Thursday, May 7, 1874. The Imperial Press Law.

The German Imperial Press Law, which sought to liberalize freedom of the press so as to avoid the conditions of 1848 which had given rise to revolution, was passed. The law remained in effect, save during the Nazi era and in East Germany, until 1966

Imperial Press Law 

I. Introductory Provisions

§ 1. Freedom of the press is subject only to those restrictions that are stipulated or permitted by the present law.

§ 2. The present law applies to all products of the printing press as well as to all other duplications generated by mechanical or chemical means and intended for dissemination, including writings and graphic representations with or without lettering, and music with text or annotations.

What is decreed in the following with respect to “printed matter” applies to all aforementioned products.

§ 3. “Dissemination” as defined for the purpose of this law also includes posting, exhibiting, or making these products available in places where they are liable to public notice.

§ 4. The authorization to operate any type of press-related business on an independent basis or to publish and distribute printed matter can be revoked neither by administrative nor judicial means.

Apart from this, the provisions of the Trade Regulations Act are authoritative for the operation of press-related businesses.

§ 5. Those persons to whom a certificate of legitimation can be denied in accordance with § 57 of the Trade Regulations Act may be prohibited from the non-commercial public dissemination of printed matter by the local police authorities.

Infringements of such prohibitions are penalized in accordance with § 148 of the Trade Regulations Act.

II. Press Regulations

§ 6. Any printed matter appearing under the purview of this law must indicate the printer’s name and place of residence and, if it is intended for the book trade or other types of dissemination, the publisher’s name and place of residence, or – if the printed matter will be self-marketed – the name of the author or editor. In place of the name of the printer or publisher, details included in the company’s entry in the commercial register will suffice.

The only exception to this regulation is printed matter serving the purposes of business and commerce, domestic and social life, such as: forms, price tags, business cards and the like, as well as ballots for public elections, provided they do not contain anything aside from the purpose, time, and place of the election, and the names of the persons to be elected.

§ 7. Newspapers and journals published monthly or more frequently, even those published in irregular installments (periodical publications as defined for the purpose of this law), also have to indicate the name and place of residence of the commissioning editor on each issue, piece, or number.

The designation of multiple persons as commissioning editors is admissible only if the form and content of the designation makes clear which portion of the text each of the designated persons edited.

§ 8. Commissioning editors of periodical publications can only be persons who have the right of disposal, who possess civil rights, and who make their home or maintain their usual abode in the German Reich.

§ 9. As soon as distribution or dispatch commences, the publisher is obliged to deliver one free copy of each issue (number, piece) to the local police authority in the place of distribution, whereupon a receipt will be issued to the publisher immediately.

This regulation does not apply to publications exclusively serving the purposes of the sciences, the arts, business, or industry.

§ 10. The commissioning editor of a periodical publication that accepts advertisements is obliged to include, upon request and in exchange for payment at the usual advertising rate, any official announcements conveyed to him by the public authorities in one of the next two issues.

§ 11. The commissioning editor of a periodical publication is obliged, upon request by an involved public authority or private person, to correct facts conveyed in his publication, and to do so without any additions or deletions, provided that the correction is signed by the sender, does not include any punishable content, and is limited to factual details.

After receipt of the submission, the reprint must appear in the next issue that is not yet ready for printing, namely in the same section of the publication and in the same typeface as the reprint of the article to be corrected.

The inclusion occurs free of charge, provided that the reply does not exceed the space of the announcement to be corrected; for any lines exceeding this amount, the usual advertising rates apply.

§ 12. The regulations contained in §§ 6 to 11 are not applicable to printed matter originating with any German Reich, state, or municipal authority, or with the state representation of any German federal state, provided that its content is limited to official announcements.

§ 13. Periodical announcements duplicated by mechanical or chemical means (lithographed, autographed, metallographed, carbon-copied correspondences) are not subject to the regulations stipulated in this law for periodical publications, provided they are disseminated exclusively to editorial offices.

