Dissertation on the First Two Millenniums
by Leonard F. Kurtenbach
FOREWORD
I was born from the children of pioneering parents that had settled in central Saskatchewan in the Dominion of Canada, before Saskatchewan became a Province. They were just a number of thousands of German families that had emigrated from the United States of America to fifty six townships of land optioned by the Roman Catholic Church of the USA. and became known as St. Peters Abbey. The only requisite to belong to this huge block of land and the church was to be a bonafide Roman Catholic, dedicated to promote the idealism and spirituality of the church.
My grandparents chose to settle on the further most North West tip of this land which was close to history. They were thirty five miles North East, from the community of Batoche and forty five miles south of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan's centre's of the famous North West Rebellion.
I was the fifth child born to Charles and Rose Kurtenbach in the year 1924. It was a cold winter week and my parents were preparing for the birth. The Doctor was very concerned that either mother or both mother and baby could die, due to all the extenuating circumstances that surrounded the pregnancy. There was a hospital four miles to the South of the homestead, but she was refused admittance because of an unpaid hospital bill. Although the hospital was built and funded by the Federal Government the operation of the hospital itself was managed by a cloister of Catholic nuns, who had full control of daily operations.
When the nurse believed the birth was about to take place, the Doctor was notified and he came immediately to help with the birth. The doctor and nurse dedicated to their vows, stayed for more than twenty hours before the birth of the child. After the birth had come to its final conclusion, the doctor slumped into the wooden rocker by the bedside, very happy and very tired, "thought to himself, I do not believe in miracles, but this has to be the closest thing to one I have ever experienced" and this he would admit to my father months later. And so without the help of the hospital I became a human being and an addition to the family. The date was January 22nd.
Having survived the birth I became a victim to the polio epidemic that was sweeping the nation in 1927 . The sickness attacked my right leg and turned the foot inward which caused me to stumble when I tried to walk. It took years of constant therapy to turn the foot to a position that allowed me to walk with great difficulty. With constant massage by my older sisters Elizabeth and Anne that was essential over the years and as I grew older the foot began to heal . I eventually grew out of that severe polio, and was able to walk with reasonably good balance. This had been accomplished by building the heel of my right shoe to bring it balance with the left heel.
During the early period of my life, I remained closer to the hardships of home and family. I saw the many tears of my mother and the deep feeling of anguish in her struggle to keep those tears from being seen by the older children and to cope with real live poverty. My father bore the strain with great inner emotion. He began to question the teachings of his church, the theory that education was not necessary, his faith and trust in God would guide him through the difficulties in life. God would always take care of his children. However he soon reasoned, had he been taught reading, writing and arithmetic it would have given him opportunity's to make some money to assist his family during this terrible depression. He could only sign his name and this was one of his greatest disadvantages, it was inhumanely cruel.
During the middle of the great depression, I was being taken to a pilgrimage eight miles North of the homestead, to the shrine of St.Theresa. It was held on the first Sunday in June of each year. This yearly visit was to have my leg blessed with holy water and prayers made to St Theresa to intervene on their behalf to God to have my paralysis cured. It was on this day in 1936 while going to the pilgrimage I saw the results of a foreclosure action taken against one of our neighbors. This action had taken place the day before. All the machinery the bank had no liens attached to was pulled from the farm yard into the highway ditch , much of this machinery was damaged in the process, with no remuneration for the damage done. The sheriff and his deputies secured locks on the doors of the house and the deputies remained at the scene to stop them from going into their home for clothes and other personal belongings. They could not enter the premises until a judge would decide just what collaterals they could remove from their home.
It was on that day while attending the pilgrimage I made a promise to God to myself, to my family and their friends, that somehow I would find the reasons, why there had to be so much hardship. My decision was not to make money, so this would never happen to me, my promise was to find the reasons why people had to go through this terrible depression. There was very little money for people to pay taxes or debts, there was no money in circulation.
