Letter to the Pope Josephp Ratzinger requesting to condemn the Catholic saints Adalbert of Prague and Bruno of Querfurt and to stop celebrating their feast days

13 06 2006

The Pope is urging to respect religions and their symbols. The ‘saints’ Adalbert and Bruno were executed because they profaned the Baltic faith, so the Catholic Church must condemn them.

The circumstances

At the end of 2005, Muslims from all around the world launched mass protests against the caricatures of their prophet Mohammad that were published first in Denmark and later - also in Sweden, France and some other countries.

The Catholic Church, which is officially declaring tolerance and respect to other religions, condemned the caricatures. Eventually, on 20^th February 2006, the head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Joseph Ratzinger unambiguously officially declared: ‘It is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols are respected’.

However, the Roman Catholic Church has canonised and is still worshipping even those so-called ‘saints’ who were executed because they had profaned and mocked the faith, gods and religious symbols of other people.

Adalbert of Prague (Wojtech) came to Prussia in 997 in order to ‘christen’ Prussians . In spite of all the warnings by the native people and their urgings to go back, Adalbert not only entered a holy Prussian forest, but also performed there some Catholic religious rituals (according to some interpretations, he even cut down some of the holy oaks that were worshipped by Balts, which was a common practice among the Medieval Catholics whose extraordinary barbarity was well known then); thus, he mocked the Prussian (Baltic) faith and profaned a Baltic shrine.

Bruno (Boniface) of Querfurt was ‘christening’ Prussians in 1009. The first thing that he did when he arrived to one Prussian community was to burn the symbols of the local gods in order to prove Christianity’s superiority over the Baltic faith. Though, according to the witnesses, he managed to baptise the local leader Netimer and some other indigenous people, Bruno could not escape a death sentence for the horrible blasphemy against Prussians and the Baltic religion.

Despite the fact that both sacrilegious ‘missionaries’ obviously deserved their death sentences according to the customs of their time (it is worth to mention that the Balts were much more tolerant than the medieval Catholics, and they did not torture the ‘saints’ before their executions, as Catholics would most probably have done in a similar case), the Catholic Church canonised them.

Adalbert and Bruno are still worshiped as saints, which is clearly offensive to the memory of the now extinct Prussians and to the contemporary adherents of the Baltic religion, despite the current policy of the Catholic Church and the above-mentioned statement by the Pope Joseph Ratzinger. In my opinion, it is either a mistake that has not been yet corrected or a clear sign of hypocrisy.

The reasons for this letter

Many of the world’s most powerful countries more or less officially consider themselves to be Christian. Their official interpretations of history always depict Christianity as a progressive development; in contrast, all the nations and religions that were persecuted and exterminated by Christians are usually shown as ‘barbarians’, who should be grateful to Christians for ‘civilising’ them, though in fact this meant inclusion for long long centuries into the kingdom of the cruelty, fanatic obscurity, shameless immorality and absurd superstitions of the Medieval Christians.

Despite the formal equality of religions, which is usually declared in Europe, Christianity overshadows most of the indigenous European faiths that want to regain their former status. During the long history of Christianity, Christians have captured all the resources of most other religious communities; usually Christians are in full control of both the formal discourse and the media. This is obvious even in Lithuania, where religion is formally separated from the state.

The Lithuanian official discourse and ideology are fully subjugated to the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic propaganda is dominating the media. The Catholic Church is usually presented by the media and many official persons as the only relevant religious community, so all the others are being openly humiliated. Many religious communities that officially are not recognised as ‘traditional’ in Lithuania are often attacked by the media as causing harm to the Lithuanian society, misleading the youth, etc.

The history of Lithuania and the world are interpreted there in the way that is the most favourable to the Roman Catholic Church. Everything that has been done by the Catholic Church is always presented as a noble mission, and its historical enemies – usually decent people who were mercilessly persecuted by Catholics – are always shown as obscure savages, who had to be destroyed in the name of Europe or progress.

The ancestors of contemporary Lithuanians who professed the traditional Lithuanian (Baltic) faith are usually called ‘pagans’ or ‘idolaters’, they are compared with dogs and humiliated in other ways even in the school textbooks. Their historical persecution, extermination and christening by force are usually interpreted as civilising of obscurant heathens, introducing them into the ‘European culture’, which was nobly carried out by Catholics. Mocking the traditional Lithuanian faith even now is considered to be an absolutely normal thing by the majority of the political and media elite.

I am deeply concerned about the current situation in Lithuania and I would like to change it – I believe that the discrimination of non-Catholics in Lithuania will once come to an end not only in the formal law, but also in the real life. First of all, I would like to destroy the myth of rightfullness and the status of impunity of the Catholic Church, to make it recognise that all the crimes of Catholics, including the crimes against the people who practised the traditional Baltic faith, certainly were and still are true crimes.

Therefore, I decided to officially apply to the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope Joseph Ratzinger (and the leaders of the Lithuanian Catholic Church) and request the Pope to condemn Adalbert of Prague and Bruno of Querfurt. I am convinced that the respect for other religions which is declared by the Roman Catholic Church obliges the Church to condemn the Catholics who did not respect the faith of other people and mocked it, even if they are canonised.

Official condemnation of the ‘saints’ who became such by travelling across the countries where nobody was waiting for them and offending the feelings and faith of the native people will be a good start of restoring historical justice not only in Lithuania, but also everywhere where certain Christian groups are still abusing their dominant position…

The letter to the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope Joseph Ratzinger An analogous letter sent to the [Catholic] Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference

Response

No response from either place.

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