§ 14. If a periodical published abroad is convicted twice within a one year-period for violating §§ 41 and 42 of the Criminal Code, the Reich Chancellor may, within a two-month period after the second verdict took effect, issue a public announcement banning the further dissemination of this printed matter for up to two years.

The bans on foreign periodical publications passed thus far by individual federal states in accordance with their respective state legislation are no longer in force.

§ 15. In times of imminent war or of war, publications concerning troop movements or defensive measures may by prohibited by the Reich Chancellor by public announcement.*

§ 16. The press is prohibited from publishing public demands for the payment of fines and expenses incurred through criminal acts and from publicly confirming the receipt of contributions paid toward such.

Any monies received on account of any such demand, or the equivalent value, is to be declared forfeited and directed to the poor-relief fund in the place of collection.

§ 28. During the duration of the confiscation, the dissemination of the printed matter affected by it, or the reprint of the passages provoking it, is inadmissible.

Anyone with knowledge of the confiscation who acts contrary to this regulation will be punished by a fine of up to 500 marks or imprisonment of up to six months.

§ 29. Sole jurisdiction over decisions on transgressions committed by the press also rests with the courts in those federal states where the administrative authorities are still responsible for the sentencing of these offences.

As far as the involvement of the public prosecutor’s office in courts of the lowest instance is not mandatory in the individual federal states, the files in the cases of confiscations effected without judge’s order are to be presented to the court immediately.

VI. Final Regulations

§ 30. For the time being, the special legal regulations that exist with respect to the press in times of impending war, of war, of a declared state of siege, or of domestic political unrest (uprising) remain in force in this law as well.

The right of state legislators to pass regulations concerning public posting, fastening, and exhibiting of announcements, posters, and proclamations, as well as their free and public distribution, is not affected by this law.

The same applies to the regulations of state laws with respect to free copies in libraries and public collections.

Barring any general business tax based on state laws, no particular taxation of the press and of individual press products (newspaper or calendar stamp tax, taxes on advertisements, etc.) can take place.

§ 31. This law takes effect on July 1, 1874.

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 30, 1874. Louis Riel becomes a member of the Canadian Parliament.

1870s, 1874, Canada, Louis Riel, Metis, Red River Rebellion

Thursday, May 1, 1924. Salt.

Iodized salt was introduced in the US, which addressed a pile of thyroid related problems.

Having had half of my thyroid cut out this year, I appreciate that.

It was Canadian pediatrician David Murray Crowe who became aware that the addition of sodium iodide or potassium iodide to salt could safely remedy the problem of iodine deficiency that was a leading cause of thyroid problems.

Benz und Companie and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft combined operations, but had not yet quite merged.

May Day demonstrations occured across the US.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 30, 1924. More tornadoes.

1920s, 1924, Animals, Calvin Coolidge, Cats, Cuba, First Around The World Flight, police, Weather

Good Friday, April 7, 1724. Bach's St. John's Passion played for the first time.

It was performed at St. Nikolai Church in Leipzig.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, March 25, 1724 Bach's newly written piece played in Leipzig.

1720s, 1724, Christianity, Classical Music, Germany, Martin Luther, Music, Protestant, Religious Music

Saturday, March 25, 1724 Bach's newly written piece played in Leipzig.

The City of Leipzig had an ordinance forbidding the playing of Music during Lent, but made an exception on this day in 1724 so that two newly written Bach pieces could be played in the Lutheran city.  The pieces celebrated the Annunciation of Mary, which was one of the three Marian holidays that Luther, who somehow felt he could run around determining what remained on the liturgical calendar and what did not, retained.

Last prior:

February 19, 1724. Amalthéa Aristotelico-Scoticos

1720s, 1724, Catholic, Malta, The written word

Monday, March 24, 1924. Aid for the German poor.

The House of Representatives voted to appropriate $10,000,000 for food for poor women and children in Germany.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, March 23, 1924. Noise.

1920s, 1924, Cartoons, Fascism, Italy, Mussolini

European Farm Protests

French and German farmers have been protesting.

