The Dutch Reformed pastor Jannes van Raalte served congregations on both sides of the German border in the years leading up to World War II. Many of his parishioners viewed National Socialism as an understandable reaction to the injustices Germany had suffered in Europe, and they recoiled from comparisons between what they considered the relatively benign National Socialism and the evils of socialism and communism. Van Raalte disagreed, staunchly opposing Nazism from the outset. Already in 1932, he began to systematically expose fascism’s philosophical underpinnings: “National Socialism is radical, not in fighting against sin but in its glaring violence. Socialism, Bolshevism, and National Socialism are fundamentally akin to each other.”
POPE FRANCIS TO CONFER NEW LAY MINISTRIES FOR FIRST TIME IN ST. PETER’S BASILICA
The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will confer the ministries of catechist, lector, and acolyte upon lay men and
