Kyiv, Ukraine, Mar 5, 2017 / 04:02 pm (Aid to the Church in Need).- Parents forced to choose which of their children will eat dinner that day. Children watching as their parents succumb to the gruesome effects of starvation. Farmers having their crops snatched up and taken away while neighbors lie emaciated on the roads, too exhausted to move.
Thousands of documented instances of cannibalism.
This is the story of the Holodomor, the “death by hunger” that gripped Ukraine between 1932 and 1933 – leaving between 2.5 and 7 million people dead in its wake.
“The story is really horrific: the amount of people who went through life and were forced to eat horrible things just to stay alive,” Ukranian Greek Catholic priest Fr. Mark Morozowich told CNA.
“People talk about (how) there would just be some water with a little bit of fat in it that they were able to eat,” said Fr. Morozowich, who also serves as dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America.
“And then the stories of people dying: the young people, the old people, in some cases, if there were protests, people were shot and killed,” he recalled. “It was really a demonic reality in some ways.”
An overlooked history
The Holodomor, or “death by hunger” in Ukrainian, was a man-made famine that terrorized the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic – a Soviet state under the USSR – between the spring of 1932 until the summer of 1933. Through a combination of decreased crop requisition and a series of policies that restricted rations and seized food throughout the country, between an estimated 2.5 to 7.5 million Ukrainians starved to death in one of the most agriculturally productive areas of the USSR.
Contributing factors to the famine across the Soviet Union were the Soviet collectivization movements, which consolidated land and labor onto collective state farms as well as changes in crop production from grain to non-native species like sugar beets. Meanwhile, much of the grain that was grown was either not harvested, or mismanaged during production or shipping.
However, while food shortfalls were experienced in pockets across the Soviet Union, policies enacted in Ukraine in November 1932 specifically contributed to widespread death and starvation. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s policies required that Ukraine produce a third of the Soviet Union’s grain stocks, even though it consisted of just a fraction of the union’s arable land.
In addition, peasants and collective farms who did not meet their grain quotas were severely punished, forced to turn over livestock or surrender up to 15 times the food they originally owed the Soviet government. Those who could not turn over the required amount of goods found their farms raided by party officials.
After these policies were put into place, Ukrainian borders were closed, prohibiting starving citizens from leaving. These policies remained in effect, with food continuing to be seized, even after the Soviet government met its food requisition goals in early 1933. As a result of these factors, tens of thousands of Ukrainians died every day during the winter of 1932-1933. Citizens turned to drastic measures just to survive – including thousands of documented cases of cannibalism.
The classification of the Holodomor as a “genocide” is contentious today, due to questions over the extent of Stalin’s intention to specifically target and extinguish the Ukrainian people, as well as differing definitions of what constitutes genocide. Currently, the Holodomor is recognized as a genocide by 24 countries – including the Vatican.
Despite these questions, Stalin’s complicity in causing and then perpetuating the starvation in Ukraine has been well-documented.
“I don’t think that the way to think about the Holodomor is as something that there was a clear blueprint for and that the blueprint was just put into action,” said Prof. Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America.
“It was a number of competing agendas and, of course, the willingness of Stalin and those in his inner circle to inflict tremendous suffering on the population of the Soviet Union.”
While there was an “anarchic” element of administrative errors and unorganized policies, Kimmage said, there was also “certainly a form of political coercion to minimize access to food.” In addition, many within the Soviet government experienced and perpetuated fears and paranoias of secret enemies within the state – particularly within Ukraine, he said.
“You have a moment of genuine political terror, of state-sponsored, state-driven violence across the Soviet Union, but it has this particular chapter, particular element within Ukraine which is dictated and guided by Stalin’s paranoia about, perhaps Ukrainian loyalties being outside of the Soviet Union.”
In addition to the scope of the famine, what also sets the Holodomor apart is the degree of state complicity – not only in the creation of the famine, but in its refusal of any aid once news of the famine started to spread, Kimmage noted.
“The state was aware of the problem, it could have allocated resources differently,” he told CNA.
“The fiendish reality of the Holodomor is that it wouldn’t have happened if the Soviet state had not made it happen. There was no way that once it was underway that the state was going to come to the rescue of its starving subjects and citizens, and that’s perhaps the core tragedy of this event.”
The Soviet’s denial of wrongdoing lasted beyond the famine itself, Kimmage pointed out. Ukrainian people were prohibited from speaking or writing about the famine and its unique impact on their people until the Soviet Union broke apart in the 1990s.
