Cardinal Walter Kasper and Patriarch Alexius II,
Moscow, February 22, 2004

Russian Patriarch Alexius II’s KGB Roots

(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) According to the Estonian newspaper, Eesti Paevaleht (Mar. 22, 2006), a document has been made available by the National Archives of Estonia which states that the Leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexius II, became a bishop of Estonia with the help of the KGB, the Soviet Secret Service. The document is included in a collection titled “The Report about the work of the 2nd and 4th departments of the State Security Committee (SSC, alias KGB) in the year 1958.” This separate report concerns the activities of KGB agent “Drozdov,” alias Aleksei Ridiger, alias Alexius II. In the year 1958, the 4th department of Estonian KGB mentioned Drozdov as being one of the most important agents recently obtained.

Agent Drozdov (born in 1929), a highly educated clergyman of the Orthodox Church, was recruited in February of 1958 due to his patriotic sentiments and was assigned to discover and document any anti-soviet elements belonging to Orthodox clergy. Because of his connections amongst the clergy, he was of operative interest to the State Security Committee (KGB).

The report on Drozdov states that his KGB recruiters considered his future as a possible Bishop of Tallinn and Estonia. During his cooperation with the organs of the State Security Committee (KGB), Drozdov had proved himself to be “useful, attending the meetings correctly, being energetic and ready to communicate.” He was also lauded as being “well acquainted in the theoretical questions of theology and international affairs.”

The State Security Committee (SSC) reported that Drosdov “fulfills our tasks with pleasure and he has already presented us with several noteworthy materials,” including dossiers on both clergy and lay members of the church. The SSC report stated that, “after his installation through concrete agency elaboration to the practical work with the state security organs, we intend to use him for our interests by sending him amongst the delegation of clergy to the Capitalist countries.”

In the year 2003, the president of Estonia, Arnold Rüütel, an ex-communist official, decided to give a first-class badge of honor called Maarjamaa Rist (“The Cross of the Land of Mary”) to Patriarch Alexius II. This is the highest honorary award which can be given by the State of Estonia to a foreigner.

Comment: KGB Agent “Drozdov” – i.e., Patriarch Alexius II – is no stranger to this column. In August of 2004, Pope John Paul II returned the venerated icon of “Our Lady of Kazan” to the Russian Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, John Paul set himself up for yet another public humiliation by asking for permission to return the icon in person. Alexius replied that, since the icon was merely "one of many copies" of the original, “there is no need for the Pope himself to bring it.” Accusing the Catholic Church of attempting to proselytize in Russia, Alexius said that relations with Rome can only improve "when today's gesture [the return of the icon] is followed by others... and we are not competitors on Russian territory.” So filled with hatred for the Catholic Church is Agent Drozdov/Patriarch Alexius that, when a live link-up was established between Pope John Paul II and a Moscow cathedral in 2002, which allowed Russian Catholics to see the Pope as he led prayers for young Russian Catholics, an outraged Alexius bemoaned the televised event as a “virtual visit” and an “invasion of Russia” by John Paul.

Considering the repeatedly ignored warnings of Our Lady of Fatima concerning Russia and her errors, “Patriarch” Alexius’ KGB roots should surprise no one. Also non-surprising, unfortunately, was the late Pope John Paul’s inexplicable obeisance to such a creature. Perhaps the day will come when a Vicar of Christ will once again respect himself as the “Chief Pastor” and, in all firmness and charity, repeat to schismatics of all stripes the words of Pope Leo XIII: “The Church of Christ, therefore, is one and the same for ever; those who leave it depart from the will and command of Christ, the Lord—leaving the path of salvation, they enter on that of perdition (“Satis Cognitum: On the Unity of the Church).”

ADL Honors First Anniversary of Death of Pope John Paul II

To commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II and honor his unique relationship to the Jewish people and Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith (ADL) has issued a new publication focusing on the Pontiff's historic visit to Israel and the Middle East in 2000. Titled Pope John Paul II - Visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority: A Pilgrimage of Prayer, Hope and Reconciliation, the document includes selected passages from the speeches and presentations made by the Pope during his visit, compiled and with commentary by Rabbi Leon Klenicki, ADL Director Emeritus of Interfaith Affairs.

"Pope John Paul II's outreach to the Jewish community will remain an important part of his extraordinary legacy," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, who wrote the introduction to the publication.  "As a youth in Poland he related to Jews who were his friends and neighbors. As Pope, through his words and actions he condemned anti-Semitism as a sin, visited the Rome synagogue, the first ever by a Pontiff, prayed at Auschwitz for the Jews who died there at the hands of the Nazis, and established relations with the Jewish State of Israel."

Rabbi Klenicki, an expert on and participant in Catholic-Jewish relations for many decades, said, "As no other Pope in history, John Paul II will forever be recognized as the Pilgrim of Peace and the Apostle of Reconciliation. His prayer at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, his visit to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the Jews who died in the Shoah, his meetings with the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Israeli officials and the Israeli people, were historic moments in his pilgrimage."

