Pope Francis will visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in July, as part of World Youth Day.

This trip coincides with his five day trip to Poland, arriving on July 27 and departing July 31.

Pope John Paul II, himself Polish, became the first pope to visit the camp. Benedict XVI visited in 2006.

The US Holocaust Museum estimates that the SS had murdered at least 960,000 of the 1.1m Jews deported to the camp. Of the 23,000 Romani, the Nazis murdered 21,000. Other victims included 15,000 Poles, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. And 10-15,000 members of other nationalities perished (including Czechs, Yugoslavs, Germans, Austrians and French).

On June 7, 1979, Pope John II made a five-hour visit to the camp. He prayed before a stone crucifix in memory of the Catholic priest Maksymilian Kolbe, prisoner number 16670, who the SS murdered in 1941.

Kolbe volunteered to die, so Franciszek Gajowniczek, a father of five might live. Gajowniczek, the Polish army sargeant had been chosen to die in an Auschwitz dungeon called the “hunger bunker,” after a prisoner had escaped.

Kolbe pleaded, ‘I want to take the place of this man. He has a wife and a family. I have no one. I am a Catholic priest.’ He and ten others were then marched away, stripped naked and starved.  To console the others, Kolbe consoled the condemned men with prayers and hymns. Kolbe and three others had survived for ten days. Then a doctor arrived and killed them with injections of carbolic acid. In 1982, the Catholic church canonised Kolbe. Gajowniczek had survived the war and died in 1995 aged 95.

John Paul also remembered the life of Edith Stein, a German-Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism. A Carmelite Sister Benedicta of the Cross, she died like many others in the gas chambers of the camp. The Catholic church beatified her in 1987, which confused and upset Jewish groups as Edith Stein died because she was Jewish, not a Catholic nun.

On Auschwitz, Pope John Paul II described it as, “A place built on hatred and on contempt for man in the name of a crazed ideology. A place built on cruelty.’ He came to ‘kneel on this Golgotha of the modern world, on these tombs, largely nameless like the great tomb of the Unknown Soldier”.

The 1979 visit came fourteen years after the Second Vatican Council of 1965 declared that Jewish communities were not responsible for the death of Christ.

A test of this Jewish-Catholic reconciliation took place in 1993. Carmelite nuns had lived in a convent converted from a building used by the Nazis to store Zkylon B gas. It had caused tensions between Jewish and Catholic communities since 1987. A deal between cardinals and leaders of Jewish organisations had agreed to move the convent away from the camp.

In 1989, Avraham Weiss, a New York City rabbi, had broken into the convent in protest at their failure to abide by the agreement. Pope John Paul II wrote to the convent, asking the nuns to re-locate helped diffuse tensions.

In a 2006 visit, Pope Benedict XVI echoed the words of his predocessor. In his address he said, “All these inscriptions speak of human grief, they give us a glimpse of the cynicism of that regime which treated men and women as material objects, and failed to see them as persons embodying the image of God”.

The German-born pope made it a personal mission to visit the camp during his papacy, having first visited in 1979 as Archbishop of Munich-Freising.

In a speech he said, “In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence – a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?“

Benedict faced criticism for dealing with this historical trauma through a theological, not emotional lens. Perhaps this disassociation owed to his own role in World War II. He had served as an antiaircraft unit but deserted and found himself inside an American prisoner of war.

The BBC’s Adam Easton remarked that Benedict offered no apology for the role of ordinary Germans, nor did he make a direct reference to antisemitism.

Pope Francis will also attend a mass there to celebrate the 1050th anniversary of the introduction of Christianity to Poland.

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The US Conference of Catholic Bishops hopes that a national dialogue with Muslims can change perceptions of Islam in the United States.

In the past, efforts to foster Catholic-Muslim have succeeded at local levels. But in the face of rising Islamophobia, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, of Springfield in Massachusetts, who chairs the committee, said a wider conversation was needed.

“As the national conversation around Islam grows increasingly fraught, coarse and driven by fear and often willful misinformation, the Catholic Church must help to model real dialogue and good will,” he said in a statement.

This national dialogue will begin at the start of 2017. In the Midwest, Catholic-Muslim dialogue began in 1996 and meets once a year. The co-chairs represent both faiths. One document produced explored how Muslims and Catholics interpret revelation.

In the Mid-Atlanic, a representative from The Islamic Circle of North America co-chairs the yearly meetings that started in 1998. Out in California, a number of Islamic Societies join the yearly dialogue which began in 1999. They co-published Friends and Not Adversaries: A Catholic-Muslim Spiritual Journey in 2003.

