“The Angel of Dachau”

https://www.simplycatholic.com/blessed-engelmar-unzeitig-a-patron-at-the-time-of-an-outbreak/

Blessed Engelmar Unzeitig

MARY HALLAN FIORITO

Americans marvel at the commitment and courage of our nation’s healthcare providers as they struggle under enormous pressures to care for the sick and dying during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the doctors, nurses and paramedics who were already actively working to care for COVID-19 victims, thousands more have come out of retirement to provide assistance to those on the front lines, choosing to put themselves directly in harm’s way to help.

While volunteers in times of medical emergency do not have an obvious patron saint, they might very well find one in Blessed Engelmar Unzeitig, known as the “Angel of Dachau.”

Blessed Engelmar Unzeitig.

Born in what is now the Czech Republic in 1911, Hubert Unzeitig joined the Marianhill Missionaries at age 18. After completing his studies in theology and philosophy, he was ordained in 1939 and given the religious name Engelmar. A month later, World War II began.

Although he desperately wanted to serve as a missionary among the poor, he was assigned as a parish priest first in Austria, then in the Bohemian Forest region of Germany. It was there Father Engelmar encountered the Hitler Youth, who eventually reported him to the Nazi regime for his homilies, in which he defended the Jewish people and criticized their increasingly dehumanizing treatment. Father Englemar was arrested by the Gestapo on April 21, 1941 and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. He was 30 years old.

Dachau was a unique place among the Third Reich’s concentration camp scheme. Established in 1933, it initially was used exclusively for enemies of the state. Beginning in 1940, Nazi leadership chose Dachau as a designated site for the consolidation of religious ministers and began a transfer of those being held from other camps to Dachau. In total, 2,720 men were incarcerated, 95% of them Catholic priests (the vast majority of them from Poland). The remaining men were Jehovah’s Witnesses and Lutheran or Evangelical Protestant pastors (most of these from Germany). Father Engelmar arrived in Dachau on June 3, 1941, was assigned inmate number 26147, placed in Barracks #26, and given a badge to wear on his camp uniform. Distinct from the yellow star denoting Jews or the black triangle designated for Gypsies and prostitutes, Father Engelmar was given a red triangle, the symbol reserved for “rescuers of Jews,” political prisoners and Catholic priests.

From the moment of his arrival at Dachau, Father Engelmar entrusted himself to God’s will and to His Divine Providence. In August 1941, he was permitted to write a letter to his sister, Regina, and assured her, “God directs everything with wonderful wisdom. Only we don’t always know immediately what everything is good for.”

Father Engelmar’s confidence in God’s care for him and his desire to help others manifested itself almost immediately; he began to learn the Russian language, so he could minister and care for Eastern European inmates, he often gave up his own food rations for those who were hungrier than he.

The treatment priests received in Dachau ranged from tolerable to torturous, depending on the day and the commandant’s mood. One historical account of the priests’ barracks notes:

“Priests at Dachau were not marked for death by being shot or gassed as a group, but over two thousand of them died there from disease, starvation, and general brutality. One year, the Nazis ‘celebrate’” Good Friday by torturing 60 priests. They tied the priests’ hands behind their backs, put chains around their wrists, and hoisted them up by the chains. The weight of the priests’ bodies twisted and pulled their joints apart. Several of the priests died, and many others were left permanently disabled.”

In late December 1944, Dachau experienced an outbreak of typhoid fever. Those who contracted typhus were isolated into separate barracks and left to die alone. Father Engelmar (faithful to the motto of the Marianhill Missionaries, “If no one else will go: I will go!”) offered to enter the typhoid barracks, along with 19 other priests from the clergy barracks. No medicines and no protection from the typhoid infection were offered to them, yet they tended to the sick and dying with tenderness, bathing, comforting and anointing them. Although he knew this mission would likely be his last, Father Englemar nevertheless maintained his faith and confidence in a good God. In January 1945, he again wrote to his sister, “We must never forget, you see, that everything which God sends or permits is meant to contribute to our good.”

Of the 20 priests who volunteered for the typhoid barracks, 18 died. Father Engelmar was among them, passing away on March 2, 1945. He was 34 years old. Six weeks later, American forces liberated Dachau.

