OBERLIN. The best-seller author and journalist Udo Ulfkotte is dead. He succumbed to a heart attack on Friday according to information from JUNGE FREIHEIT. Ulfkotte was 56 years old.
Ulfkotte worked for many years as a journalist for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He then worked as a freelance journalist, including JF.
Ulfkotte wrote numerous bestsellers about news services, Islamization and immigration. Because of death threats by radical [sic] Islamists, Ulfkotte and his wife were temporarily under police protection. Since 2008, his books have been published by Kopp-Verlag. Ulfkotte frequently made the bestseller list on the Spiegel. (Krk)
https://jungefreiheit.de/kultur/medien/2017/bestseller-autor-udo-ulfkotte-gestorben/
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
10 comments:
Sad to hear that.
Requiescat In Pace
This is very sad. May he rest in peace.
*I don't mean to be disrespectful of this good man on this piece, but I wanted to send a bit of a warning to any of the contributors who might be contemplating seeing Martin Scorcese's highly praised new epic film, "Silence". My advice to faithful Catholics is....Don't. Unless you want to leave the theater angry.
I didn't know what the title "Silence" pertains to. But apparently, it is the "silence" of God in the face of the terrible sufferings and slaughter of tens of thousands of Japanese Catholics in the early 17th century Japan, by edict of the Tokugawa Shogun and his underlings, in the film played by a man called the"Inquisitor". His job is to root out the Christians, make them apostatize, or execute them if they do not.
IN the beginning, 2 Jesuits are sent from China (Macao), to Japan to find a Jesuit colleague who has apparently apostatized in the face of torture,and is now married with a family.
The first 1 1/2 hrs. of the movie is very uplifting, and shows how the early Japanese Catholics kept all the traditions of the Catholic Faith despite being driven into hiding, persecuted, tortured and executed. The faithful are thrilled to have 2 priests amongst them again, and the two priests for most of the film minister to the Catholic faithful, celebrate the traditional Latin Mass for them (which is beautifully presented how they had to celebrate the Holy Mass in secrete), the devotion of the people, and their bravery to be tortured and die for the Faith.
When they are rounded up by the authorities, they are first pressured to apostatize by stepping on a holy picture of Jesus or the Virgin Mary with their foot, or spitting on the Crucifix. Most don't, are then tortured and executed. But the sight of such torture of the people destroys the priests spirits, and one of them urges the faithful to apostatize to save themselves further suffering. If they renounce the Faith, they are let go.
IN the end, one of the priests dies a martyr trying to rescue one of the faithful, the other priest apostatizes in the face of torture.
The point of the movie for the last 45 min. seems it is better to apostatize, renounce the Catholic Faith to avoid torture.
Everyone knows in the old, pre-Vatican II days, it was the Faith that was important, to suffer for Christ and go to Heaven. THis was always held up and honored for centuries. But the point of this movie seems to be for the devout Japanese Faithful to renounce their Faith to spare themselves torture and death. Historically we know many did so.....so did some priests who were in Japan. But many more suffered and died for the faith. Many are beatified and canonized today.
But the point of this move seems to be, turn your back on the Faith and it's traditions to save your life.
Thi movie was shown to Pope Francis and his Vatican by Martin Scorcese and the Pope and the rest loved it, even though the moral was to denounce Christ.
I don't think any other Pope for the last 1,000 years would applaud that conclusion....but Francis did.
But that's not surprising...is it?
Damian Malliapalli
He was threatened by the Rothschild cabal for many years
His wife received thretening letters
was he poisoned ?
He exposed the lying mainstream media and was banned from facebook
The idea of the movie is to show God does not help you - it is a movie AGAINST the Catholic faith and against the use of sacrifice - like we were all fools. Scorcese would never praise Good and Holy things.
Apparently it is a limited release movie so har (450+ theaters in USA, compared toa wide release, which is usually a broad-based release to2,500-4,000 theaters nationwide.)
So far, by looking at BoxOffice Mojo website, I'd consider it a flop...barely 1 million dollars for opening day.