A 2014 directive reaffirmed a commitment to Catholic-Muslim dialogue.

How Catholics view other faiths changed following the Second Vatican Council. In 1965, the then Pope Paul VI, delivered the Nostra Aetate, Latin for ‘In Our Time’. This revolutionary document shifted the ‘default position of hostility‘ to reconciliation. For Jewish communities, the Catholic Church moved away from collective blame for Christ’s death. In 2011, Pope Benedict X further exonerated the Jewish people in a theological intervention. Such a stance hoped to end centuries of Catholic-inspired antisemitism.

The Nostra Aetate document had warm words for Muslims and their devotion to God. It spoke of difference but mentioned that:

Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

The Pew Research Center found a slight decline in Catholics in the United States. The 2014 figure stood at 20.8 per cent (down from 23.9 per cent in 2007). Muslims in the United States represent almost one per cent of the general population.

This national dialogue will compliment, not replace existing examples of Catholic-Muslim dialogue. Archbishop Blase Cupich of the Diocese of Chicago will co-chair this national initative. There’s no announcement yet on who will act as the Muslim co-chair.

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A campaign to canonise a Catholic priest who stayed on the RMS Titanic instead of fleeing remains ongoing despite renewed interest in his story.

The story of Father Thomas Byles and his acts of selflessness, however, deserves re-telling.

Roussel Davids Byles was born in 1870 to a Protestant family in Leeds. His father, Reverend Dr. Alfred Holden Byles and mother Louisa Davids also had six other children.

He excelled at mathematics and  gained a scholarship to Balliol School, Oxford. When at Oxford, Byles gravitated towards the Church of England. His younger brother, William, however, converted to Catholicism first.

In 1894, he had a conditional baptism (sub conditione) at St. Aloysius Church in Oxford. Upon entering the Catholic faith, Roussel adopted the name of Thomas.

After spending two years in Rome, Byles became the ordained priest of St Helen’s Church, Chipping Ongar, Essex in 1904.

In 1912, he had boarded the ship to attend the wedding of his younger brother William, in New York. This last minute decision to board the Titanic instead of a different ship cost him £13 (roughly £1,100 today). His second class ticket was number 244310.

His duties included performing mass for second and third class passengers. Two other Catholic priests, Fr
Juozas Montvila from Lithuania and Fr Joseph Peruschitz from Germany also gave daily mass.

On the morning of the tragedy on April 14, his sermon, delivered in English and French, argued that prayer serves as a spiritual lifeboat in times of strife and temptation.

A stained-glass window at St Helen’s Church in Essex immortalises his selflessness. He had “earnestly devoted his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers”.

Fr Byles had walked the upper decks of the ship, reciting the Breviarium Romanum, as the ship struck the iceberg.

As the scale of the tragedy grew by the hour, Fr Byles had twice refused a space on a lifeboat. He spent his time shepherding women and children to safety. And offering them words of comfort and absolution.

Upon the departure of the final lifeboat, Fr Byles gathered a crowd of individuals at the rear of the ship. Here, he led the recital of the Rosary. Fr Juozas Montvila and Fr Joseph Peruschitz had also stuck to their religious duties until the end.

As the stern rose higher, in their final moments, Fr Byles gave absolution to Catholics, Protestants, and Jews trapped in the rising waters.

Fr Byles was among the 1,500 to perish aboard the Titanic on April 15 1912. The bodies of all three Catholic priests were never recovered.

As they departed, an eyewitness recalled:

“After I got in the boat, which was the last one to leave, and we were slowly going further away from the ship, I could hear distinctly the voice of the priest (Byles) and the responses to his prayers.  Then they became fainter and fainter, until I could only hear the strains of ‘Nearer My God, To Thee’and the screams of the people left behind”.

His family mourned his loss after learning that he had not boarded the rescue ship RMS Carpathia. In total, the rescue mission saved 702 lives.

Family members had later flown to Rome for an audience with Pope Pius X.

According to the Edmundian Association, Pius X declared that Fr Byles had been a martyr for the church.

The thrust of campaign to canonise Fr Byles is the current priest of St Helen’s, Fr Graham Smith. In June last year, he told the BBC that “We are hoping and praying that he will be recognised as one of the saints within our canon.”

Prayer forms a vital part of the beatification process. Sainthood requires a proven miracle to be attributed to prayers made to the person after death.

To mark the centenary of his death in 2012, a number of events honoured his life and sacrifice. This included the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Rossall Public School in Lancashire.