That decision in June of 1936 set the course of my life, It was also the year I would be honored with receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. I had become the youngest member of our congregation ever so honored. This was due to being gifted with a photographic mind and memorizing my catechism came easy. I became a soldier of Jesus Christ at the age of twelve years. Religious fervor dominated my life and during the thirty's, forty's and fifty's of the twentieth century. My mind was completely controlled by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Had I been born in the year 1200, I most assuredly would have been one of the thousands of children that had come down from the mountains above Italy marching with little wooden crosses and singing hymns. When the good people asked them where they were going, they answered to God.
They had started out among the shepherd families of the vendome country, and others had joined them as they marched. They were going down to the sea , to find a way to the Holy Land to aid the Seigneur Christ. They were going to recover the Holy City and after that, there would be peace. The year was 1212.
During my teens I watched with horror and fear as mortgage company's were now proceeding with foreclosure actions against my parents farm. While fear was my greatest enemy it eventually turned to hate. Their actions were not successful, the cost of such actions were always added to the mortgage which increased the size of the mortgage and interest charges were paid on the accrued debt. These actions continued until 1944 at which time we concluded an agreement with the mortgage holders, sold the farm, cleared all debts, with money left over for resettlement.
During my late teens I became very involved in politics and believed I could do something to make the world a better place to live. Socialism was becoming a very popular political organization in Saskatchewan and during this period of time, had now become an effective political party, Deep concern was being. expressed by the highest ranking Catholic Bishops and they forbade their followers to support godless socialism as it was a forerunner to communism.
This became my opportunity to use politics as a vehicle for asserting my vigorous Catholicism.
Socialism, Freemasonry, Orangemen and Jews were all enemies of the Catholic Church and as a soldier of Jesus Christ it was my duty to resist the policy's and propaganda of all such organizations. Freemasons and Orangemen were the right hand, the laymen of all Protestant religions. Their one objective was to destroy the Roman Catholic Church. Karl Marx was a Jew and he had written the Communist Manifesto, so therefore it seemed plausible that the Jews and the communists were joining forces to conquer the world. Russia had become a strong communist nation and became our worst enemy. It was this theory in which I was encouraged by the clergy and the Knights of Columbus, who have always been a strong organization, promoting the spirit and ideology of the Roman Catholic Church.
Believing that Christianity had all the answers to world problems, the research I made was material written and published by Christian publishers. It was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd. 1963, the murder of Martin Luther King, of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and the murder of Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul 1st, that intensified my research on a much broader scale. For five decades I have spent thousands of hours researching and as many hours preparing the basis for my book. I have used the library, have purchased no less than one hundred books and therefore I can find no reason why any of this dissertation should be changed.
Today we find the Vatican has assembled a blue ribbon panel of scholars to examine the many misdeeds of the church including the Inquisition, and has declared its readiness to submit the church's darkest institution to the judgement of history.
This symposium is part of the Roman Catholic's count down to the year 2000. Pope John Paul wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to the past. This symposium which gathers experts from inside and outside the church is the Vatican's first critical look at the church's record of repression. Among other things, it will give scholars a chance to compare notes on what they have found in secret Vatican archives on the Inquisition, which the Holy See recently opened.
Closed to the public and press, the symposium is not expected to produce any definitive statement on the Inquisition. This is expected in 2000 as part of the grand "mea culpa" at the start of Christianity's third millennium.
The question is, will Pope John Paul II and Vatican City on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, explain the actions of twentieth century pope's who have used ecclesiastical and economic powers through out the hemisphere to bring about the catastrophic situation people around the world are facing today?. Humanity must ask: under what conditions do we leave the twentieth century to enter the twenty first?
Pope John Paul II has held office for twenty years and has been one of the main architects that created world conditions as they exist today. Refusing to recognize a world in turmoil were misery, poverty and illiteracy span the earth, there is no hope for a better 21st Century.
-Leonard F. Kurtenbach
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