Years later a miraculous cure from cancer, credited to Father Englemar’s intercession, was investigated in the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It involved a man who had been among the American troops that liberated Dachau.

Pope Benedict XVI declared Father Englemar venerable in 2009 and Pope Francis designated him a martyr, killed “in hatred of the faith.” Beatified in 2016, Blessed Englemar’s feast day is March 2.

Mary Hallan FioRito is the Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

Papa Montini 1968

https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/contraception-will-always-be-intrinsically-evil-a-look-at-the-development-of-doctrine

Contraception Will Always Be Intrinsically Evil: A Look at the Development of Doctrine

As we mark National NFP Week, there have been confusing ideas coming from the Pontifical Academy of Life that seem to imply that the Church’s teaching on contraception can “develop” to allow the use of artificial contraception.

Pope Paul VI leaves the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth after celebrating Mass, on January 05, 1964, during his visit to the Holy Land. (photo: EPU Files/AFP / Getty)

Susanna Spencer CommentariesJuly 25, 2022

This week, 54 years ago, on July 25, 1968, Pope St. Paul VI released the encyclical Humanae Vitae, confirming the Church’s teaching that contraception, whether through sterilization of the man or woman in any act before, during, or after the conjugal act to prevent procreation is morally evil and violates the “unitive and procreative” goods “inherent to the marriage act.” Further, he allowed for couples who have reasonable motives for avoiding having another child to exclusively use the infertile periods of the wife’s cycle, what is now commonly called natural family planning or NFP. This teaching was received in varying ways, with many laypeople and priests choosing to ignore this in favor of the world’s acceptance of birth control. Those obedient to the truth worked hard to defend it, such as philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, who explained:

“Every true Catholic must rejoice also when he is allowed to see clearly that the Church does not conform to the ‘majority opinion’ but to the Word of God, and that the Holy Father [Paul VI] must proclaim the truth even when it goes against the current of the times. […] The encyclical Humanae Vitae, in which the Holy Father teaches us clearly the true moral nature of artificial birth control, enables the individual to know exactly what God expects of him and appeals to our conscience not to offend God” (The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction).

As we mark National NFP Week, there have been confusing ideas coming from the Pontifical Academy of Life that seem to imply that the Church’s teaching on contraception can “develop” to allow the use of artificial contraception. This idea flies in the face of the most basic principles of what is legitimate development of doctrine — for never in Scripture or in the history of the Church has it been moral for married couples to interfere with the procreative end of the marital act. The very moral truths on which marriage is based necessitate that every sexual act must be done within marriage and be a consensual act of self-gift and union of the couple which is open to the procreation of a new human life. 

Continuity of Principles and Natural Law

St. John Henry Newman, in An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, lays down six guidelines with which to measure the development of doctrine. While I do not have space here to go into all of them, the Church’s teaching on the two ends of marriage and the sexual act as procreation and union and teaching against the use of artificial contraception fits with all six of his guidelines. Here, I want to show how the Church’s teaching cannot legitimately develop to say that is it moral to interfere with the procreative end of marriage because it violates what Newman calls the necessary “continuity of principles” required for development of doctrine.

The Church has always held the principle that it is wrong to interfere with the bringing about of a new human life in the sexual act. Further, the principle of the two ends of marriage, while first stated and understood by the Church in the 20th and 21st century, is rooted in natural law and the whole history of the Church’s understanding of marriage. This is why the condemnation of contraceptive acts as “intrinsically evil” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2370) is a true part of Tradition. 

First of all, this principle of the two ends of marriage can be seen in natural law, which is the law implanted in us by God that says we ought to use our natural abilities to pursue the goods for the sake of which our abilities naturally exist and ought not perform acts in which we use a natural ability but simultaneously actively prevent its natural goal from coming about. Our sexual abilities naturally exist for the sake of bringing new persons into existence and for the sake of a complete gift of self between persons. To use this ability but simultaneously prevent either of these goals from coming about, as is done when one uses contraception, violates the natural goal-directedness of this ability, and so violates the natural law, and so ought not be done. (I owe this formulation to my husband, Mark Spencer.)