“The thing that the Soviet Union wanted to prevent after the Holodomor was the usage of this event for any nationalist purposes – so to classify the Holodomor as a specifically Ukrainian tragedy, that was impermissible in Soviet times.”
Echoes of the Famine
While the Holodomor was a verboten topic of conversation in Ukraine, it is now an important touchstone both for the Ukrainian American community and for post-soviet Ukraine, who can now speak freely and remember publicly what happened.
“What has been forbidden to be spoken about until 1991 is very much spoken about after 1991,” Kimmage said.
For Ukrainians, said Fr. Morozowich, talking about the famine is also a means of commemorating the deep dehumanization experienced by the Ukrainian people during that period.
“When we look at what a famine does, it strips a person, it destroys networks, it brings them down, it pits neighbor against neighbor,” Fr. Morozowich said.
The perversion of these relationships and the choices people were faced with to survive destroyed not only society, but persons as well. “It was a whole dehumanization of the person. All that was good was stripped away and a stripping away the identity of the Ukrainian people.”
‘Who is going to remember Ukraine?’
The footprint of the Holodomor today is not only in the people’s reclamation of their identity, but in the people’s response to the situation and conflicts facing Ukraine today.
“It’s difficult for people who don’t live here or don’t know the history of these areas to understand,” Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, told CNA/EWTN News.
He spoke of Ukrainian’s fears that the conflicts facing the country today will be overlooked again not only by those imposing the violence, but also the world.
“The fact that they are afraid of being alone, of being forgotten: this is a fact that we cannot not take into consideration.”
Since 2014, conflict has raged between pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian government in Eastern Ukraine. Nearly 10,000 people have been killed by the violence, and over 1.5 million people have registered as displaced, according to the United Nations. Nearly two million people face shortages of water and restrictively high food and medicine prices in the areas of the most fighting, according to UN reports.
“Our present situation is not the Holodomor, but it is extremely difficult, and there are areas where, I wouldn’t say they starve, but they are at the minimum level of surviving,”Archbishop Gugerotti said.
He described that in many places, citizens hide and store basic food items like bread for fear of scarcity or theft. Social cohesion has eroded in the eastern part of the country, particularly between ethnic and language groups as well as between the different Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Churches. This has limited the churches’ ability to respond to the needs of the people, and heightened citizens’ feelings of hopelessness and paralysis.
“These kind of tensions are overwhelming, so the possibility of proper reaction is limited to the minimum.”
The challenges facing both Russia and the West has left many people in Ukraine feeling that their needs are being overlooked.
“When one is afraid, certainly one doesn’t want to meet with people who are more afraid than he or she is,” Archbishop Gugerotti said. “We have a disastrous situation in the whole world and who is going to remember Ukraine?”
Fr. Morozowich reflected that the lesson of the Holodomor still echoes in the challenges the Ukrainian people are facing today.
“When we look at history and we look at things that have happened, unfortunately in many cases, political power sometimes speaks louder than historical realities. We need to continually bring the stories forward,” he said, pointing to recent attention to the Holodomor in film and in research, as a hopeful sign.
Fr. Morzowich also spoke about the renewed attention to the atrocities of the Armenian genocide as another example of stories now receiving the attention they need.
Ultimately, however, both the Holodomor and the current Ukrainian conflict ask the same question, he said: “Are we really ready to listen to the plight of our brothers and sisters?”
In the Holodomor, the Soviets imposed a new reality for the Ukrainian people through the starvation and suffering of the famine.
“One that was devoid of God, stripping of their dignity, stripping of their culture, stripping of their culture, stripping of their intellectual past, stripping of their wonderful melodies,” Fr. Morozowich said. “They were deprived and then they were rebuilt into agents of the system.”
Similarly, the violence, hunger and displacement of today’s Ukrainian conflict makes people fear the same kind of deprivation, he added. “It’s a it’s a large part of the struggle of yesterday, it’s a large part of the struggle that’s going on today.”
“We have to ask if we’re ready to stand with our brothers and sisters to help them be free, to be able to live a decent life without the fear of a bomb falling, without the fear of hunger, and how do we as a people, a society for the voices of the innocent to rise above the military machinery that is just subjecting these people.”
[…]
Would that there were an abundance of German bishops the likes of layman Marc Frings.
Would that there were a pope like this layman.
Would that there would be more Catholics like the Pope.
Fr. Peter Morello:
My understanding is that there are quite a number of bishops in the German formerly Catholic Church who are *precisely* the ilk of layman Frings.
Like Herr Frings, these bishops dispute the ancient teachings of the Church, revering sterile, lifeless, orgasmo-centric homosexual practices, placing them on a par with the generative and sacred marriage act.