But why?

Some of it is related to costs.  Energy, fertilizer and transport costs have risen in Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while at the same time, governments and retailers, have moved to reduce rising food prices in what basically amounts to a joint wartime effort to keep "cheap food" rolling.  

It's partially a "cheap food" policy, then, which the US has had since the Second World War.

And ironically, in that wartime category the cost of Ukrainian agricultural imports are down as the EU waived quotas and duties following Russia’s invasion in order to try to make up for the impact on the huge Ukrainian agricultural sector which was stressed due to Russian control of the Black Sea.

And extreme weather, which is been very notable in Wyoming this year, and if things don't turn around will lead to a major drought this summer (although we're not supposed to talk about that here), is impacting production in Southern Europe.

And then just as with Franklin Roosevelt's Depression Era agricultural programs, and the post World War Two cheap food policy in the US, Europe's six decade old common agricultural policy (CAP), a huge subsidy system designed for food security. . . for the consumer, massively favors economies of scale.

That has resulted in farm consolidation, just as it has here, with the number of farms in the EU dropping off by 1/3d since 2005.

Somewhat ironically, however, a EU program designed to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, based on a "farm to fork" or "farm to table" model, has been unpopular, as such things usually are with farmers, even when, if they stop to think about it, it'd help them.  Anyhow, the EU has the ability to impose rules, and its imposing rules to force this.

Among the rules being imposed are ones to cut the use of pesticides by 50% by 2030, cutting fertilizer use by 20%, and allowing land to be idled up to the rate of 25% of all European farmland.

That latter, which sort of resembles some policies in the US, no doubt is seen as a shocker, but as agricultural production has become more efficient, and the European population is rocketing into decline, it makes sense.

And environmental programs in individual countries, such as ending tax breaks on agricultural diesel to balance the budget in Germany, or reducing nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, have been unpopular.

Well, what of this?

Interesting, at the same time, in Southern Europe there's been a trend of people returning to small agricultural holdings and making a go of it.  This has been occurring in France and Greece.  And maybe there's a thought there.

Farmers are among the most resistant people in the world to change.  So much so, that it must be an inherent part of the nature of farming. At the same time, they're also among the people who are most wedded to doing things in an expensive way, once they adapt to it.  The disaster that fence to fence farming would bring to individual farmers was something that Willard W. Cochrane warned about in the early 1960s, and he also worried about the evolving scale and expense of farm equipment.  He actually proposed to regulate it in favor of small farmers, but of course that's something that Americans, who are addicted to economies of scale to their own detriment, would never do.

European farmers, who were still principally equine powered until the end of World War Two, have become addicted to the petroleum fueled agriculture that the US brought in starting in the 1920s.  Sadly, we're likely to go to more and more automated farming, and by extension make large number of Americans more and more miserable.  Europeans are likely to follow suit.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Monday, January 24, 1944. Red Advances, Luftwaffe attacks at Anzio, Rendering skunk fat.

 Red Army troops on T-26 light tank in Korsun-Shevchenkovski region.By RIA Novosti archive, image #606710 / I. Ozerskij / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15579411.  The use of "tank riders" by the Red Army, anticpating the use of later Armored Personell Carriers, or perhaps recalling that of mounted infantry or cavalry, the latter of which was still widely used by the Soviets, was common during the war.

The Battle of Korsun–Cherkassy commenced as part of the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive in Ukraine.

Near Leningrad the Red Army captured Pushkin and Pashovsk.

The British hospital ship was sunk off Anzio.  96 of the 229 aboard died.

The USS Plunkett (DD-431) was also hit.

53 of her sailors would die in the attack, but she'd be back in action by May.

The Anzio beachhead expanded slowly.  The Free French Corps attacked Monte Santa Croce on the Gustav Line. The U.S. 2nd Corps continued attacking over the Rapido.

In Cheyenne, a War Salvage lecture was given on the topic of "How to get fat from skunk without smell". Attribution:  Wyoming State History Society Calendar.

I don't think I'd try that.

