The Rev. James M. Gillis, editor of The Catholic World, has expressed the hope that “in those countries now writhing under the heel of dictators, there were another family of Maccabees to fling their challenge into the face of the mad rulers who demand that all peoples shall bow the head, bend the knee, prostrate themselves and offer incense to the State as God.”
“Christians, and especially Catholics, are inheritors of the fundamental religious principles of the Jews,” declared Father Gillis in a NBC broadcast under the auspices of the National Council of Catholic Men on Dec. 3, adding that the Old Testament heroes “are our own.”
He expressed the hope that the Maccabees’ “example of ancient heroism will stir some modern hero to arise and to fling into the teeth of the mad leaders of our own day that stirring challenge: ‘Although all nations obey (the tyrant and worship him) I and my sons and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers.’…
“With Matathias we lift up our voice and cry aloud, ‘Although all nations obey King Antiochus — or any other pseudo-god — we will obey the law of our fathers.'”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