Please, Fr. Peter, could you explain for me why so many Catholic leaders who defy the Church’s teachings and who dispute the revealed word of God in scripture, feel compelled to present themselves as Catholics?
When it’s blatantly obvious that their real objective is to destroy the Catholic Church.
Brineyman I’m aware of the faithful German bishops, Stefan Oster Passau, Rainer Woelki Koln and others. Perhaps we can attribute the reason why the radicals control German Church politics to Vatican support of the kingpin of German radicalism Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and a growing lax practice of laity, the many who quit the Church due to the tax system. Oblique support by Pope Francis [letters of admonition have zero effect if not followed by action] of radical theologian and chairman German Bishops Conference Bishop Georg Bätzing who promotes the Synodal Way is a key.
We’re overshadowed in America by a cloud of apostasy promoted by a nucleus of key appointments to the cardinalate Tobin, Farrell, Cupich, Gregory, McElroy who possess political power directly from Rome promoting the Vatican secularist approach to the faith. Primarily it’s political control exerted from the Vatican.
Insofar as strong orthodox commitment to the faith there are the known nucleus of Cordileone, Naumann, Aquila, just a handful, the majority who express doctrinal orthodoxy are also weak and fearful of reprisal, preferring to remain token and comfortable. It all comes down to papal leadership, that leadership taking us in the opposite direction of Benedict and John Paul II.
It seems what’s occurring is a form of chastisement [ancient Israel was frequently permitted to degrade itself punished then restored] for overall laxity among Catholics.
I think you have misread Herr Fringes. He is actively supporting changing the catechism. Why would you want German bishops like him?
I had the same reaction and the same question. And, unfortunately, It seems that there is already an abundance of quisling German Bishops like Herr Frings.
Precisely, DUANE and Tom.
It seems that a huge number of Catholics — including bishops — don’t actually believe what the Catholic Church teaches.
With so many non-Catholic churches out there, why don’t these anti-Catholic Catholics just join another, more forward-thinking, now-a-go-go faith community?
I’m sure they could find one that preaches just about any gospel they like. Including the insemination of whatever body cavity they desire.
cc: Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Washington, D.C.
Why doesn’t the German Catholic Church get on with it and separate itself from the Catholic Church? It’s inevitable, so why belabor it?
Follow the money…
As long as the churchy tribe in Germania remains part of the Catholic Church it is eligible for the 7-8% surcharge on the annual personal income tax collected by the state and then sent to the German bishops’ conference. Therefore, now that the tribe has crossed the Rubicon in faith and morals, Rome should inform the Federal Republic of Germany that the tribe is no longer part of the universal Catholic Church.
Several consequences might follow:
1. Those fewer dioceses openly loyal to the universal Catholic Church would continue to receive the state-collected (and reduced, see #4) financial support, at least 13 judging from earlier synodal voting (Historically, it would be the ugly 1648 Peace of Westphalia all over again!)
2. Parishes loyal to the Church, but located in self-amputated dioceses, still could be identified as mission parishes attached to the nearest Catholic diocese, regardless of defunct diocesan boundaries.
3. Because the self-amputated dioceses are no longer part of the Church, Catholics who in the past have been automatically excommunicated (for refusing to be financially complicit in the betrayal of the Body of Christ) would find their excommunications either moot or lifted by Rome. (And loved ones who have been denied the sacrament of Catholic burial would receive justice from the restored and intact Church.)
4. Since the “indefensible” penalty (wording from the writings of emeritus Pope Benedict) has been removed, parishioners of Catholic dioceses and parishes could refuse the tax without penalty, and instead could contribute directly to the Church.
Yes, just a fantasy. And, more sober minds than mine surely will find a less risky exit strategy from today’s standoff, but follow the money.
Brilliant!
As background reading, we might consider what the International Theological Commission had to say about synods, compared to the synodal workbook. This language from the ITC (“Synodality in the life and mission of the Church,” 2018):
“…It is essential that, taken as a whole, the participants give a meaningful and balanced image of the local Church, reflecting different vocations, ministries, charisms, competencies, social status and geographical origin. The bishop, the successor of the apostles and shepherd of his flock who convokes and presides over the local Church synod, is called to exercise there the ministry of unity and leadership [!] with the authority which belongs to him [!].” (n. 79).
By comparison, the vademecum portrays the bishops—the successors of the apostles—not so much with authority or even leadership but, instead, “primarily as facilitators.” Beware, it warns, of the “scourge of clericalism.” What then of the apostolic Church?