Pope St. John Paul II explained in Familiaris Consortio, in 1981, that, “when couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion,” they interfere with the divine plan and “manipulate and degrade human-sexuality … by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving.” The evil is not just in contraception’s severing of procreation from the unitive end but also in the couple’s denial of the gift of fertility to each other. A couple using contraception in the conjugal act makes themselves incapable of a total self-gift and complete union. 

It further violates the gift of cooperating with God’s creative act of bringing each person’s soul into existence. Hildebrand explained two levels of sinfulness in using artificial contraception:

“We thus see that artificial birth control is sinful not only because it severs the mysterious link between the most intimate love-union and the coming into existence of a new human being, but also because in a certain way it artificially cuts off the creative intervention of God, or better still, it artificially separates an act which is ordained toward cooperation with the creative act of God from this its destiny” (The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction).”

In Scripture and Tradition

Secondly, we can see these principles in Scripture and Tradition. Scripture shows us that procreation and union are intrinsic to marriage, beginning in Genesis 1-2, when man and woman were created by God, the Author of Life, and were meant to become “one flesh” and to be “fruitful and multiply.” In the New Testament, the unitive aspect is highlighted in St. Paul’s comparison of the man to Christ and of the woman to the Church in Ephesians 5. In the liturgy, Christ and the Church come into union through the consummation of the people of the Church receiving the Body of Christ into their bodies, and this love of Christ for the Church is deep and personal. If one compares marriage to this analogy, one can see that the physical union of the husband and wife is meant to be deep and personal and a sign of their unity of hearts.

The early tradition of the Church emphasized the procreative aspect of marriage and the conjugal act. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote against the Manicheans, who saw procreation as evil and sex as something for pleasure. He explained that the “union … of male and female for the purpose of procreation” was “the natural good of marriage,” and he saw any other use of the sexual act as sinful (On Marriage and Concupiscence). In the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas explained the conjugal act in terms of nature, such as what semen is for, condemning unnatural uses of the sexual organs. He also saw how, in nature, not every conjugal act ended in procreation. This is an example of the continuity of the principle based in the need to follow the natural order God created. Also, there is a beginning of the development of thought viewing an end of the conjugal act as being more than just procreation, as Aquinas explained that it was not sinful for naturally sterile couples to have intercourse (Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.122.4-5). This view is an anticipation of the clear acknowledging by the Church of the unitive end of marriage and a couple’s recourse to using infertile periods of the women’s cycle for serious reasons to avoid conception. 

https://8a2c584a0d386007a41fd3c9e3f8f4ae.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

In 1880, Pope Leo XIII continued this development by explaining that “marriage was instituted for the propagation of the human race” and “also that the lives of husbands and wives might be made better and happier” (Arcanum, 26). Pope Pius XI developed this view further in Casti Connubii,written in 1930, describing procreation as the primary end of marriage and “mutual aid, cultivating mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence” as secondary and subordinate to this natural end. Venerable Pope Pius XII further developed the idea of two ends of marriage in his “Allocution to Midwives”in 1951, emphasizing that procreation is not the only end of marriage: 

“To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological laboratory. […] The conjugal act, in its natural structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift, which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union ‘in one flesh.’”

From there was the proclamation of Pope Paul VI’s win Humanae Vitae, which we remember and promote during this National NFP Week.

Continuing in the Truth

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II upheld the teaching in Humanae Vitae in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, explaining that in the culture of death “the original import of human sexuality is distorted and falsified, and the two meanings, unitive and procreative, inherent in the very nature of the conjugal act, are artificially separated.” He says further that, with this attitude: 

“[T]he marriage union is betrayed and its fruitfulness is subjected to the caprice of the couple. Procreation then becomes the ‘enemy’ to be avoided in sexual activity: If it is welcomed, this is only because it expresses a desire, or indeed the intention, to have a child ‘at all costs,’ and not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child represents.”

In one way, this view hearkens back to the Manichean view that sex was for pleasure and procreation is evil — except that it is not consistent, as people want to have children at their convenience. They follow “one rule,” which is what Dietrich von Hildebrand would call the desire to fulfill what is “subjectively satisfying.” One has sex when one desires without consequences. One has a child on demand, reducing the child to a commodity.