Some apparently do, however.

The question is why?

Klaus Sperber, know by his stage name Klaus Nomi, and remembered principally for his operatic performance of his pop song Total Eclipse of the Sun, was born in Immenstadt, Bavaria. He was one of the first well known personalities to die of AIDS, passing away in 1983 at age 39.

Of interest, perhaps, as Sperber was German, German pop music producer Franz Reuther, known by his stage name of Frank Farian died yesterday at age 82.  He had been responsible for Boney M and Milli Vanilli.  His father had been killed in World War Two prior to his birth.

Tuesday January 15, 1924. New Parliament, First Radio Play, The Frac, and the German Navy takes a tour.

King George V and Queen Mary opened a new session of Parliament.

The first radio play, ever, was broadcast by the BBC. The play was entitled Danger.  The play, which as endured and been rebroadcast over the years, involves a plot featuring a young couple and an older man trapped in a pitch-black flooding mine.

The French Cabinet drafted a plan to stabilize the cascading franc.  It called for tax hikes and a reduction in the size of the civil service.

The SMS Berlin of the republican German navy, the Reichsmarine left for a two-month tour of the North Atlantic, the first German warship to do so since World War One.

Ensign of the Reichsmarine.

The current German Navy is called the Deutsch Marine.  Its ensign is as follows:

The Berlin was a prewar ship that had been retained under the Versailles Treaty.  She would not be in service much longer, being decommissioned in 1929, even though she had been modernized and recommissioned in 1922.  She became a barracks ship in Kiel that year, and survived World War Two.  in 1947 she was loaded with chemical weapons and towed out and sank thereby becoming a lasting problem to later generations.

Wednesday, December 1, 1943. The Tehran Conference concludes.

The Tehran Conference concluded.  The results of the conference were far-reaching.

2023 Russian stamp commemorating the Tehran Conference. Russia has good reason to celebrate its results.

Politically, the British and Soviets decided in the Curzon Line as the eastern border of Poland and the Oder-Nesse Line as the western border.  Roosevelt excluded himself from the Polish border question, as he feared that adjusting Poland's borders would have a negative impact on his chance in the 1944 Presidential Election.

Adjusting the border guaranteed that large numbers of people would be forcibly relocated.

An agreement was reached that the Baltic States would not rejoin the Soviet Union until after the citizens of those countries voted on the question.  Stalin would not agree to international supervision of such an election.

The Soviet Union agreed to join the war against the Japaneses upon the conclusion of the war in Europe.

The parties agreed to support Yugoslav Partisans, who were largely Communist.

The parties agreed to try to get Turkey to enter the war.

Operation Overlord was agreed to be launched in May, 1944, together with Operation Dragoon and Operation Bagration.

All in all, it was the Soviet Union that came out on top in the conference.

Mittwoch, October 24, 1923. Das Ende des Hamburger Aufstandes

Heinrich Vogeler: Hamburger Werftarbeiter

The Hamburg uprising came to an end in arrests of hundreds of Communists. Many more fled the city.  The end was precipitated by news that Hamburg, due to a courier error, was in a working class revolution all by itself.  The Communist Party, realizing what had occured, ordered its red troops to retreat.

Germany was in dire straights at the time, and a nationwide Communist revolution was not an impossibility, although the Moscow ordered uprising would likely have resulted in a civil war which the Red Army could not have joined due to Poland having defeated it earlier in the decade.

The collapse of the Communist uprising may have spared Germany from a thuggish totalitarian regime for almost a decade, as there's no reason to believe that the German Communists would have been any less bloody in victory than the Russian, Chinese, etc., ones were.

Tuesday, September 18, 1973. The United Nations and the two Germanys.

The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were admitted to the United Nations.

King Hussein issued a general amnesty for Palestinian terrorists held by Jordan.

Monday, August 13, 1923. The US recognizes the Mexican Government.

The Bucareli Treaty was signed between the US and Mexico.  In exchange for Mexico compensating US companies that had sustained financial losses during the Mexican Revolution, the US recognized the government of Álvaro Obregón. 

