More Media Manipulation of Pope's Media Image by the Press

(Marktl am Inn / Rome) It's time again: When pictures lie. Or rather, if people alter a picture in a very different way than it was actually photographed in the content displayed and so that it manipulates its message. The Soviet Union was a master forger and the Nazi era is apparently excellent for manipulation, as not only since the controversial Wehrmacht Exhibition of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research of Hannes Heer and Jan Philipp Reemtsma and the major touring exhibition, images that lie in the Foundation Museum of Contemporary History Federal Republic of Germany are well known.

The prefect of the CDF, Archbishop Curia Gerhard Ludwig Müller said in an on 1 February published an interview with the daily newspaper Die Welt: “The campaigns which are specifically aimed at discrediting the Catholic Church in North America and Europe have led to clerics in some sectors being publicly insulted in a vulgar way. Here is fostered an artificially generated anger that recalls at times a pogrom atmosphere. Germany's Justice Minister Leutheusser-Schnarrenberg described the claims as manipulative in connection to the Holocaust, which was never mentioned by Mueller, described the statement as "tasteless."

What was truly tastily, and not for the first time, Pope Benedict XVI. has been targeted by the manipulators. Just a small example of what Archbishop Müller would have meant. The Pope is often assumed to have been a Nazi in his youth. Hence the accusation is derived, that the Catholic Church is headed by a Nazi, which is of course unacceptable. But first things first.

Manipulation 1 Ratzinger with Hitler at the Sports Palace

Anti-clerical circles have posted a picture on Facebook which is supposedly a young Joseph Ratzinger at a NS demonstrated standing directly in front of the "Führer". A moralizing accusation is offered on the photograph: "Look who we have as a Pope as he was 14 years old then shame on you pray spreading this [photo] before deleting it." The text contains a number of original spelling errors in Italian. "ignorance is a characteristic of  militant anti-clericalism" commented UCCR.The attribution of the photo is clearly manipulation. The photo was not taken in 1941/1942, as Joseph Ratzinger was 14 years old, but on the 3rd of September 1932 at an event of the NSDAP in the Berlin Sports Palace. Appearing next to Adolf Hitler is  Prinz August Wilhelm of Prussia, the fourth son of the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who joined Hitler's Party in 1930. Joseph Ratzinger had been born in 1927, where the future Pope was five years old at the time the photo was snapped in Berlin. The one there could not be five years old, would have only a faint resemblance between the unknown SA-Man and today's Pope. Truly, hate is generally known to cause blindness. A fact, for the anti-Church hate for centuries now fills exhibition halls.

Manipulation 2: Ratzinger with Hitler Salute

Already for a few years there is a ripe manipulation appearing on the internet. A photo which shows then Father Joseph Ratzinger as a new priest with his brother Georg, as the faithful receive a blessing at a priest's first Mass and only shows the future Pope with his arms extended in blessing. Then it was alleged that the photo shows the young Ratzinger giving the Hitler salute. This time as the manipulators were anonymous users on Facebook, it was a Spanish Professor of Journalism at the University of Madrid, who published the photo in his first book in all seriousness. Hatred of the Church and manipulation do not even know educational or class boundaries.

It was the Facebook fan site of the Italian Postal Police, who have discovered the new anti-Church attack. Only Just a reminder: Joseph Ratzinger was born in 1927, in a Catholic home to a world that never adhered to Nazism. The future Pope was never a member of the NSDAP and SA, as the circled man in the photo (above) clearly was. At the age of 14, he was automatically drafted to Nazi service which service was compulsory by law in the Hitler Youth, like all German youths. At least on paper, the same was true for the young Ratzinger, however, he was never active in the Hitler Youth. By the War's end he was a 17-year-old conscripted to operate as an Anti-Aircraft Artilleryman.

Mark Twain wrote that the lie succeeds halfway around the world, before the truth has put on the shoes.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
 Image: UCCR

Turkish Film About Fall of Constantinople Incites Hatred of Christians

(Beruit) The Turkish film, Faith 1453 tells of the dramatic, and for Christians traumatic, sack of Constantinople by the Mohammedan Ottomans in 1453.  Constantinople which was the Capital of the Roman Empire for more than 1,100 years was with Rome the most important city of Christendom.  The    $17 million-dollar-film which drew enthusiasm in Turkey, incited hard critics from Christians in the Orient.  The film has numerous historical errors and barbs of hate against Christians.

