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Entry: The "Lies" of Pope Pius XII Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_lies_of_pope_pius_xii#30905 Post contents: Frankly, folks, I don't really buy the whole "mental reservation" thing. Do we really believe that Almighty God, author of the Creation and Redemption, Who said in the flesh that "The Sabbath was made for man, not Man for the Sabbath," is deeply exercised over such distinctions. Concretely, let's look at a scenario such as occurred throughout occupied Europe: A Polish family sheltering a Jewish child--for which the penalty was death--is approached by an SS officer rounding up children for deportation to Auschwitz. He's standing at the door, fully armed, in uniform, demanding to know if the child tugging at the mother's leg is her own, or a Jew she is hiding. If the mother is clever, she can come up with a "mental reservation" that would satisfy a professor of logic at Heidelberg as technically capable of being construed as true. But the statement will be designed to mislead, confuse, deceive and frustrate this representative of a tyranny who intends to kidnap a child so he or she can be murdered. If she tells this misleading "truth," it will be pleasing to God. However, if the woman is not so clever, and cannot think of a way to throw off the SS officer that would satisfy the logic professor, she must simply remain silent, allowing him to deduce the truth, seize the child, and drag it away screaming to its death by typhus or poison gas. This also is pleasing to God, rather than that the woman say something which is TECHNICALLY untrue rather than utterly misleading. If, on the other hand, she does tell a formal untruth, it will be a venial sin--which most of us commit every day (indeed, St. Augustine believed that after the Fall, every sexual act within marriage was venially sinful). Nevertheless, in the latter case, God would be best pleased if she kept her conscience clean and allowed the child to be dragged off. LADIES AND GENTS, if that is the kind of God with Whom we're dealing, we're all in deep, deep trouble. Sent at: 2008 12 02