Obregón.

Gustav Ernst Stresemann became Chancellor of Germany, and the country's Foreign Minister.  He was a member of the German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei), a centrist political party.  Stresemann is its best known member.

The party was dissolved in 1933 and has no legal successor today.

Sunday, August 12, 1923. Cuno resigns.

Wilhelm Cuno, who had been under heavy criticism in Germany, resigned as Chancellor.

The Tribune reported on the ongoing concern over gasoline prices, a perpetual American concern.

Thursday, August 9, 1923. The Third Dáil dissolves, Berlin shopkeepers strike, Casper mournes.

Wyatt Earp, Los Angeles, California, August 9, 1923.  He would have been about 75 years of age at the time this photo was taken.  Again, while people are probably tired of this theme, it's interesting to note that at age 75 he looks more fit than Harding did at 20 years his junior.

The Third Dáil, which had been in session since September 9, 1922, as the Provisional Parliament of Southern Ireland, was dissolved by King George V at the request of Prime Minister W. T. Cosgrave. 

Elections were scheduled for August 27.

Berlin shopkeepers went on strike in an attempt to force Wilhelm Cuno from office.

The nation was still in mourning for the late President Harding.

Monday, July 16, 1923. Summer session.

Wyoming's second, in its history up to that point, special legislative session convened in Cheyenne to address its state farm loan provisions.

Magnus Johnson of the left-wing Minnesotan Farmer-Labor Party was elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election.  This meant that both of Minnesota's senators were members of the party.

The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party was a hugely successful third party in that state, coming to control the legislature during the Depression, as well as providing the bulk of Minnesota's Congressional representation.  During the Depression, however, the American Farm Bureau became the primary representative for farmers, and it was hostile to the party.  In 1944 Hubert Humphrey took the party into the Democratic Party, and it ceased to exist.  Humphrey, moreover, expelled the Communists from the organization, whose presence showed how radical it actually was.

The Democratic Party in that state is technically the Democratic Farmer Labor Party

The Depression arrived for farmers in the U.S. before the rest of the general public, which likely explains the rise of the Farmers Labor Party in Minnesota, which was heavily agricultural and also heavily influenced by the left wing politics of Scandinavia where many of its residents had roots.

Johnson was Swedish born and had a semi successful political career, winning and losing.  He was also a farmer.

Italy and the UK agreed to call an international conference on German reparations, irrespective of whether France would participate or not.

Fairbanks, Alaska presented President Harding with a special collar for Laddie Boy.

Friday, May 11, 1973. Charges dropped, sovereignty recognized.

Espionage charges against Daniel Ellsberg were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.

Ellsberg is still alive, but suffering terminal pancreatic cancer.  He's 92 years old.

The Federal Republic of Germany ratified the Grundiagenvertrag treat with the German Democratic Republic, in which both countries recognized the sovereignty of the other.  The Bundestag also voted to join the United Nations, accepting the condition that East Germany also be allowed to join.

Message to the Faithful Priests of the Church in Germany. An die gläubigen Priester der Kirche in Deutschland.

Message to the Faithful Priests of the Church in Germany

ON APR 02, 2023

Reverend and Dear brothers in Christ,

You have been very much in my prayers throughout the time since the beginning of the so-called Synodal Way. After the conclusion of the Fifth Synodal Assembly on March 11th last in Frankfurt/Main, I have been praying for you most especially, so that you remain faithful to the Apostolic Tradition, to the truths regarding faith and morals handed down to us by Christ in the Church, which we, as priests, are ordained to safeguard and promote. The faithful have never needed more than today priests who announce to them the truth, who bring them Christ, above all, in the Sacraments, and who guide and govern them in the way of Christ.

