Archbishop Visits WW2 Genocide Site

October 11, 2011: A senior Church official visiting a site of anti-Semitic genocide in World War II said last week he prayed it would never happen again.
Jesuit Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of was among 2,000 participants from 69 countries who attended the Second World Apostolic Congress on Mercy, October 1-5, in Poland.
He said congress participants shared testimonies on their devotion to Christ the Divine Mercy, joined lectures, street celebrations, Masses, missions, and visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, site of a former Nazi concentration camp.
Auschwitz “showed the opposite of divine mercy, how man can be inhuman to fellow human beings,” Archbishop Ledesma said.
“I prayed that it would never happen again, acts of mass murder or genocide not only against the Jewish people, but also Poles, gypsies, Catholic priests [who were] included in the concentration camp,” he said.
Auschwitz is also a “special place” because it is where Polish Franciscan friar Saint Maximilian Kolbe was killed, the prelate added.
The archbishop explained, “The Divine Mercy devotion is a reminder for us in the modern world to be mindful that God’s mercy is always there and stronger than our sinfulness or our limitations.”
He said in Poland, “we held a prayer service for the victims. They said about three to six million people were killed in the concentration camps.”