The Church must not give into the world’s push to claim that “union” in the sexual act can be morally separated from procreation through artificial means. In the 20th century, the crisis of widespread acceptance of contraception in the world caused the Church to examine the goods of marriage to the extent that it saw the need to emphasize procreation in relation to the good of the union in marriage. Contraception divides procreation, the physical fruit of union, from union; and because it violates the complete self-gift of one person to another, by limiting the physical union, it violates the union itself. In the 21st century, the Church must not lose sight of these ends. An emphasis on the unitive end that makes the procreative end optional is a false understanding on the nature of the sexual act.

The first reading from last Thursday (of the 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Year II) is a clear reminder of the importance of not straying from the truths preserved by Tradition and those given to us by God in natural law: 

Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
  be shocked, be utterly desolate,
                says the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils:
    They have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
    and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns,
    that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

Claiming that the Church can “develop” her teaching so that it is moral to use contraception would be nothing more than “hewing out broken cisterns that can hold no water.” The Church would be forsaking the fountain of living waters. Let us pray for our shepherds, that they do not forsake the truth preserved by Tradition. And let us pray for married couples, that they may see the beauty of the Church’s teaching on sexuality and marriage and always be open to the gift of life.  

• Susanna Spencer Susanna Spencer has a masters in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. She is a writer and the theological editor for Blessed is She and co-author of the children’s devotional book, Rise Up: Shining in Virtue. She is a homeschooling mother of four and lives with her family in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Newt Gingrich on socialism

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546003193/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_7N4HKWVKRB1J5RCPWPMY_1

Bestselling author and former Speaker Newt Gingrich reveals how Big Government Socialism is crippling America—and offers strategies and insights for everyday citizens to overcome its influence.
 
In communities across our country, Americans are debating Critical Race Theory, vaccine mandates, tax increases, rising inflation, online censorship, and a host of other important issues. 
 
We have serious decisions to make about the future of our nation. Do we want big government, or limited government? Do we want to work hard and keep what we earn, or do we want government to decide how our money is spent? Do we want our children to learn how to think in school, or be told what to think? Do we want to make our own decisions about health care, or should the federal government dictate our treatments? Should American companies compete on a level playing field, or should Washington decide who wins and loses? 

Speaker Gingrich analyzes these questions, describes the polling that shows what the American Majority wants, and illustrates how we can create a safer, more prosperous, and secure future for America.  
 
In Defeating Big Government Socialism, Newt Gingrich explains how Americans must confront Big Government Socialism, which has taken over the modern Democratic Party, big business, news media, entertainment, and academia. He also offers strategies and insights for everyday citizens to save America’s future and ensure it remains the greatest nation on earth.

Defeating Big Government Socialism: Saving America’s Future Hardcover – July 12, 2022

by Newt Gingrich  (Author)

More on coffee

https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/5-unexpected-ways-coffee-influences-our-behavior?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=catholic_news_are_these_the_two_women_pope_francis_will_soon_appoint_to_the_dicastery_of_bishops&utm_term=2022-07-11

Kerch Strait Bridge 🌉

NewsBreak: Ukraine Has Chance to Deal Devastating Blow to Russia: Ex-NATO Commander

https://share.newsbreak.com/1esm4rmp

Women as selectors

NewsBreak: Exclusive—Pope to give women a say in appointment of bishops. https://share.newsbreak.com/1eb1quuk

VATICAN CITY, July 6 (Reuters) – Pope Francis said he wants to give women more top-level positions in the Holy See and disclosed that for the first time he would name women to a previously all-male Vatican committee that helps him select the world’s bishops.

The role of women in the Vatican hierarchy was one of the many Church and international topics the 85-year-old pontiff discussed in an exclusive interview with Reuters in his Vatican residence on July 2. read more

A new constitution for the Holy See’s central administration that came into effect last month allows any baptised Catholic, including lay men and women, to head most Vatican departments. read more

“I am open to giving (women) an opportunity,” he said in the part of the 90-minute interview that discussed the new constitution for the central administration, known as the Curia.

He mentioned that last year, for the first time, he named a woman to the number two position in the governorship of Vatican City, making Sister Raffaella Petrini the highest-ranking woman in the world’s smallest state.