I can only imagine your profound sadness at the positions taken by the Assembly, including the great majority of the Bishops, which are directly opposed to what the Church has always and everywhere taught and practiced. I share your sadness and experience the temptation to discouragement, which you, no doubt, also experience. At times such as these, which priests have experienced at other times in the history of the Church, we must recall the promise which Our Lord, who never lies and is always faithful to His promises, has made to us, when, at His Ascension, He placed into our hands the Apostolic mission: “… and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28, 20). Taking to heart, once again, the mission and Our Lord’s promise, we must soldier on, we must be His faithful “fellow workers in the truth” (3 Jn 8).

At times such as these, when even those who are Bishops betray the Apostolic Tradition, faithful Bishops, priests, consecrated persons, and lay faithful will necessarily suffer greatly precisely because of their fidelity. As we begin Holy Week, the week of Our Lord’s Passion and Death, and anticipate the Easter Season, the time of His Resurrection and Ascension, let us take to heart His words to those who would be His disciples: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16, 24). During these holiest of days, Our Lord pours out from His glorious-pierced Heart the strong graces of His victory over sin and death to strengthen us to be good, faithful, and generous disciples. During Holy Week and the Easter Season, let us lift up to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, especially through the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the sufferings of His Mystical Body, the Church, which is passing through a time of pervasive confusion and error, with their fruits which are division, apostasy, and schism.

Let us always remember, especially when the suffering we endure seems too much to bear, that we are not alone, that Christ is alive in us, that divine grace – sanctifying and actual – is at work within us. Let us ever remember Our Lord’s words to His Virgin Mother and Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, with whom we stand mystically at the foot of the cross: “Woman, behold thy son… Behold thy mother” (Jn 19, 26-27). The Mother of God is the Mother of Divine Grace and is, in a special way, the Mother of Priests who, in her Divine Son, bring countless graces to many souls. Our Lord’s Virgin Mother is ever at our side, even as she lovingly instructs us: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2, 5).

One in heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we also ever enjoy the fellowship of all the saints who will never fail to assist us, if only we call upon their intercession. In dark moments, let us not forget the reality and exhortation divinely spoken to us in the Letter to the Hebrews: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12, 1-2).

In closing, I assure of my union with you and of my daily prayers for you. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we have been discouraged for a time before the Mystery of Iniquity, but now, with our eyes fixed on Our Risen Lord and His unchanging teaching, may our hearts be renewed in ardor by His grace (Lk 24, 32). I urge you to be close to Our Lord Who has chosen us to be His brothers in the Holy Priesthood and to be close to one another in pure and selfless love of the Church, His Mystical Body, and in the suffering offered for the sake of love of Him and of our brothers and sisters for whom we have been ordained as true shepherds.

Please remember me in your prayers.

With deepest fatherly affection, I impart to you and to Our Lord’s flock in your priestly care my blessing.

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Rome

Palm Sunday, 2 April 2023

An die gläubigen Priester der Kirche in Deutschland 

Hochwürdige und liebe Brüder in Christus, von Beginn des sogenannten Synodalen Weges an waren Sie besonders in meine Gebete eingeschlossen. Nach Abschluss der Fünften Synodalversammlung am 11. März in Frankfurt am Main habe ich ganz besonders für Sie gebetet, damit Sie der Apostolischen Tradition, den von Christus in der Kirche überlieferten Glaubens- und Sittenwahrheiten, treu bleiben. Wir als Priester sind geweiht, um diese zu bewahren und zu fördern. Mehr als jemals zuvor brauchen die Gläubigen heute Priester, die ihnen die Wahrheit verkünden, die ihnen Christus bringen, vor allem in den Sakramenten, und die sie auf dem Weg Christi führen und leiten. 