Considering it's negative message regarding the Catholic Faith (and the fact Francis liked it), I hope it is a flop. (just like his Holy Year was :)
Damian Malliapalli
Damian great synopsis.
I totally agree with your overall view.
When my brother an ex Catholic call for my opinion of the movie I told him it was stunning visually, tedious at times and shockingly inaccurate.
He was stunned at my view of the movie.
He was perplexed when I said the movie was inaccurate.
when I asked him why would you think any movie with Liam Neeson would portray the Catholic faith in anything other a skeptical or negative light.
The accuracy is in that the Catholics kept their faith for 200 years after the end of this movie.
it would have been simple to put a message at the end of the movie that Catholics persevered for 200 more years until the opening of Japan in the 1860s...
When I asked him what was the main takeaway of the film. My brother said that the Christians were wrong to try to impose European Christianity he upon the Japanese.
I told him you are either intellectually dishonest or you don't know history.
The only reason the story of the head and Christians has any relevance or importance or worth remembering is that the Fidelity of Japanese Catholics lasted for two hundred centuries.
Amwn
Amwn:
You're right. No offense to your brother, but his reaction is the same a radical liberal Catholic would come up with.
This period in Japanese history is very difficult. It is embarrassing to many Japanese who are not Christian (what was done to the Japanese Catholics), but to Japanese Catholics, a moment of pride.
The first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, was not anti-Christian/Catholic but actually encouraged them. The turn away from the CHristians/Catholics was not the fault of the Church, but outside politics Portugal vs Spain vs the Netherlands vs England for influence in Japan. Because of that, successive Tokugawa shoguns outlawed Christianity, and especially priests, because they were seen as trying to destabilize Japanese society and undermine it's distinctive culture. The result being that since Catholicism came from outside Japan and had attracted hundreds of thousands of Japanese....these Japanese were now contaminated with European though and were suspect. Unfortunatly, although the Japanese Tokugawa shugunate (which ended in 1867) did not allow for Protestant missionaries to enter the country to replace Catholics, they nevertheless trusted Protestant nations to trade with better than Spain or Portugal because (unlike in China), Protestant nations never even mentioned religion, or tried to pressure Japanese to accept Protestantism.
Around this time the movie was set in, there had been a few years before a massive rebellion of the Japanese Christians against the persecutons of the Tokugawa shogunate. They even had huge armies of Japanese Catholics fighting against the samurai of the shogun. IN the end they were defeated....and the government then attempted to erase Christianity entirely.
The movie presents a very negative picture of the priests, and Japanese Christians which maybe is why the movie is doing so poorly.
The one truth in the movie is that it was very hard to convert the Japanese, because their original religious thinking was so alien to Catholic thought. They were not just BUddhists, but also had a strong connection to Shinto beliefs which were/are 100% contrary to CHristian/Catholic outlook on life and life after death.
Saint Francis Xavier was perhaps the only Jesuit who was totally successful in presenting the Catholic Faith to the Japanese, for he converted hundreds of thousands alone....at a time where there was complete freedom to do so.
The priests in this movie arrive n Japan about 75 years after Francis Xavier, to a country which had basically become a police state. North Korea is a good example of the crushing discipline and threats of informants, etc. Japan was like in the opening scenes of this movie.
The heroism of the good Japanese Catholics, many martyrs, should have been applauded in the movie....not the example of the Japanese Christian who tried to confess his sins 6 times to the priest (a subtle anti-Catholic representation of the Sacrament of Confession), or the priest played by Liam Nieson and the younger priest who both apostacized in the face of torture, and encouraged other Catholics under their care to apostatize as well.
That Pope Francis liked it is just one other mark against him. But then, any good Catholics knows that he is anything but that.
Damian Malliapalli
Thank you for the review, you did a professional job.
Would you recommend renting it at home & turning it off during the last 45 minutes?
The first half of the movie sounds good.
If you haven't seen it,rent or buy the movie
"Black Robe" The movie is about Jesuit missionaries in Canada.(North American Martyrs)
I believe Ulfkotte had more to worry about from other sources than Islamic extremists:
http://theeye-witness.blogspot.com/2017/01/here-is-one-european-who-has-had-enough.html
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