October 11, 2011: A senior Church official visiting a site of anti-Semitic genocide
in World War II said last week he prayed it would never happen again. Jesuit Archbishop
Antonio Ledesma of was among 2,000 participants from 69 countries who attended the
Second World Apostolic Congress on Mercy, October 1-5, in Poland. He said congress
participants shared testimonies on their devotion to Christ the Divine Mercy, joined
lectures, street celebrations, Masses, missions, and visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau
museum, site of a former Nazi concentration camp. Auschwitz “showed the opposite
of divine mercy, how man can be inhuman to fellow human beings,” Archbishop Ledesma
said. “I prayed that it would never happen again, acts of mass murder or genocide
not only against the Jewish people, but also Poles, gypsies, Catholic priests [who
were] included in the concentration camp,” he said. Auschwitz is also a “special
place” because it is where Polish Franciscan friar Saint Maximilian Kolbe was killed,
the prelate added. The archbishop explained, “The Divine Mercy devotion is a reminder
for us in the modern world to be mindful that God’s mercy is always there and stronger
than our sinfulness or our limitations.” He said in Poland, “we held a prayer service
for the victims. They said about three to six million people were killed in the concentration
camps.”