, the UN Charter, and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties were ignored; that the Ancient Roman principle of ex injuria non oritur jus prohibits punishing Germany by unilateral confiscation of its territory; that the powers of the Allies as occupiers were strictly curtailed by the Hague Laws of War of 1907; that use of German lands as “compensation” to Poland for lands lost to the Soviet Union has no basis in international law; and many others.

• The Russian Claim: As the historical overview recounted, the working premise of the Potsdam Conference was that the Soviets would receive the Oblast at the final peace conference. The Allies specifically committed themselves to supporting the Soviet claim in the Final Settlement, but when that settlement was finally signed in 1990, specific title was not transferred. Why the Final Settlement did not include a specific statement of transfer is unclear. The seemingly most probable reason is that the transfer of Kaliningrad to the Soviet Union is considered a fait accompli and that the legal niceties of including a specific mention of transfer were outweighed by potential political embarassment such a mention might have caused the Kohl government. Such a position assumes that the tranfer has already taken place, an assertion which rests on shaky ground.

  Similarly, the Act of Military Surrender specifically indicates that the occupation itself did not effect the annexation of Germany. Thus, although Germany surrendered unconditionally, none of its territories were automatically annexed to any other state. Such annexation would have to be made explicit in a legally binding document. Only “administration” was established by the Potsdam Agreement, however, and “administration” is definitely not the same as “annexation” under international law.

  Rather than present arguments based on international law, Stalin advanced the law of revenge. ‘The Russians had suffered so much and lost so much blood, they were anxious to have some small satisfaction to [sic] tens of millions of their inhabitants who had suffered in the war,” Stalin said at Potsdam.

  In the absence of ethnic and historical claims to shore up their questionable legal claim, then, the only argument which the Soviet Union can depend upon is the principle of prescriptive claim. This principle transfers title to land when a country has held it for a long period of time without protest by the land’s original owners or by the international community at large. No specific time frame is suggested for the acquisition of prescriptive claim. Grotius suggested 100 years, a figure which the Permanent Court of International Justice endorsed in 1933. The International Court of Justice, on the other hand, said that fifty years had been long enough for a boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana to have legal effect.

• The Polish Claim: Poland has no ethnic claim to the Oblast. Although the southern half of East Prussia was occupied mainly by Polish Masurians, they had almost no presence in the northern part.

  Poland’s historic claim is only marginally stronger. For some two centuries, Prussia was a fief of the Polish King, but during that period the area remained firmly under German control. In any case, title was decisively transferred by the Treaty of Wehlau in 1657. During World War II many Poles operated under the belief that all of East Prussia would become theirs, but they were never legally promised the territory in its entirety.

• Lithuanian Claim: The claim of the Lithuanian state could rely upon both ethnic and historical grounds.
  1. The Lithuanians may argue that
     the first peoples to hold sovereignty over the region were ethnic Lithuanians and closely related Old Prussians, and
  2. the pre-1945 population outside the cities of the Oblast was largely of Lithuanian origin. If the status of the Oblast were to be altered in the future, then, the Lithuanian state could have a strong argument for assimilating this remainder of Lithuania Minor.

  The idea of unifying the Oblast with the rest of Lithuania has strong historical precedents. Lithuanian assemblies met in Chicago and New York in 1914, The Hague in 1916 and Berne in 1917 to demand an independent Lithuania including all of Lithuania Minor. An assembly in Vilnius in 1917 restated the problem to define the new Lithuania within its “ethnographic borders,” a concept endorsed by a later assembly in Voronezh the same year.
  Finally, on November 30, 1918, the National Council of Prussian Lithuania issued the Declaration of Tilsit:

  Taking into account that everything that exists has a right to continue existing and that we, Lithuanians who live here in Prussian Lithuania, are the majority of the population of this land, we demand, on the basis of Wilson’s right of national self-determination, that Lithuania Minor be joined to Lithuania Major

  The clearest catch here is that any annexation of the Oblast by Lithuania might hinge upon the democratic decision of an indigenous Lithuanian majority to authorize such an annexation. And, as we have seen, virtually none of the indigenous Lithuanian population remains in the Oblast, having fled or been killed or exiled after World War II. This raises the final claim to be discussed — that of the indigenous population.