“Two women will be appointed for the first time in the committee to elect bishops in the Congregation for Bishops,” he said.

The move, which has not been officially announced, is highly significant because women will for the first time have a say in the appointment of the world’s bishops, who are all men.

“This way, things are opening up a bit,” he said.

New Constitution

Francis did not name the women or say when their appointment would be announced officially.

Members of the committee, which is now made up cardinals, bishops and priests, usually meet twice a month in Rome.

Last month, Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, joked that with the promulgation of the new constitution, he may likely be the last cleric to head that department.

Asked which other Vatican department conceivably be headed by a lay man or woman, Francis suggested that they could include the department for Catholic Education and Culture and the Apostolic Library. They are currently headed by male clerics.

Francis has already named a number women, both nuns and lay women, to Vatican departments.

Last year, he named Italian nun Sister Alessandra Smerilli to the number two position in the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues.

In addition, Francis has named Nathalie Becquart, a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, as co-undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, which prepares major meetings of world bishops held every few years.

Lay women already holding top jobs in the Vatican include Barbara Jatta, the first female director of the Vatican Museums, and Cristiane Murray, the deputy director of the Vatican Press Office. Both were appointed by Francis.

Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alex Richardson

Nicaragua expels Mother Teresa’s nuns in latest crackdown – BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-62076784

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSImage caption,

The Missionaries of Charity had been in Nicaragua since 1988

LifeSiteNews (an African penalty)

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/pope-francis-bans-priest-who-publicly-challenged-him-from-all-public-ministry/

Japanese-American history

Wisconsin school board members dismissed book about Japanese American incarceration as being ‘unbalanced,’ parents say.

https://share.newsbreak.com/1df0mkev

June 30, 2022

By Kimmy Yam

Parents are pushing back after a committee whose members sit on a Wisconsin school board did not move forward with approving a book about Japanese American incarceration during World War II for a sophomore English literature class.

Muskego-Norway School Board members said including the book would require “balance” with perspective from the U.S. government, according to two parents in the district. They also said that minutes of a heated meeting with board members about the topic were not posted and that a video of another board meeting was reportedly edited.

As of Thursday, almost 200 parents, alumni, community members and staffers of the Waukesha County district had signed a petition demanding the committee reconsider Julie Otsuka’s book — “When the Emperor Was Divine” — which was not moved forward during the early stages of the approval process June 13. 

Board members also reportedly said a book cannot be chosen for the sake of adding diversity to the curriculum, said the parents, who spoke with board members and attended the school board meeting this month. 

Ann Zielke, a parent in the district who kept a detailed log of her interactions with board members and shared them for this article, said discussions around the book began months ago, after the district’s curriculum planning committee approved the novel in April. The book was subsequently sent to a group of three board members who approve educational materials before they’re purchased by the school board known as the educational services committee. Rather than move forward with the book, the committee — which is made up of school board Vice President Terri Boyer, Treasurer Tracy Blair and member Laurie Kontney — requested more time for review, the parents said. 

Zielke said she reached out to two board members for a rationale and eventually had a conversation the next month with Boyer, who sits on the committee. She said that in the exchange, Boyer said adding the book — alongside the class’ existing inclusion of “Farewell to Manzanar,” a separate memoir about Japanese American incarceration during WWII — to the curriculum created an “unbalanced” account of history.. 

Zielke said she was told “we can’t just provide one side or the other side” before the parent pressed Boyer about the issue, demanding the board member clarify her definition of “other.” 

“What she said to me was that we actually need an ‘American’ perspective,’” said Zielke, who said she pointed out that those who were incarcerated were, in fact, Americans, before the conversation grew increasingly heated.

“She clarified and said that she felt that we needed the perspective of the American government and why Japanese internment happened. And so then again, we had raised voices at this point. I told her specifically, I said, ‘The other side is racism.’” 

Boyer said in an email that the book was not approved because of “concerns in our process, not the content of the book.” She wrote in a follow-up email that district policy states that the selection of instructional materials “shall not discriminate on the basis of any characteristics protected under State or Federal law” and that “concerns were raised about whether the policy was followed.” 