From fully ten months ago and 5,000 miles away from Germania, here’s a CWR “opinion” piece on what has been abundantly obvious, from even a non-credential layman: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/10/02/opinion-making-sense-of-synodal-steps-during-precarious-times/
Thank God that our Good Lord having foreseen the evils of our times , has also given us the remedy – as the revelations of the Divine Will , as expalined in the enthusiatic words of Rev.Fr.Jim Blount –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vibJv58LMs
The Book of Heaven and related writings , to help deal with the spirit of apostacy as manifested in the unholy demands , from the blatant denial of the role of The Spirit Sanctifier in The Church and the world .. ( ? Russian money and envy also at the root .. )
Well meaning persons in the German Church , starting a process to immerse all those who have become afflicted with the spirits of confusion / envy / hatreds ,
to get to read the above volumes .. Church speeding up the process to update the volumes in a manner so that same can be more widely used – ? Lord allowing these drunken howlings in the ‘Field hospital ‘ for The Church as a whole to be led in haste to the healing waters ..good to hear how the Holy Father used the innovative measures of lasers and magnet therapy for healing of the knee fracture ..The Light of the Divine Will and the grace to cherish its truths to choose to live same – may same bring speedy enough healings into all the broken and wounded lives in the Field hospital .
FIAT !
God tests us to see if our faith is strong and resilient. Will it withstand attacks of evil and will it endure for the sake of the church? The church is worth fighting for. Unrepentant sinners (after being warned three times) must be put out of the church. God in His mercy shows us the path. We should continue to pray for them, yet they have no kinship with those who strive for godliness and look to Jesus to cleans us of our unrighteousness.Words are one matter, actions can be the opposite. God judges the hear, we must be in submission to Christ.
Excommunication is there for a reason. Sone may argue it might begin with Marx. Yet, he appears to be a Papa favourite, Papa declining his resignation. Others may argue that he has gone from awful to abhorrent and yet, will Papa do what is required?
2 Timothy 3:13 While evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
Philippians 1:1-Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. …
Galatians 1:1-Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. …
2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
Blessings of discernment and honour.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of Church doctrine on sexuality and gender need to be revised on the basis of theological and human-scientific findings.”
This is the constant declarative statement made by the German Synod.
Where is the objective ‘outdatedness’ other than a desire to be in the constant and current culture?
And where are these ‘human-scientific findings’? The manipulative soft sciences of psychology and sociology?
Fear not. German Catholics opposed to the Bishops and groups who hijacked the German meetings, prepared a manifesto. Our Pope Francis arranged a public meeting with some of those who signed the manifesto thus showing a strong degree of papal support for this group. When the time comes, the views of the German Bishops and their backers in this attack against the Church, will be publicly rejected. This is why our Founder gave us this Rock and the Holy Spirit.
Can man error? Can those in exalted positions go astray? Censure has come from many quarters regarding Papa’s watch.
Jesus had his critics and He has is faithful followers. Hopefully we rebuke ourselves, and when our fellow man is admonished, it is an aid to his eternal soul. Loyalty is good, however fidelity to Christ is always best and expected from the born again Christian.
When we care for someone we pray for them that they may be guided aright. Let our prayers for Papa be constant, that he do all things according to Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:4 And all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Matthew 21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
1 Peter 1:23 Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
How do you read the words of our Lord?
Prayers and blessings as you walk honouring Christ.
The chastisement of the confusion that the German Church is facing , also allowed in aching patience by the Holy Father to manifest itself , ? from concern also for other cultures that face imbalances in male / female #s , brought on by other evils .
The Church still has the responsibility to take the Good News to such places too to help them to know The Truth that The Spirit as the Sanctifier has the Love and Power in Him to help do away with confusions such as in seeing lust as Love , that in The Heart of The Mother , there can be ever greater unity in The Spirit to Love God and others , with His Own Will and Love that ever multiplies and substitutes ..
the labor pains as fears and unholy demands allowed to be voiced out since these arguments could very well be fermenting in other cultures who could be attracted to the goodness that can be through The Church , yet afraid that it is an impossibilty to live in holiness ..
The Divine Will revelations and readings – given for our times for persons to grasp the richness and depth of what faith entails . The Church likely expecting same to get to be known better through various means , including from the concerns about the wounded in the field hospitals who are demanding anaesthetics / narcotics even when such can be deadly . Holy Father and The Church knows there are healthier choices – Light more powerful than Laser as the Flame of Love of The Mother to attract hearts with greater power than that of gravity to rise up in the Divine Will healed of fractures of hearts ,to live in the manner destined for the children .
FIAT !