• The Claim of the Native Population: The right to national self-determination is one of the main cornerstones of the contemporary international legal order. Eight of Wilson’s Fourteen Points refer to such concerns. The Atlantic Charter’s third and fourth principles call for self-determination in matters of both boundaries and choice of government. The Charter of the United Nations calls for colonial powers to foster self-determination in “non-self governing territories”. That right might be interpreted as concerning:
  1. The Oblast’s postwar ethnic Russian settlers – as opposed to central Soviet or Russian authorities.
  2. the traditional population which was decimated or expelled en masse after World War II, which is defended on the grounds that forcible deportations of native populations is clearly in violation of international law – native Königsbergers expelled after World War II, then, have a right under international law to choose to return to their native land.

  On that question, there is the precedent of United Nations action regarding the settlement of Gibraltar:

  As in the case of the Oblast, the key issue was whether the rightful native population of the Rock should be considered to be the contemporary residents or an earlier population who had been compelled to depart in 1704. The British argued that over the centuries since 1704 a permanent and authentic population had been developed on the Rock, which now had the right to determine their own fate. The Spanish countered that the post-1704 population were “pseudo-Gibraltarians” and that the rightful rulers of Gibraltar Rock were the descendants of Spaniards who had resettled, for the most part, in the nearby city of San Roque.

  Under pressure from the United Nations to end its colonial occupation of Gibraltar and in an attempt to settle the status of the Rock once and for all, the British government conducted a plebiscite in 1967. The choices were stark — full political affiliation with either Great Britain or with Spain — and the result was unequivocal: 12,138 to 44 in favor of Great Britain. Nonetheless, the U.N. General Assembly once again condemned British occupation of Gibraltar, this time in the strongest language yet. It, in essence, declared the plebiscite null, accused the British of resisting decolonization, and called once again for immediate negotiations between Great Britain and Spain for a transfer of sovereignty.

  Whatever the merits of the Gibraltar case, the precedent for the Oblast is clear. If the rights of native populations can stretch back to 1704, then surely the postwar expellees from the Oblast would have an unambiguous right to return to their homeland and choose its political fate — be that choice in-dependence or association with another state. The current population of the Oblast would presumably have no say in the territory’s political future.

  The key difference between Gibraltar and the Oblast is that in the former case, there actually is a population in San Roque able and willing to resettle the Rock. No analagous “population-in-exile” exists in the case of the Oblast. Rather, much of the population of Königsberg was killed or died in exile. Those who were deported to Germany (and their descendants) in all likelihood now enjoy a standard of living which is, at least quantitatively, many times better than any which would be possible in the backward conditions of the Oblast. Further, most — although far from all — Germans seem to have accepted the loss of the prewar lands; the idea of reclaiming part of East Prussia would not necessarily resonate with much of the population. It seems extremely unlikely, then, that more than a handful of such native German Königsbergers would wish to uproot and resettle in the Oblast.

Even with German and Lithuanian strong claims about the Soviet colony of Königsberg opposing the legality of Stalin’s annexation, Russia did in the 90’s what it was used to in such cases when the Soviet Union was still a Great Power: they took the easy way, and annexed the territory to Russia, expecting the international community to accept it. Which is nice, because the EU as a Great Power will therefore be entitled to follow the same principle in the future…

In my personal opinion, the European Union faces today 3 alternatives, given Russia’s will to retain Stalin’s European exclave no matter how illegal or illegitimate it is from an international point of view:

1. Support modern Kaliningraders in their demands of greater autonomy within the Russian Federation – and maybe a future separation from it -, which is the fairest position under modern international law, which demands non-belligerant positions (against Russia in this case) and respect for human rights – Russian settlers and their families. This is certainly the option of most Kaliningraders of Russian ethnicity, as well as most EU-politicians.
2. Support Germany’s or Lithuania’s claims (or both), seeking to integrate Kaliningrad within the European Union, maybe as a sort of a Baltic territory co-administered by both Germany and Lithuania, financing the return of (families of) expellees to Königsberg, and the return of (willing) families of Russian settlers to Russia. This is the option preferred by many Germans and (I guess) most Lithuanians.
3. Support the creation of a modern Baltic Prussian State (Prusa), which could help unite the Pro-Baltic (and Pro-European) attitude of Russian Kaliningraders, the will of native peoples and their families to return to East Prussia, as well as claims of EU member states to integrate Königsberg in Europe, by embracing Old Prussian history of the territory and its peoples. Modern organizations supporting the revival of the Old Prussian language would probably support its revitalization in Königsberg include the future Research Institute of Prussology and the Prussian language organization in Poland.