According to a March 22, 2006 ADL press release, Pope John Paul II - Visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority: A Pilgrimage of Prayer, Hope and Reconciliation provides context for the pilgrimage, made on the occasion of the Great Jubilee, and contains excerpts from John Paul II and those with whom he met.

Comment: Rabbi Leon Klenicki is the Gospel-trasher who lamented, during the Passion hysteria, that one cannot avoid the presence of “anti-Semitism” in the Gospels because “the danger is there all the time — in the text itself."

There is nothing original in Pope John Paul II - Visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority: A Pilgrimage of Prayer. In its pages, we are treated – not surprisingly – to the miserable spectacle of the Vicar of Christ, declaiming, “As the successor of Peter, I asked that in this year of mercy, the Church, strong in the holiness which she received from her Lord, should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters.” We also read about the 2000 document, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past, prepared by the Holy See’s International Theological Commission, and are gleefully reminded that “the document deals with faults of the Church vis-à-vis religious and human rights” and “asks forgiveness for past sins of members of the Catholic Church and Catholic institutions, including Christians’ treatment of Jews.” One incident, which is cited with approval in Rabbi Klenicki’s book, stands out. During a Mass in Rome on the first Sunday of Lent in the Jubilee year, Pope John Paul prayed:

God of our Fathers, You chose Abraham and his descendants to bring Your name to the nations: we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of Yours to suffer and, asking Your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

This was the same prayer that John Paul, following Jewish tradition, placed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but with one change – the phrase “through Christ Our Lord” was deleted from the prayer. Such a glaring omission by the Successor of St. Peter was lauded by Klenicki as a “demonstration of [the Pope’s] respect for Jewish sensibilities.”

This incident, this distaste for the Sacred Name of Jesus, lies at the very heart of both Jewish infatuation (and that’s all it is) with John Paul II and the sheer disappointment he instilled time after time in the hearts of the flock entrusted to his care. The Pope’s action, so lauded by the ADL, who have no use either for Christ or His Church, is even more regrettable when we stop to consider Jesus’ own admonitions:

Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do: that the Father may be glorified in the Son.... Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in heaven.

Pope John Paul II - Visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority: A Pilgrimage of Prayer is simply “more of the same” – a self-serving assemblage of quotations and commentary, crammed through the narrow sieve of the ADL’s “The-Church-Must-Grovel” agenda, which reduces the Papacy to a sort of self-flagellating “good will” ambassadorship with little or no connection to the Redeemer – yes, the Jewish Messiah – who died and rose again two millennia ago.

Baa, Baa, “Rainbow” Sheep?

According to the Cox News Service (Mar. 22, 2006), teachers at nursery schools in Oxfordshire, England, have asked children to change the words of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" to "Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep" to avoid the possibility of offending anyone. "This type of thing is definitely happening in all parts of the country," said Laura Midgley, co-founder of Britain's Campaign Against Political Correctness. "This makes an issue about the color black when there should not be one. It's just a color at the end of the day.”

"The political correctness campaign has been going on for some time, but we are seeing more of it these days than we have in the past," said Midgley. She and others say this latest desire to not offend by getting rid of "black sheep" is ludicrous, particularly since the song has nothing to do with race. The nursery rhyme dates back to the mid-1700s and is related to a tax imposed on wool by the king, which divided receipts equally between the local lord (the master), the church (the dame), and the farmer (the little boy). Black wool was apparently taxed at a lower rate than white wool:

Baa Baa, Black Sheep,

Have you any wool?

Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full.

One for the Master, one for the Dame—

None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane.

This is not the first time that nursery rhymes have fallen victim to the British PC campaign. In 2003, the Mothercare store chain in England began selling cassette tapes and CDs featuring a new version of Humpty Dumpty in which there was a happy ending. The new version said that "Humpty Dumpty opened his eyes, falling down was such a surprise, Humpty Dumpty counted to 10, then Humpty Dumpty got up again."

A spate of headline-grabbing cases in recent weeks – not all related to the nursery rhyme change – have helped spark widespread criticism in the British media over the ongoing movement to be politically correct. For example, a school principal in Demon, England, garnered attention earlier this month when he announced a ban on snowball fights unless the thrower first obtained permission from the target. In a newsletter, Tiverton High School's 1,200 students were told not to throw a snowball without prior consent. But it was news of the change to "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" that pushed the British press – and even media around the world – into a frenzy of negative commentary. "The fact that black is a color appears to be lost on the PC police," wrote Ian McPhedran in a column in The Advertiser, a newspaper in Adelaide, Australia. In the current climate, "black coffee becomes coffee without milk, the blackboard is now the chalkboard. And forget about the black economy or black-listing anything," he wrote.

Stuart Chamberlain, manager of the Family Center in Abingdon, England, justified changing the words to "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" because "no one should feel pointed out because of their race, their gender, or anything else.” But Nick Seaton, chairman of Britain's Campaign for Real Education, which aims to improve state education standards, observed that "political correctness is preventing children from even considering any idea that may or may not be outlandish."

Britney Spears – Pro-Life Icon?

On April 7, 2006, what is being proclaimed as “the first Pro-Life monument to giving birth,” a statue of a nude Britney Spears giving birth to her firstborn son on a bearskin rug, was dedicated at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, New York’s Williamsburg gallery district.