Ich kann Ihre tiefe Traurigkeit über die Stellungnahmen auf der Versammlung nur erahnen, auch die Traurigkeit über die große Mehrheit der Bischöfe, die sich in direktem Gegensatz zu dem positioniert haben, was die Kirche immer und überall gelehrt und praktiziert hat. Ich teile Ihre Traurigkeit und spüre die Versuchung der Entmutigung, die Sie zweifelsohne auch verspüren. In Zeiten wie diesen, die Priester auch zu anderen Zeiten in der Geschichte der Kirche erlebt haben, müssen wir uns an das Versprechen erinnern, das Unser Herr, der niemals lügt und der Seinen Verheißungen immer treu ist, uns bei Seiner Himmelfahrt gegeben hat, als Er die apostolische Sendung in unsere Hände legte: "... Seht, ich bin mit euch alle Tage bis zum Ende der Welt." (Mt. 28,20). Indem wir uns erneut den Auftrag und die Verheißung Unseres Herrn zu Herzen nehmen, müssen wir weiterkämpfen, müssen wir seine treuen "Mitarbeiter in der Wahrheit" sein (3. Joh,8) 

In Zeiten wie diesen, in denen selbst Bischöfe die Apostolische Tradition verraten, werden treue Bischöfe, Priester, geweihte Personen und gläubige Laien gerade wegen ihrer Treue notwendigerweise sehr leiden. Wenn wir nun die Karwoche, die Woche des Leidens und Sterbens Unseres Herrn, beginnen und die Osterzeit, die Zeit Seiner Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt, erwarten, nehmen wir uns Seine Worte zu Herzen, die Er an diejenigen richtet, die seine Jünger sein wollen: "Wenn jemand mir nachfolgen will, so verleugne er sich selbst, nehme sein Kreuz auf sich und folge mir nach." (Mt. 16,24) In diesen heiligsten aller Tage gießt Unser Herr aus Seinem glorreich durchbohrten Herzen die mächtigen Gnaden Seines Sieges über Sünde und Tod aus, um uns zu stärken, damit wir gute, treue und großzügige Jünger sein können. Die Leiden Seines mystischen Leibes, der Kirche, die durch eine Zeit um sich greifender Verwirrung und Irrtümer geht, deren Früchte Spaltung, Glaubensabfall und Schisma sind, wollen wir in der Karwoche und Osterzeit besonders durch das Eucharistische Opfer zum Herzen Jesu emporheben. 

Denken wir immer daran, besonders dann, wenn das Leid, das wir ertragen, unerträglich zu werden scheint, dass wir nicht allein sind, dass Christus in uns lebendig ist, dass die göttliche Gnade - heiligmachend und helfend - in uns wirkt. Erinnern wir uns immer an die Worte Unseres Herrn an Seine jungfräuliche Mutter und den heiligen Johannes, dem Apostel und Evangelisten, mit denen wir mystisch am Fuß des Kreuzes stehen: "Frau, siehe, dein Sohn ... Siehe, deine Mutter" (Joh. 19, 26-27). Die Muttergottes ist die Mutter der göttlichen Gnade und in besonderer Weise die Mutter der Priester, die durch ihren göttlichen Sohn vielen Seelen unzählige Gnaden bringt. Die jungfräuliche Mutter Unseres Herrn ist immer an unserer Seite, auch wenn sie uns liebevoll anweist: "Was er euch sagt, das tut!" (Joh. 2,5). 

Ist unser Herz, durch das Unbefleckte Herz Mariens, mit dem Heiligsten Herzen Jesu vereint, genießen wir auch immer die Gemeinschaft aller Heiligen, die es nie versäumen werden, uns zu helfen, wenn wir sie nur um ihre Fürsprache anrufen. Vergessen wir in diesen dunklen Augenblicken nicht die Wirklichkeit und die Ermahnung, die uns im Hebräerbrief auf göttliche Weise zugesprochen wird: "Da wir nun von einer so großen Wolke von Zeugen umgeben sind, lasst uns alle hemmende Last abwerfen und die Sünde, die so sehr an uns haftet, und lasst uns mit Ausdauer den Wettlauf laufen, der vor uns liegt, indem wir auf Jesus schauen, den Begründer und Vollender unseres Glaubens, der angesichts der vor ihm liegenden Freude das Kreuz erduldete, ohne der Schmach zu achten, und zur Rechten des Thrones Gottes sitzt" (Hebr. 12,1-2). 