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Pope Francis lit the Christmas tree and nativity scene in Assisi. From a distance in the Vatican, he performed the ceremony online on December 7.

In attendance at the lower piazza of the Basilica San Francesco were 31 refugees from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nigeria and Syria. The other invited guest included the Naval officer who assisted in their rescue. All stood alongside local residents as the Christmas tree lit up.

#Assisi,accensione delle luci del presepe: “Anche quella volta siamo arrivati in tempo per salvare una vita in mare” pic.twitter.com/uF4abIu5zc

— Marina Militare (@ItalianNavy) December 6, 2015

Papa Francesco accende le luci del presepe di #Assisi. Comandante nave #MarinaMilitare porterà la sua testimonianza pic.twitter.com/7hoMEVj0H2

— Marina Militare (@ItalianNavy) December 6, 2015

At the foot of the tree stands a nativity scene crafted into the boat used by those who arrived at the Italian island of Lampedusa from Tunisia in 2014.

The Italian State Railway and Italian Navy also handed out toys to families in need.

Staff at the Basilica, the Conventual Franciscan Friars, dedicated the tree and “this Christmas to immigrants“.

In a translated address, according to Vatican Radio, Francis thanked the Coast Guard. He said: “I would like to thank the [members of the] Coast Guard: the good men and women. I thank you, for you were the instrument of hope that brings us Jesus.”

And in reference all refugees, Pope Francis said: “I say a word, that of the prophet: Raise your head, the Lord is near. And with him is strength, salvation, hope. The heart, perhaps, [is] sorrowful, but the head [is] high in the hope of the Lord.”

This follows a statement he made back in October that: “At the heart of the Gospel of mercy, the encounter and acceptance by others are intertwined with the encounter and acceptance of God himself”.

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A rare copy of the King James Bible, dating back to the 17th Century,  reappeared in Wales.

A moment of curiosity from St Giles Parish Church’s vicar Reverend Dr Jason Bray in Wrexham led to its rediscovery.

The National Library of Wales later confirmed its authenticity.

Dr Bray told the Daily Post that “The title page and the last page are missing but other than that it’s in good condition”.

The first edition King James Bible dates back to 1611 and is one of just 200 copies known to still exist. It is also known as the Authorised Version (AV) of the bible in English

Other English language bible translations did exist before the seventeenth century. Yet, politics often got in the way of a standardised translation.

The 1408 Constitutions of Oxford made biblical translations in England forbidden. This ban attempted to prevent a rise in English “Lutheranism”. Only the educated classes had access to the authorised translation of the bible – St Jerome’s Vulgate.

William Tyndale (1494–1536) left for Germany in 1524 hoping to translate the New Testament into English. It took two years for a complete translation to appear in England and Scotland. His first attempt failed after authorities raided his printshop in Cologne.

A group of English Catholics fled to Switzerland to avoid persecution for their faith. In 1560, they worked on what became known as the Geneva Bible. Among the translators was John Knox (1514-1572) and Myles Coverdale (1488-1569). The translators added introductions, maps, indexes, and summaries. It became the first English language bible to use roman font and introduced verse numbers. Its print run ended in 1644.

In response to perceived its ‘anti-epostical’ notes,  Anglican Bishops issued their own translation. This translation became known as the Bishops’ Bible and was published in 1568 for use in the Church of England.

Yet, the Church of England, for the most, part relied upon an earlier translation, the Great Bible (1539-1540). Its initial print run began in Paris until it fell foul of Catholic censors.

Papal authority did not outlaw translations- rather they insisted that all translations get prior approval. One such approval is the Catholic Rheims-Douai Bible (1582-1610).

In 1604, King James VI of Scotland, who had ruled England for a year, ordered a new translation at the Hampton Court Conference.

More than fifty Greek and Latin scholars worked on the translation for what became the official bible of the Church of England.

If James sought unity, he had to navigate between Puritans, Presbyterians, Nonconformists and Separatists. To broaden its appeal, he ordered that scholars made the text readable in the idiom of the day.

The first prints arrived in 1611, and published in a large black font, without pictures, for use in churches.

From 1629 onwards, editors adapted its spelling and punctuation. By 1769, most of the changes were complete, but it continues to evolve. That way, a modern text differs from the 1611 version – though most changes concerned spelling.

In 1885, scholars revised the text. It brought together various denominations. This included Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians from Britain and the United States. This revision helped align the King James Bible with American Standard Version of 1901.

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Over the summer, Pope Francis apologised for the “Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God.”

“I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” the pope said.

But his decision to canonise Father Junípero Serra, on his first visit to the United States next week, has angered many groups.

An online petition against the canonisation has gained over 10,000 signatures. Many of the counter voices are descendants of those colonised. For Ron Andrade, executive director of the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission, and of the Luiseño tribe, said Serra “decimated 90% of the Indian population”.

Serra (1713-1784), was an ordained Franciscan priest and professor of theology by the age of 24. By 1749, Serra accompanied other Franciscans dedicated to missionary work in Mexico. He also preached, heard confessions, and assisted at Mexico City’s College of San Fernando.

In 1767, Spain founded the first mission in California. Estimates put the Native American population at about 310,000; yet in under a century, that figure declined at a rapid rate, alongside cultural shifts.

Spain’s colonial policies fused political, social, economic and religious motives. One historian argued that “Missionization required a brutal lifestyle akin in several respects to the forced movement of black people from Africa to the American South”.

Others argued that the missions were not simple religious functions – but rather served to eradicate native cultures in a short amount of time.

To ensure survival, many tribes used partial integration with each other and Spanish culture. Others fled inland or lost their culture. Within a month of their arrival, the Spanish crushed a rebellion with guns, and it took a further two years for San Diego to witness its first baptism. Colonial authorities took a zero tolerance approach to resistance – either violent or non-violent. Upon entry to the boundaries of the mission, native Americans could not leave. Spain would send armed parties to capture runaways, and punish the recaptured.

In a legal sense, all baptised Native Americans were subject to the authority of the Franciscans. Disobedience brought public flogging, shackling or imprisonment. Religious conversion often took place at gunpoint.

Life expectancy in the Californian missions could last only for a decade. As one Friar noted, the Indians “live well free but as soon as we reduce them to a Christian and community life… they fatten, sicken, and die”.

During the Second World War, Physiologist Sherburne F. Cook studied the human cost of Spanish settlement: “From the available data we find from 1779 to 1833 there were 29,100 births and 62,600 deaths”. This indicated an ‘extremely rapid population decline‘.

Others found that: “After the missions were built, beginning in 1769, the Indians were forbidden to leave the mission boundaries. It is estimated that California’s Indian population was about 310,000 at the beginning of Spanish rule. At the close of the 19th century, their population shrunk to approximately 100,000, largely due to the inhumane conditions under which the Indians were forced to live while serving as slaves”.

The inhumane and cramped living arrangements helped turn flu and measels into epidemics. Spanish soldiers introduced syphilis to a population already weakened due to a change of diet. Though Cook avoided singling out Serra for criticism, as founder of the mission system, he bore responsibility.

Professor Deborah Miranda, at Washington and Lee University, and an Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Indian, does not consider Serra ‘evil’.  For Miranda, his complicity outweighs any positives, and for that, that is undeserving of reward.

Professor Steven Hackel of the University of California, Riverside, and the author of Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father took a more nuanced approach. Hackel argued that Serra used corporal punishment in the context of the period – noting that Serra remained paternalistic.

“Serra was not a monster,” said Robert M. Senkewicz, a professor of history at Santa Clara University.

Serra wore his contradictions like the scars of his mortifications – from whipping himself until he bled, and using a candle to scar his chest. He believed in total authority over the Native American tribes but also defended them in disputes with the Spanish military and government officials.

Others voice their opposition with monthly protests outside the Cathedral of Los Angeles.

The canonisation Mass, which will be in Spanish, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on September 23.

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The story of Jan Karski’s bravery in the Second World War came to life in a recent documentary in his native Poland.

Sławomir Grünberg’s ‘Karski and the Lords of Humanity‘ (Karski i władcy ludzkości), blends archival footage, animation, and interviews to retell a story of wartime heroism.

Born in the Polish city of Łódź in 1914, the youngest of eight Catholic children, Jan Romuald Kozielewski later adopted the nom de guerre of Karski. The city exposed a young Karski to multiculturalism. He found himself living alongside Germans, Jews, Russians and Poles. That exposure to Jewish life created an affinity within Karski.

Academic pursuits helped him join Poland’s diplomatic service. When interning for the foreign minister, he found himself in Nuremberg, Germany. Karski saw the Nazi propaganda rallies in 1933 and the toxicity of Nazi antisemitism. It created a deeper sympathy for their plight and a sense of foreboding.

Other diplomatic assignments brought him to London and Paris.

But the outbreak of war brought a career change as he enlisted in the army in 1939. In a few short weeks, invasions from German then Soviet troops divided Poland.

The Soviets arrested Karski and placed him in a detention camp; but a lucky escape meant he avoided execution. A fate other Polish officers did not escape.

After returning to Warsaw, he joined Poland’s Underground State as a courier. A photographic memory and language skills made Karski a valuable asset.

A courier’s job was to cross enemy lines and liaise between Polish forces and Western allies. But in 1940, while on a mission in Slovakia, the Gestapo captured Karski. Under the pain of torture, and fearing he might reveal secrets, he slashed his wrists and ended up in hospital. Karski was later smuggled out of hospital and able to resume his work.

Against that backdrop, it had taken the Nazis less than a year to enclose Warsaw’s main Jewish areas in barbed wire. The birth of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 gave way to first mass deportations of Jews to death camps in 1942.

In that same year, Karski received the most important mission of his life – to travel to England and expose the plight of Jews in Poland.

Before departing, he met with various underground factions, including the Jewish Zionist and the Jewish Socialist Bund movements. The underground leaders informed Karski that the Nazis had deported more than half of the 500,000 Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto to death camps, where roughly 1.8m had already died. Their final message to Karski was simple: “Our entire people will be destroyed“.

In August 1942, resistance groups smuggled Karski into the Warsaw Ghetto. From inside he observed emaciated Jews struggling to survive. He also posed as a guard at the Izbica transit camp, where he observed the mass transportation of Jews to death camps.

Karski received a hollow key that contained microfilm evidence of genocide in Nazi-occupied Poland. He crossed Europe on local rail networks at a great personal risk before arriving in London.

But others did not welcome Karski’s evidence of genocide. Superior Polish diplomats worried that it would undermine their own appeals for international support.

Worse still was British indifference. In 1943, he met with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. Eden had retorted “that Great Britain had already done enough by accepting 100,000 refugees”.

In London, Karski met Szmul Zygielbojm, of the Jewish Socialist Bund, and member of the Polish government in exile, to detail active resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Zygielbojm questioned Karski’s intentions because he was not Jewish. Only after explaining his role as courier for the Jews in Warsaw and their plight did Zygielbojm calm down. He interrupted Karski’s testimony by replying “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know”.

After arriving London in 1942, Zygielbojm had microfilm evidence of genocide in Nazi-occupied Poland. The information made its way to the Telegraph newspaper – who revealed the use of gas chambers as tools of genocide since 1941.

Yet, in spite of its headline “Germans murder 700,000 Jews in Poland,” the story only made page five of a six-page newspaper.

In 1943, the Allies agreed to a secret conference to discuss the plight of European Jewry in Bermuda. It lasted nine days and began on the same day as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Allies denied the Joint Distribution Committee and the World Jewish Congress entry.

A fog of indifference clouded the conference. Neither government referenced the “Final Solution”. The U.S. government sent a low-level delegation and refused to reduce strict quotas to let in more Jewish refugees. From a British perspective, there was a refusal to aid Jewish migration to Palestine.

The only success was to create a refugee centre in North Africa; but that took more than a year to establish.

Britain and the United States “ruled out the possibility of taking in Jewish refugees from Nazism” fearing that the Nazis would accept.

On 11 May 1943, as the Nazis murdered more than 10,000 Jews to crush the second Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Nazis then deported the remaining 56,000 Jews to the Treblinka death camp. The added failure of the Bermuda Conference compounded Zygielbojm’s misery. He took his own life in a final protest against Holocaust indifference.

After the war, Karski spoke about the impact of Zygielbojm’s death.

Karski arrived in the United States in the middle of 1943. He spoke with President Roosevelt (and other officials) of the Nazi’s genocide but their reaction was of disbelief. It took the U.S. government six months to establish the War Refugee Board – to assist those displaced by Axis tyranny.

After the war, Karski settled into a professorship at Georgetown University, in Washington DC (until his retirement in the 1980s). He did not speak about his wartime activities until Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 documentary, Shoah.

Yad Vashem recognised Jan Karski as Righteous Among the Nations in 1984. In 1992, he suffered the tragedy of his wife taking her own life. He married Pola Nirenska, a dancer and choreographer in 1965, the daughter of an observant Jewish father. The Nazis murdered her family.

In 1994, Karski became an honoury citizen of Israel. In his speech he stated:

“This is the proudest and the most meaningful day in my life. Through the honorary citizenship of the State of Israel, I have reached the spiritual source of my Christian faith. In a way, I also became a part of the Jewish community… And now I, Jan Karski, by birth Jan Kozielewski – a Pole, an American, a Catholic – have also become an Israeli”.

Jan Karski died on 13 July, 2000, at the age of 86.

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