The film is to be shown in theaters in Beruit.  The Christian community of the Land of the Cedars have thus called for a boycott   They are calling it a "Propaganda film".  The 160 minute production of the Turkish director Faruk Aksoy begins with a flashback to Mohamed in exile from Medina, promising his  followers "eternal happiness" if they conquered the Byzantine capital.  The Ottoman Sultan took up this prophesy of Mohamed symbolically, according to the film, and began his operations against Constantinople which had defied Islam for 800 years.

Politico-Religious Propaganda Film Far Removed from Historical Reality

The combination of religious prophesy and Ottoman conquest in the film clearly speaks to Turkish national pride, as sold-out theater sales since February show.

One historical appraisal praised the film, say critics, but didn't stand.  The historical errors represented therein have rewritten the glorification of Islam and the Sultan's politico-religious leadership.  With that the film is not only a historical, but also more in a poltical dimension. A political dimension which which occurs in the re-islamicization of Turkey and connected with the beginning of the 20th century's declining Ottoman Empire and Turkey as a great power in the Orient.

Rodrigo Khoury, the founder of the Christian Lebanese party Al-Machreq is among the first to see the film in a preview.  The Lebanese Christians were shocked.  He forwarded an introductory film review with a detailed explanation of historical errors to General Surete, the censor of the Lebanese government.  Khoury addressed himself to numerous journalists, to allow the release of the film in the name of freedom of expression and art.

The Film Shows the Struggle Between Christian and Muslim Culture --- Christendom is a Grotesque Caricature

"The Film" says Khoury, "doesn't tell the struggle between two kingdoms, as the subtitle maintains, rather it's the struggle between two cultures, the Christian and the Muslim.  The Christian culture is distorted as a grotesque culture and the origin of all evil, while the Muslim culture on the other hand as perfect, faultless and portrayed therefore as the superior culture."  The young Christians of Lebanon are rejecting this film, because it "clearly calls for open hatred against Christians", says Khoury.

Father Abdo Abou Kassem is of the same opinion as the press agent for the Catholic Church in Lebanon.  "The Christian religion will be disparaged through numerous and substantial historical errors, and unjustly portrayed."  One scene shows, says the Catholic priest, how Sultan Mehmed (Mohammed) II entered the Basilica of Hagia Sofia and pushed among thousands of faithful, who had fled there in terror.  The Sultan hugged and silenced then a child and explained that the conqueror will also be a protector.  "As we know from the chronicles and the history, this is absolute fabrication.  As the Sultan entered the largest church in the city, he gave the order to slaughter all of the Christians there, more than 3,000, and let his soldiers rape Christian women there as a sign of the occupation.  The Basilica was then turned into a mosque," says Father Abdo.

"Fetih 1453" was released some weeks after protests against a short private film against Mohamed in Arabic lands. Because of a "blasphemous" disparagement of Mohammed and of Islam hundreds of thousands of Muslims in many states went to the streets.  The protests which were at times violent, costed more than 50 human lives, among them the American ambassador in Libya and hundreds of wounded.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: Asianews

Link to Katholisches ...

Polish Bishop Accuses Jews of Using Holocaust as Propaganda

[Haeretz] A leading Polish Catholic bishop caused a stir on Monday when he was quoted as saying that Jews had "expropriated" the Holocaust as a "propaganda weapon".

The comments by Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, a former head of the Polish bishops' conference, prompted concern among Jewish leaders in both Poland and Italy after they were published on the conservative Italian Catholic website www.pontifex.roma.

Pieronek later went on Polish television to say his comments had been manipulated and he denied one phrase in which he was quoted as saying "the Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention".

He also said that he did not "authorise" the publication of the interview, which was still on the website on Monday evening.

"It is undeniable that the greatest number of dead in concentration camps were Jews but there are also Polish gypsies, Italians and Catholics on the list," he was quoted as saying.


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Avatar is More Agit-Prop

Why Does Cameron Infantilize Natives?

Big Hollywood

by Kurt Schlichter

There’s no hiding that Avatar is a politically correct piece of semi-coherent agit-prop lurking behind a lot of over-praised CGI effects. While the fanboys hype it as the next great leap forward in filmmaking, it actually takes a huge step backward by employing one of the oldest and lamest of clichés – the white guy hero representing Western civilization who comes along and saves the natives while embracing their simple yet wise ways.

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