The third is my preferred option, not because I am some kind of language revival freak (what I possibly am, given that I also support Old Prussian language revival), but because what many (want to) regard simply as ethnic German and ethnic Lithuanian inhabitants of East Prussia in 1945 were in fact descendants of Old Prussians who had lost their language in favour of either German or Lithuanian languages, depending on the territories they dwelled when they ceased to speak Prussian. Given that historical, cultural and linguistic background of the Königsberg (or East Prussian) territory, the European Union should take action supporting the return of those expelled peoples and their families to their ancient territory, which they were forced to leave half a century ago.

There is therefore no need to support the adscription of East Prussia to modern countries or peoples, be it Russia, Germany, Poland or Lithuania. And the only alternative to modern peoples, cultures and states is to support a linguistic and cultural revival of a Prussian people and language that should have never disappeared.

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Posted in Europe, European Union, History, Indo-European language, Linguistics, Politics | 5

Comments 5

With many of the expelled self-identified Germans of East Prussia being partially genetically descendants of the area's earlier inhabitants, their return and even the re-Germanization of some of its cities names, particularly the capital city Kalingrad back to Konigsberg, need not neccessarily be steered to the idea of simply returning Kalingrad Oblast as the northern part of the easternmost province of Germany, but alternatively as a revived nation, not simply one that is mon0-nationalist insofar to ethnicity, but rather multi-ethnic, with names reflecting history.

Logically, any such deal for Prussia independence could and should include keeping a permanent enclave for Russia wihin Prussia of a new waterfront city connected to Russia proper via an extra-territorial railway/highway.

Along The Amber Path 9 - North & South

Nationalities steered against each other-
for the benefit of Rome's Continuing Counter Reformation

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/stei-d09.shtml

quoted in

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/amber-path-north-oder-neisse-fallout-3.html

The fact that the daughter of a family that only came to Poland in the wake of the Nazi invasion is now a spokeswoman for the expellees meets with special outrage in Poland.

Steinbach’s family background was first made public only some years ago by Polish journalists. She herself had never discussed it, and sought later to justify it with the cynical phrase, “one doesn’t have to be a whale to speak up for whales.” In Poland, where virtually every family has relatives that were killed, imprisoned or forced into hard labour by the Wehrmacht, it is regarded as relevant whether someone belonged to the indigenous German minority or to the German occupying army.

The general point indentified by the subtitle -- Nationalities Steered Against Each Other For The Benifit of Rome's Continuing Counter Reformation " appears throughout Avles Beluskes' most recent post at his latest blog The Amber Path:

http://avles-theamberpath.blogspot.com/2009/12/from-lacota-to-steinbach-is-rome-again.html

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

From Lacota to Steinbach - is Rome again quartering Amber Path?

The material you see on my blogs is only a part of that collections of projects, ideas, rough drafts I produce. I can't post everything because I have not the time for it. Like the Continuing Counter Reformation researches of Douglas Willinger (to whom this blog referres and is a supporter), this is an unexplored field. You don't have material on the web about Amber Path South so I have to create the material. But Rome is not so happy. She hopes I leave the field to someone of her trustful soldier. Maybe with the help of a truck, like the one which grazed me this morning, at 50 mph.

In the month of November, a polemic started in Germany:

From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125876828218658483.html

and quoted in: http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2009/12/amber-path-north-oder-neisse-fallout-2.html

Mr. Westerwelle, head of Ms. Merkel's governing partner, the Free Democratic Party, vowed to veto an effort by the lobby's leader, Erika Steinbach, to join the board of a planned state museum about the expulsions, saying her appointment would jeopardize reconciliation with Poland.

