Brazil’s Catholic Church is still trying to recover from the intolerance and lack of understanding by some leaders over an abortion done by a raped minor. Some local priests, to their credit, have tried to show more compassion at the nine-year-old girl who was systematically abused by her stepfather.Another firestorm has developed after a Brazilian archbishop made several eye-raising remarks over the Holocaust:
"The Jews talk about six million people killed. But how many Catholics were victims of the Holocaust? They were 22 million in all," Archbishop Dadeus Grings, from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, told advertising magazine Press & Advertising.Grings’ comments were quickly criticized by local Jewish groups. "To diminish the Holocaust is an attack against the millions of people killed in a war unleashed by fanaticism and intolerance," said a statement from the Jewish federation of Rio Grande do Sul.(Porto Alegre is home to Brazil's third largest Jewish community, with approximately 12,000 Jews.)
The archbishop also contended that while "Jews say they were the main victims of the Holocaust, the biggest victims were the gypsies, because they were exterminated."
Grings’ diatribe also blasted stem-cell research and defended the Crusades against the Muslims several centuries ago.
Nearly two months ago a British bishop was ousted from his post as head of an Argentine seminary after he publicly denied the Holocaust from ever occurring.
Image- pastoral.com.br
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, LAHT, JTA, AFP, PRESS TV
The local priests do deserve credit for comforting the girl despite their higher ups. But what does that say about that institution? How many other organizations that engage in local communities would it not be the norm to unconditionally give support to a traumatized little girl?
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