RITA KRAMER: THE BRAVE AND THE BLOWHARDS
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/the-brave-and-the-blow-hards-rita-kramer.html
What does it mean to be brave? In what does courage consist? These are questions that come to mind thinking about men and women who have stood up against tyranny, put their freedom and even their lives at risk by taking a stand and comparing them with activists and protestors in our country today. Movie stars, film makers, and other celebrities famous for being famous preen and pose and pretend that they are standing up against powerful forces when they make political statements in public. The only real threat they face is exposing their ignorance of complicated issues.
The left-leading media loves them and headlines the names and faces and pronouncements of such as Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon, Matt Damon and Harry Belafonte–directors, actors, entertainers all drawn from the world of Hollywood where fantasy substitutes for knowledge and the uneducated pass as gurus, hailed for their presumed willingness to stand up against threatening conspiratorial powers.
How little these Hollywood celebrities risk, how little they stand to lose becomes glaringly clear when they are compared with men and women of undeniable courage whose words–and actions–put them at real risk of losing their freedom and finally their lives. From time to time we are reminded of such figures and of what it means to take a stand against real tyranny, to enter the fight against undeniable evil.
A recent book tells the story of one such man, a Capuchin priest who repeatedly risked his life to help rescue thousands of Jews in France and Italy during the dark days of Nazi occupation. His story is told by Susan Zuccotti in Pere Marie-Benoit and Jewish Rescue. Zuccotti is the author of earlier books on France and Italy during the Holocaust and brings impressive background knowledge and practiced research skills to this latest account.
A Catholic priest in a time and place when the Vatican offered no word of support for those innocents who were hunted down or any word of encouragement for those who were moved to help them, Pere Marie-Benoit’s mission among the Jews began with a single request for help. A visitor to his Franciscan monastery in Marseilles appealed to him to help a Jewish girl. From protecting one he became the protector of others and soon he became known among members of Jewish underground groups as someone who could be counted on for help. He persuaded local officials to provide him with blank forms which could be filled out to provide false papers–passports and baptismal certificates–and he hid the persecuted until they could be smuggled on to other monasteries and schools and eventually over borders to neutral countries. When the Germans moved into Southern France he was transferred to Rome, where other like-minded priests, nuns and ordinary people were enlisted in joining escape networks of Christians and Jews working together. Their efforts rescued some four thousand who would otherwise have faced deportation and death. They continued operating up until the Allied liberators reached Rome.
One of the remarkable aspects of Pere Marie-Benoit’s work saving Jews was that, unlike many others who undertook similar efforts, he never tried to convert them to his faith but encouraged them to remain Jewish. And after the war he continued to advocate for Jewish/Christian reconciliation, a cause which the Church would not recognize until the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960’s. He is remembered at Yad Vashem in Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Zuccotti was able to interview Pere Marie-Benoit himself before he died, as well as some of the members of his rescue networks and some of those who survived the Nazi terrors only because of the willingness of their rescuers to put their lives on the line for a moral purpose.
How puny, when we hear the stories of real courage in the face of brutal dictatorships, are the bleatings of the Hollywood political protesters. Up against no threats, either to their livelihood or their lives, they want to be seen as heroic figures. Not bothering to study the issues and learn enough to make coherent statements, they deal in slogans and use their celebrity in the cause of issues they don’t even seem to understand. They might gain some perspective about life, about what it means to be courageous, what it takes to be heroic, by reading accounts of lives like that of Pere Marie-Benoit.
Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the… by Susan Zuccotti (Jun 4, 2013)
Rita Kramer is a member of the Outpost Editorial Board. Her books include Flames in The Field and When Morning Comes.
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