“Dedication of the life-sized statue celebrates the recent birth of Spears' baby boy, Sean, and applauds her decision of placing family before career," according to U.S. & World News (Mar. 22, 2006). “A superstar at Britney's young age having a child is rare in today's celebrity culture,” said gallery co-director, Lincoln Capla. “This dedication honors Britney for the rarity of her choice and bravery of her decision." The dedication included materials provided by the Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Anatomically-correct aspects of Spears' pregnancy include a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean's head. The monument also “acknowledges the pop-diva's pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed ... as she clutches the bear's ears with 'water-retentive' hands.”

"Britney provides inspiration for those struggling with the 'right choice'," said artist Daniel Edwards, recipient of a 2005 Bartlebooth award from London's The Art Newspaper. "She was number one with Google last year, with good reason – people are inspired by the beauty of a pregnant woman," said Edwards. The artist admits to using references for his statue that include the wax figure of a pole-dancing Britney at Las Vegas' Madame Tussauds.

Comment: Is the idea of a young, married woman actually having a baby so rare these days that it needs to be immortalized in stone, or are some of  Brooklyn and Manhattan’s pro-lifers just too desperate for a poster-child? Consider Britney Spears “pro-family” resume:

- In 1998, Spears released her debut single, “Baby One More Time.” The video for the song featured Spears dancing about provocatively, clad in a racy Catholic schoolgirl outfit.

- In 2003, Spears did a semi-nude photo spread for Esquire magazine. In an interview with Diane Sawyer, the pop princess admitted that those photos were “a little much,” and that she “felt kind of weird about” one of the photos.

- On Aug. 28, 2003, Spears helped to further mainstream lesbianism when she shocked even the degenerates at the MTV Music Video Awards show in New York City by locking lips on stage with “her mentor”—the notorious pop-star-turned-Kabbalah-devotee, Madonna.  The video for Spears’ song “Me Against the Music” also featured Madonna and revisited the lesbian theme.

- In 2004, Spears performed her Onyx Hotel Tour in San Diego. During these shows, Spears and her on-stage dancers were seemingly nude and performed routines simulating homosexual sex, orgies and self-abuse, which angered many chaperones of younger attendees. Spears responded to parents' concerns by stating that she is "not their babysitter."

- On April 13, 2006, Spears appeared on an episode of Will and Grace, in which she portrayed a Christian conservative sidekick to Sean Hayes' homosexual character, Jack, who hosts his own talk show. When Jack's fictional network, Out TV, is bought by a Christian TV network, Spears’ character contributes a cooking segment called “Cruci-fixin's.” Under pressure from Christian groups, the offensive segment was removed for broadcast.

As society bemoans teen pregnancy and the sexualization of children, Britney Spears, who sports a Hebrew tattoo on the nape of her neck in order to display her commitment to Kabbalah, has made a fortune on what amounts to one, extended “Lolita” routine.

Perhaps a better icon for the pro-life movement would be Gianna Beretta Molla, a pediatrician who died in 1962 at age 39 as a result of an untreated uterine fibroid tumor one week after giving birth to her fourth child. Early in Gianna’s fourth pregnancy, doctors discovered a fibroid tumor in her uterus, but she refused treatment for the tumor because it would have required her to undergo an abortion. She reportedly said at the time, "If a decision must be made between my life and the child's, don't hesitate. I insist you choose the child's. Save it."

Gianna Beretta Molla was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 16, 2004. Whatever one may think of the late Pope’s unorthodox manner of creating saints by the bushel, the fact remains that the depth of Gianna’s love and loyalty to her unborn child is, or should be, the very matrix for the pro-life philosophy. A coddled pop-celebrity on a bearskin rug isn’t quite the same thing.

Tunnels Used By Ancient Jews Discovered

Archeologists say that underground chambers and tunnels used during a Jewish revolt against the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago have been uncovered in northern Israel, according to the Associated Press (Mar. 14, 2006).

The underground chambers at the Israeli Arab village of Kfar Kana, north of Nazareth, were built from housing materials common at the time and hidden directly beneath the floors of aboveground homes — giving families direct access to the hideouts. "This construction was very well camouflaged inside one of the houses," said Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority. "There are three pits under this house and one tunnel leading to another pit. There are 11 storage jars in that pit." Built like igloos, the chambers are wide at the base and small at the top. The tunnels between them are short and the ceilings are too low for standing upright.

The Jews laid in supplies and were preparing to hide from the Romans during their revolt in A.D. 66-70, the experts said. The pits, which are linked by short tunnels, would have served as a concealed subterranean home. Yardenna Alexandre said the find shows that the ancient Jews planned and prepared for the uprising, contrary to the common perception that the revolt began spontaneously. "It definitely was not spontaneous," Alexandre said. "The Jews of that time certainly did prepare for it, with underground hideaways here and in other sites we have found."

Zeev Weiss, a professor of archaeology at Hebrew University, said the find "can give us more information about life in Galilee in the first century and the preparations Jews were making on the eve of the revolt." The Jewish revolt against Roman rule ended in A.D. 70, when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple.