Pope Francis Praises Author of Children's Book That Includes Lesbian Rabbits and Gay Penguin Parents

An Italian book that explores different types of families – including same-sex couples – has caused quite a stir after the mayor of Venice banned it from schools. Now, Pope Francis has upped the ante by writing a letter praising the author for her work, The Guardian reports.

In the book Piccolo Uovo, which means "Little Egg," Italian author Francesca Pardi writes about an egg that comes across a pair of gay penguins and lesbian rabbits raising a family, as well as a single-parent hippo, a mixed-race dog couple, and kangaroos who've adopted polar bear cubs.

Pardi's conservative critics say she's spreading a pro-homosexuality theory. The new mayor of Venice, Luidi Brugnaro, banned the book (and about 50 others) from schools in June. That decision caused 250 Italian authors to demand their own books be removed from city shelves as a "protest against an appalling gesture of censorship and ignorance," the paper reports.

Pope Francis Praises Author of Children's Book That Includes Lesbian Rabbits and Gay Penguin Parents| Religion, Gay and Lesbian, Pope Francis

In a bid for recognition, Pardi sent a package to Pope Francis with seven or eight children's books addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues from her publisher, Lo Stampatello. She included a heartfelt note explaining her predicament.

"Many parishes across the country are in this period sullying our name and telling falsehoods about our work which deeply offends us," she writes. "We have respect for Catholics ... A lot of Catholics give back the same respect, why can't we have the whole hierarchy of the church behind us?"

Much to her surprise, the Pope wrote back.

"His holiness is grateful for the thoughtful gesture and for the feelings which it evoked, hoping for an always more fruitful activity in the service of young generations and the spread of genuine human and Christian values," writes Peter B. Wells, a senior official at the Vatican secretariat of state, in the letter dated July 9.

"It's not that I think that he's for gay families, because there's the Catholic doctrine, but we mustn't think that we don’t have rights," Pardi tells the paper.

Historically, the Vatican deems homosexual relationships "intrinsically disordered" and "contrary to natural law." It preaches that gay people must live a life of chastity in order to be considered good Catholics. Pope Francis, 78, has adopted a more welcoming approach during his papacy.

Francis has previously said while the Church has a right to its opinions, it cannot "interfere spiritually" in the lives of homosexuals. The remark built on another he made in 2013 about gay priests: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"

While the Pope has a more inclusive approach than his predecessors, it's unlikely his thoughts on Pardi's work will create a significant shift in the Vatican's view of gay relationships.

The pontiff will make his first papal visit to the U.S. next month for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia – a gathering of Catholics from across the globe – but LGBT groups have not been invited to share their views. He's also set to host a mass for a million pilgrims, visit a prison, and meet with families of inmates; prisoners in the city have been working hard to hand-carve a special chair for him.

[Some Pope!]

http://www.people.com/article/pope-francis-letter-praises-gay-childrens-book-piccolo-uovo-little-egg

Issued via <forgottenbritishheroes@inbox.com> to sundry media pm on Wednesday 29th July 2015

The text of the letter from the Forgotten British Heroes Campaign
to the Israel ambassador in London, Daniel Taub.

This will be delivered to the Israel Embassy on Saturday 1st August, the day on which the Campaign will hold a wreath-laying and then a meeting at the site of a notorious Zionist terrorist bombing near to Trafalgar Square (the former British Colonies Club).

The event will commemorate various murders, bombings and other atrocities perpetrated by Zionist terrorists both in Britain and Palestine against British soldiers, Crown servants and civilians and against the indigenous Arab population of Palestine.

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Forgotten British Heroes CampaignPO Box 301, Carshalton, Surrey SM5 4QW
Tel: 07932 049019<forgottenbritishheroes@inbox.com>

Saturday 1st August 2015

His Excellency Daniel Taub,
The Israel Ambassador,
Israel Embassy,
2 Palace Green,
London W8 4QB.

Your Excellency:

Our organisation has been formed to preserve the memory of British servicemen and civilians whose sacrifices for their country have been airbrushed from history by venal Westminster politicians of all the major parties at the behest of powerful alien pressure groups and donors.

Today is close to the anniversaries of two dreadful events in Palestine: the murder of two 20-year-old British Army sergeants: Mervyn Paice and Clifford Martin on Wednesday 30th July 1947 and the bombing of the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, on Tuesday 22nd July 1946. In respect of these and other atrocities we have a number of requests to make of the government and people of Israel, and of the Israel-supporting Jewish community in Britain.

As to the murders of Sgts Paice and Martin: These young soldiers were kidnapped on 20th June 1947 by the Irgun Zwei Leumi, a Zionist terrorist group led by Menachem Begin. Begin threatened to hang them if the UN-authorised British Mandate authority in Palestine carried out the execution of three Irgun terrorists who had been lawfully tried, convicted and sentenced to death on 16th June 1947 for their part in a murderous attack on the Fortress of Acre on 4th May 1947 to assist the escape of other Irgun terrorists who were held there.

When the three Irgun terrorists were hanged according to law, Begin personally assisted with the hanging of Sgts Paice and Martin, who had been held for many days in tiny dark underground cells. Their bodies were found, suspended by the neck with piano wire, in a eucalyptus grove at Netanya. The area around them had been booby-trapped so that those tasked with cutting them down might also be murdered. A photograph of the hanging sergeants was published on the front page of the Daily Express on Friday 1st August 1947. Shortly after, the original negative of that photograph disappeared from that newspaper’s archives and now only copies of copies survive.

The British government of the time issued a warrant for the arrest of Begin for this and multiple other terrorist acts and offered a reward of £10,000 for his capture — the equivalent of circa £300,000 today — an indication of the heinous nature of his crimes. That warrant was never rescinded. An attempt to activate the warrant was made by former Palestine Police sergeant, the late James Sawyer, on Monday 5th December 1977, by means of an application to Bristol Magistrates Court — Bristol being the home town of Sgt Mervyn Paice.

This application was made on the occasion of the visit to Britain of the terrorist Begin who the people of Israel had elected to be their Prime Minister. The magistrate, Alwyn Webber Thomas, refused Mr Sawyer’s application and refused to give any reason for so doing, which was unlawful. Mr. Sawyer immediately resorted to the High Court in London to secure an Order of Mandamus to compel the magistrate to set out his reasons. His application was frustrated by a sequence of contrived procedural obstacles until Begin had departed from this country the next day.

As to the bombing of the King David Hotel: This terrorist atrocity was perpetrated by the Irgun on the orders of Begin on 22nd July 1946. Huge quantities of explosives were smuggled into the basement of the hotel, part of which was occupied by British Mandate Authority officials. The massive explosion demolished most of the building killing 100 military and civilian personnel.

Many other lethal terrorist acts were perpetrated by the Irgun and by allied Zionist terrorist groups such as the Lehi, otherwise known as the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who, like his

-2-

associate Begin, was in due course elected by the people of Israel to be their prime minister.

Here in London we are especially mindful of three such terrorist acts committed by the Stern Gang on British soil: the bombing of the British Colonial Club just off Trafalgar Square in March 1947; the attempted bombing of the Colonial Office in Whitehall in April 1947; and the letter bomb which killed Rex Farran, brother of SAS anti-terrorism specialist Captain Roy Farran DSO, MC at the Farran family home in May 1948. The parcel, was addressed simply to “R. Farran”.

We were therefore appalled by the speech by Home Secretary Theresa May during a ceremony on 22nd April this year at Finchley United Synagogue to mark the 67th anniversary of the State of Israel. Mrs May insulted the memory of British servicemen by assuring her audience: “… we remember the sacrifice of those who fought to achieve and protect that independence”.  Mrs May chose to honour the Stern Gang assassins who gunned down British Minister Lord Moyne and his driver Lance-Corporal Arthur Fuller. Your government also honoured these gunmen, who had been justly executed for their crimes but reburied with full military honours more than thirty years later. Patriotic British people dissociate themselves from Mrs May’s homage to Zionist terrorists.

In mentioning these atrocities against British personnel, we also bear in mind the vast number of genocidal war crimes against Palestinians, such as at Deir Yassin on 10th April 1948, where more than 250 people, mainly women and children, were rounded up and shot. Such exterminations were perpetrated to terrorise Palestinians to flee their homeland in order to allow cynical Zionist propagandists to claim: “Israel is a land without people for a people without land”. We note with horror that this genocide has continued until the present time, as seen in Gaza last year. In the interests of peace in the Middle East, we request that you urge your government to cease such genocidal activity and secure a just settlement with the greatly oppressed Palestinian people.

The overwhelmingly pro-Israel Jewish communities throughout the world, through bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, have co-ordinated themselves in a campaign against acts of terrorism against them conducted mainly by Muslims. But this campaign is designed to criminalise any criticism of Israel and Jewry by anybody. We assert that Jewry is not above criticism.

We therefore request you to urge on your government and on Jewish communal bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council:

1) to make a public statement of regret recognising that Zionist groups such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang were the creators of terrorist methods which were subsequently copied by extremists of all kinds throughout the world; and to make grants of financial compensation to the families of British service personnel who were murdered by Zionist terrorists in Palestine prior to May 1948;

2) to pay appropriate compensation and pensions to surviving British servicemen who in most cases fought in the Second World War (now taught to European schoolchildren as having been fought to defend Jewry) only to find themselves under attack in Palestine;

3) to erect a memorial at the King David Hotel to honour the victims of the Zionist bomb attack;

4) to establish a ‘Victims of Zionism’ museum in Israel to honour the many British and Palestinian victims of the process which created that state; and to ensure that all Israeli educational institutions make awareness of Zionist war crimes a mandatory part of the school curriculum; and,

5) for Jewish communities everywhere — including in Britain — to cease the relentless insidious campaign to load the British people with a false burden of guilt with the suggestion that they, their parents and their grandparents did not do enough to aid Jewry during the last century; and, instead, to acknowledge that Jewry owes Britain an unrepayable debt of gratitude.

Yours respectfully,

Martin Webster  ·  Richard Edmonds  ·  Lady Michèle Renouf  ·  Jeremy Turner  ·  Peter Rushton
Forgotten British Heroes Campaign