Significantly Massimiliano Lacota the head of the European Union of Expellees was presiding three months before the reconciliation between Poland an Ukraine on the long lasting question of the Polish and Ukrainan expellees mutually created by the two nations eighty years ago:

From http://www.ostpreussen.de/nc/preussische-allgemeine-zeitung/nachrichten/artikel/einladung-an-eufv.html?cHash=41c1bae809&sword_list[0]=lacota

INVITATION TO THE EUFV The General council of the European Union of Expellees (EUFV) met in a full time council on first August in Hamburg. The most important subject of the meeting was the activity of the Union in Strasbourg and Bruxelles for the incoming months. The measure of the increasing acceptance fort he EUFV is demonstrated by an invitation of the Polish state president Lech Kaczynski to the General secretary of EUFV, the Italian lawyer man Massimiliano Lacota, to participate to an Ukrainan-Polish commemoration rally to be held on 8/9 September in South East of Poland. The meeting, to which also the Ukrainan president Juschtschenko participates, is aimed to a further reconciliation of Poland with Ukraine. In the twentieth century the relations between both countries were very strained, because Poland in 1919 moved the borders well over the language borders towards East, an action that later led to mutual violence and expulsiosn on both sides: Polish people were constrained to abandon the Western Ukrainian metropole of Lemberg, were they lived since generations, meanwhile Ukrainian people, who were living to the west of today’s border, were expelled inside Poland between April and July 1947 in the so named “Aktion Weichsel”. Today the reconciliation of both countries is well advanced and Poland is clearly ready, self aware to speak about the unrighteous expulsions of those times – also in the presence of the top leaders of the European Union of Expellees. The discussions took place in the office of the Association of Expellees Ostpreußen in Buchtstraße 4. The president of the General Assembly of EUFV is, since the founding of it, the spokesman of the Association of Expellees of Ostpreußen, Wilhelm v. Gottberg. In front of the PAZ v. Gottberg explained that the activities of EUFV resulted in many countries in a sensible impulse for the local unions of expellees, for example with the Karelians, who besides the cultural work now are stronger engaged in politic. K.B.

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And old news suddenly went recalled to new life. On 6th March 2008 the media informed about the intention of the papacy to rehabilitate Martin Luther. Lately the news appeared in the The Unhived Mind forum (*). If the Vatican is going to put definitively the hands on the Preussische Vertriebenen, a good marketing with Luther is necessary to prepare the field. Then some months later, in the sequent October 2008, a supporter of the cause of South German expellees from Sudetenland, died in a mysterious car crash (**). Joerg Haider, for another of those mysterious coincidences, had the “last lunch” with the leaders of Unione degli Istriani, the organization whose president is the same general secretary of European Union of Expelles, Massimiliano Lacota:

From: http://patriaeliberta.myblog.it/archive/2008/10/12/joerg-haider-presente.html

12/10/2008

JOERG HAIDER! HERE!

11-OCT-08 19:31

AUSTRIA: HAIDER DEAD; LACOTA, LEADER WITH INTUITION AND CHARISMA

(ANSA) - TRIESTE, 11 OTT - “Not only Carinthia and Austria, but the entire Europe loses a political leader with great intuition and charisma, certainly populist but in a positive sense”: it has been affirmed by the president of the Unione degli Istriani Lacota, in relation with the dead of Joerg Haider.

Lacota – informs a note – had lunch yesterday in Klagenfurt with Haider. “He invited me to partecipate to the celebrations in the square in front of the Landhof in occasion of the ricurrency of the 10th October, National Holyday of Carinthia, in quality of president of Unione degli Istriani and as general secretary of the European Union of Expellees and Exiles” explains Lacota, who was able also to know the mother of the governor, “arrived in Carinthia from Superior Austria to celebrate today her 90th birthday together the son, who disgracefully is dead”.

Lacota will partecipate to the Haider's funeral in official form and together the representatives of exiles of other European nations. (ANSA).

HOMELAND AND LIBERTY HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES CENTRE pay tribute to the Governor of Carinthia JOERG HAIDER, and drapes in black the Italian flag.

With Haider an European political high level man falls, a impassioned exponent of the Mitteleuropean civilization, a great Austrian patriot, friend of Italy and of the Italians, of the Friulans, of the Istrians, Giulians, Fiumans and Dalmatans.

JOERG HAIDER! PRESENT!