“To ensure the policy is followed, staff pulled the book from being recommended and will start the process over to ensure a fair and non-discriminatory process will be used to select a book for this class.” 

The historical novel, published in 2002, is loosely based on the lives of author Otsuka’s family. It follows the experiences of a Japanese American family from Berkeley, California, who leave their lives behind after the U.S. government forcibly imprisons them in a camp in Utah during World War II, when anyone of Japanese descent was deemed a national security threat after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

Zielke said Boyer told her she received a tip that the book was chosen on the basis that it was written by a nonwhite author. When Zielke asked whether Asian students in the district deserve to see themselves in the curriculum, she said Boyer responded, “They can go to the library and check out any books they want.” 

School board President Christopher Buckmaster also brought up concerns about balance in a separate call with Zielke, she said. Asked to clarify what kind of balance Buckmaster sought, he recommended that the students read about the Rape of Nanjing, Zielke said. In the tragedy during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese military raped at least 20,000 women and girls and killed 150,000 male “war prisoners” and 50,000 male civilians in the Chinese city of Nanjing. Buckmaster did not respond to a request for comment. 

Brett Hyde, another board member, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he sensed board members felt that the perspective presented in Otsuka’s novel too closely mirrored that of “Farewell to Manzanar” and suggested material related to the bombing of Pearl Harbor to provide “some history as to why the citizens of Japanese descent were viewed as a threat and what was the reasoning to have them put into the internment camps.” 

Another board member, Kevin Zimmerman, said in an email that he did not believe anyone on the board had concerns about balance. 

Records of the June meetings that featured discussions and arguments around the book are not available. 

Minutes of an educational services meeting, which took place June 13, have not been shared to the school board website, where the records are generally posted. When a copy was requested, Boyer replied in an email that the minutes have not been approved. A board meeting took place later the same day. 

When Zielke submitted an open records request for the video, Assistant Superintendent Jeff Petersen replied in an email, seen by NBC News, that the part of the video that was removed was “unrelated to the official business of the meeting.”

Exchanges between board members and parents over the book took place before the meeting actually started. Tensions grew, and both parents said they were not given a fair opportunity for a true discussion with the board. Zielke said that when an alumnus expressed the desire to speak before the meeting officially began, an argument ensued. The discussion is not featured in the latest version of the video, from which seven minutes was cut, Zielke said.

The district’s YouTube channel livestreams its board meetings, but Zielke, who repeatedly checked the page herself, said the recording was uploaded and then deleted June 14. The video of the meeting reappeared later that day, with the seven minutes removed, she said.

“In response to your records request, the District’s technology personnel made efforts to determine whether the deleted portion of the recording was recoverable, and they have concluded that it is not,” he wrote. “As a result, there are no records responsive to your request.”

Neither Petersen nor Boyer responded to requests for comment on the altered video. 

Zielke and another parent in the district, Allison Hapeman, said that at the June 13 committee meeting at which it decided against moving forward with the book, the members provide as a nation were constitutionally and morally wrong,” he wrote. “The story of what happened to the Japanese American community is an American story, one that balances the challenges of injustice, but also the patriotic stories of service and resistance. If anything, these are stories that need to be told more in our schools.”

Inoue said the school board’s concerns that the book choice could have been discriminatory was “ridiculous.” 

“It is the absolute definition of racism to try and exclude something because it is a minority perspective,” Inoue said.

Otsuka also expressed disappointment in the school district, saying that in the two decades since the book was published, the material has never been the source of debate in schools. She said it’s critical for schools to lift up the perspectives of marginalized communities, like Japanese Americans, whose stories have predominantly been framed through a white lens. Over the years, she said, she has heard from numerous high school readers about how her book served as their first introduction to the subject of the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

“For so long, history has been presented in a very one-sided way. It’s been written by mostly white men, and it historically has been about white men,” Otsuka said. “A revisitation of history. And just, you know, I think, from the perspective of people who might have been left out of the official account is long overdue.”

Otsuka added that reading stories from a diversity of communities is a “radical act of empathy” that can only serve to benefit all students. 

“By reading, it collapses all distance between yourself and the other. You enter into their story,” she said. “It’s how we learn to be more compassionate human beings — by reading about people who are different from us.”