In the light of my two previous posts today, one of which compared secular fundamentalism to Islamic fundamentalism, and the other of which looked at a possible source for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice in the skinning alive of the Venetian commander by a “Jewish butcher” on the orders of the Muslim invaders of Cyprus, I thought that a recent sermon by Cardinal Burke on St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) would provide a good and healthy balance. St Teresa Benedicta was, of course, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism who became a Carmelite. She was put to death by Hitler’s secular fundamentalist regime. Although Hitler’s genocidal hatred of the Jews is well documented, anti-Christian secular fundamentalists all too often choose to forget Hitler’s own anti-Christian secular fundamentalism. Although the Nazis exterminated Jews and Jewish Christians, we should not forget that many thousands of non-Jewish Christians were exterminated also, not least of whom was St Maximilian Kolbe, killed at Auschwitz, who, like St Teresa Benedicta, was canonized by the Church as a holy soul martyred by the bloody forces of secular fundamentalism.

The indefatigably orthodox Cardinal Burke is always worth listening to. His sermon on St Teresa Benedicta is no exception:   http://en.gloria.tv/?media=184359