-----------------------------------------

After the Haider’s death, with the first months of the new years, an increase of events and rallies involving memories of WWII and post WWII tragedies followed and captured the whole attention of the media in the province of Trieste – facts which, except for official commemorations, never reached the national media even if they are something dealing with the events at the basis of contemporary Italian story. In January 2009 the Day for the remembrance of the Holocaust was followed by the commemoration of the Italian victims of Tito’s Liberation army on an alleged site of mass burial (“Foiba di Basovizza” monument), located in the Italian territory near the border with Slovenia. Some weeks after an aggressive raid of the Unione degli Istriani and its president Massimiliano Lacota in the near Slovenia scandalized the bordering country. Have you present a day your neighbor invading your garden, putting flowers in a corner of it claiming there are buried the rests of a massacre? Without before to warn the police? Or whatever authority? The day after two electoral victories were marking with an explicit sign all those events: the party of r.i.p. Haider won the regional elections in Austria meanwhile in Italy Gustavo Raffi was again elected boss of Grande Oriente d’Italia. Just some weeks before, Raffi held an important electoral Masonic meeting in the seat of the Grande Oriente d’Italia in Trieste. The seat is some tens of metres far away from the seat of Unione degli Istriani. If you didn’t notice before such a link, give a look to my “Novo Ordo Seclorum” blog before they terminate it and me (***). The day after, after both elections in Austria and Italy, in Slovenia it went discovered the mass grave of some hundreds of alleged Slovenian collaborationists. Tell me all that is a not-wanted coincidence and I’ll pass away without to salute you. The Foiba of Basovizza mass grave, even if it is located in Italian territory and not in the North Korea of Kim Yong-il, has not yet been inquired like that mass grave in Slovenia. The alleged grave of Basovizza/Bazovica is waiting an Italian magistrate to inquiry about its alleged sad content since at least the departure of the allies, in 1954. Some thousands of civilian massacred are waiting for over fifty years to be investigated. Meanwhile in Srebrenica, in Teharje, in Rwanda, all around the world the U.N. is doing the best efforts to spectacularize the principle: “crime wars never expire!”.

Title and undertitle (from the daily "Il Piccolo di Trieste" 13th October 2008):

"Haider, he was running at a speed of 140 kph: died suddenly
But his supporters insist: plot. The last lunch with the Unione degli Istriani"

But it seems that the lawyer man, so expert in Italian civil and penal laws, Irredentist and Roman Catholic Massimiliano Lacota president of Unione degli Istriani and general secretary of EUFV, doesn’t care about this little particular which is signing the Italian state as a state in compliance with a crime war an the past perpetrators of it. Persecution of crime wars never expires, evidently Italy is a rough state. Or the Vatican controllers of it have their evident convenience to speculate on the past tragedies in order to build on them their new Vatican European empire.

Are all those events part of a plan leading to a precise result?

A point of the above quoted article referred to the intervention of Lacota at the Polish-Ukrainan rally, explains a darkened point in the today policy of exploiting the Expellees question: “The meeting, to which also the Ukrainan president Juschtschenko will participate, is aimed to a further reconciliation of Poland with Ukraine” is saying us that what doesn’t value for the Amber Path south can value for other zone of Amber Path. Meanwhile the president of Unione degli Istriani and EUFV is participating to peaceful meeting between two countries ‘normalized’ by the past Counter Reformation war, he shows an opposite attitude towards the bordering country of Slovenia. He and his organization, thanks the fall of the borders, are doing aggressive provocative raids whose clear intention is to arise an hard reaction of defence by the Slovenians. The Karst highland is shaped by a countless sequence of natural holes and caves. “Every hole = hundreds of Italian civilians murdered and there buried” is the easy equation of the Romish-Masonic masters of Lacota.

The other point “…because Poland in 1919 moved the borders well over the language borders towards East, an action that later led to mutual violence and expulsion on both sides of the borders” is in contradiction with the material actions of the Unione degli Istriani as regards the question of the ethnic composition of Istria and Coastal region of Illyria. Again the above sentence recalls to us that the same consideration doesn’t value for the Primorje/Adriatic coastal region in Amber Path south. Here the Roman Catholics of Italy and Slovenia have not to get an appeasement as it is claimed to happen among Poland and Ukraina in the North. Also here, like in the North, the Italian state, after 1918 (and also after 1866) moved towards East well over the language borders. The not-Italians of the newly conquered zones were oppressed with violence because the borders of Italy after the first World War moved over the language border and annexed also not Italian lands. But as here ends Amber Path and that “Protestant corridor” - the nightmare of Rome, the appeasement between both parts is an obstacle for the new European Vatican empire.

