Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Nationalism, capitalism, and hoarding. The idea of every nation
should be forgot, price should be struck from the commons, and
princes should be seen for the devils they are. The sins include
our church, secret societies, and other religions which make of
the spirit of God a divide."
Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
2nd April 2005
--
the Jewish people.--In this search the Jewish people at
once attracts my attention by the number of wonderful and singular facts
which appear about them.
I first see that they are a people wholly composed of brethren, and whereas
all others are formed by the assemblage of an infinity of families, this,
though so wonderfully fruitful, has all sprung from one man alone, and,
being thus all one flesh, and members one of another, they constitute a
powerful state of one family. This is unique.
This family, or people, is the most ancient within human knowledge, a fact
which seems to me to inspire a peculiar veneration for it, especially in
view of our present inquiry; since if God had from all time revealed himself
to men, it is to these we must turn for knowledge of the tradition.
This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular
by their duration, which has always continued from their origin till now.
For, whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedaemon, of Athens
and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these
ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful kings who have
a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify, and as
it is easy to conjecture from the natural order of things during so long a
space of years, they have nevertheless been preserved (a