Abschließend versichere ich Ihnen meine Verbundenheit mit Ihnen und meine täglichen Gebete für Sie. Wie die Jünger auf dem Weg nach Emmaus haben wir uns eine Zeit lang vom dem Geheimnis des Bösen entmutigen lassen; doch nun, mit unseren Augen fest auf Unseren auferstandenen Herrn und Seine unveränderliche Lehre gerichtet, mögen unsere Herzen durch Seine Gnade mit neuem Eifer erfüllt und erneuert werden (Vgl. Lk. 24,32). Ich bitte Sie eindringlich, Unserem Herrn nahe zu sein, der uns zu Seinen Brüdern im Heiligen Priestertum erwählt hat, und einander nahe zu sein in reiner und selbstloser Liebe zur Kirche, seinem mystischen Leib, und im Leiden, das wir aus Liebe zu Ihm und zu unseren Brüdern und Schwestern, für die wir als treue Hirten geweiht wurden, aufopfern. 

Bitte denken Sie an mich in Ihren Gebeten. 

Mit tiefster väterlicher Zuneigung erteile ich Ihnen und der Herde Unseres Herrn, die Ihrer priesterlichen Obhut anempfohlen ist, meinen Segen. 

Raymond Leo Kardinal BURKE, 

Rom Palmsonntag, den 2. April 2023

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Blog Mirror: These German soldiers and their mules have achieved all my relationship goals

 

These German soldiers and their mules have achieved all my relationship goals

I have to admit, if I'd grown up in a country that was fielding mules in their army in the Alps, I'd now be a retired soldier.

That's cool.

Wednesday, March 17, 1943. St. Patrick's Day Speech, Japanese Murder of Missionaries.

Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum.

Tertullian.

The Japanese destroyer Akikaze Maru took 39 mostly German Catholic missionaries, from the island of Kairiru.  Eighteen of those were nuns, six were priests, and one was a Bishop.  Included was a Chinese woman and her two children.

The ship then proceeded to Manus Island and picked up an additional 20 individuals, again mostly German, most of whom were Protestant in that case.  Outside of the Germans picked up there, there was one Hungarian missionary and some Chinese civilians, six of whom were women.  

The commander of the ship, Lt. Commander Tsurukichi Sabe took steps to care for the prisoners and assumed they'd be offloaded at New Britain, but at Kavieng, where he next put in, he received orders to murder all of them, which took place on March 18th.

On the 18th, the ship's crew killed them over a three-hour period, dumping their bodies in the sea.  Most were shot, but some children were simply thrown in the sea.

The ship would be sunk by a submarine when it intercepted torpedoes fired at the Jun'yō, an aircraft carrier, on November 3, 1944, going down with all hands including, of course, all those still living who had participated in the murder.

Why did this happen? All we can really say is that it wasn't atypical for the Japanese. The Germans and other Europeans were just that, Europeans. The Chinese were Japanese enemies.  Killing them all was a pretty Japanese approach to things.

In spite of cooperating with Germany in the export of Jewish residents of Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian parliament balked on plans to do the same in Bulgaria and refused to allow Bulgarian Jews to be taken out of the country to their deaths, thus saving them.  It might be noted that the actions taken by the Bulgarian Army in Macedonia and Thrace were not parliamentary directives, so here too, in spit of being an Axis ally, the parliament was not like so many German allies and willing to follow the Germans into murder.

Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera delivered his The Ireland We Dreamed Of speech on the radio, in which he stated:

The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. 

The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. 

With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland – happy, vigorous, spiritual – that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. 

One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. 

Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. 

So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers.

We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.

The Washington Bears won the World Professional Basketball tournament, prevailing over the Oshkosh All Stars.  The Bears were an all black team.

Das Vaterunser auf Deutsch

 ​Vater unser im Himmel,

geheiligt werde dein Name.

Dein Reich komme.

Dein Wille geschehe,

wie im Himmel so auf Erden.

Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute.

Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,

wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern.

Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,

sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.

Denn dein ist das Reich und die Kraft

und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.

Amen.