Some years ago you could read on the facade of Unione degli Istriani seat in Trieste a slogan about the expulsion of the Italians from Istria, considered a “genocide of the population of Istria”. This is a very fine Jesuitical slogan to commit a further genocide. With that statement the other ethnic components of Istria have been literally cancelled. If the Italians were submitted to a genocide, that sentence implies that the Italians were the only inhabitants of Istria. Why so to continue turning victims against victims?

Haider is gone and the Expellees from Sudeten have not a front man to represent them. The question of the expulsions of the Italians from Istria and Dalamatia remains not only unsolved, but even more explosive after the aggressive actions of Lacota's Unione degli Istriani. At the same time both Slovane countries of Amber Path North and West are led to an appeasament. And all the actors of this comedy are devouted to the pope. The Vatican continue to use the "Pangermanism vs Panslavism" clash to quarter Amber Path and to complete the Continuing Counter Reformation war in Europe.

Ethnical composition of Istria and Coastal region/Primorje/Adriatische Kuestenland (Amber Path South) by a work of the well-known Italian Irredentist Cesare Battisti (who was also a geographer), Austrian citizen then deserter of the Austrian Hapsburg imperial army, then captured and comdemned to death by the Austrian martial law court. Situation at 31st December 1900. The legend shows many tones related to the ethnic composition of the Coastal area, tones summoned in three principal colours referred to the respectively Italian ethnic predominance (pink), Croatian ethnic predominance (green) and Slovenian ethnic predominance (yellow). The white area of course are entirely Italian to the west, and Croatian/Slovenian to the east. The map has been reported on the back cover of the book "Esuli a Trieste"/"Exiles in Trieste" of Sandi Volk - publishing house Kappa Vu:

......and here a map showing the principal borders which followed one after another in 100 years of bloody history of Amber Path South. The most eastern border was conquered by Savoy reign of Italy in 1918 and was 'lost' in 1947, after having for ever putted the basis of the hate among Amber Path south populations. Remember that not only 250,000 Italians were expelled (official number of Italian government in the fifties - part of them epelled especially by the economical crisis and part of them was even not Italian); during the Fascist occupation of the Slovenian and Croatian lands it is extimated that a number of 70,000 not-Italians fled away from the violence of Mussolini taking refugee in the monarchic Yugoslavia - these ones went never recognized. Was the expulsion of the Italians also an expedient to shadow the other previous ethnic cleansing? “…because Poland in 1919 moved the borders well over the language borders towards East, an action that later led to mutual violence and expulsion on both sides of the borders”.........:

Amber Path North: Oder-Neisse Fallout

Amber Path North: Oder-Neisse Fallout 1

Amber Path North: Oder-Neisse Fallout 2

Amber Path North: Oder-Neisse Fallout 3

(*) That Martin Luther?, He wasn’t so bad, says Pope:
http://z10.invisionfree.com/The_Unhived_Mind_II/index.php?s=c332abb37dcb06b63b87f6a2ca16d773&showtopic=23485
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3492299.ece

(**) (Nazi) Rebel Without a Cause
http://avlesbeluskesexposed.blogspot.com/2008/10/nazi-rebel-without-cause.html

(***) "The geometry of the Novo Ordo Seclorum - 1 Part one ":
http://novoordoseclorum.blogspot.com/2009/02/geometry-of-novo-ordo-seclorum-1.html
"The geometry of the Novo Ordo Seclorum - 2":
http://novoordoseclorum.blogspot.com/2009/04/geometry-of-novo-ordo-seclorum-2.html
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(As I have no time, no resources, no money, no support at disposition, it is clear that what I wrote is affected by many errors and uncorrectness. I am not a prostitute lay journalist of this dirty Vatican 'tollerant' regime called 'democracy'. I have not the 51% of the Bank of America supporting my writings. I don't control the Casinò of Ostenda and neither Citroen and Peugeot as the General Superior did at least in 1958. So corrections and additions could appear in the future)

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