Newsflash Archives > The Top Ten People of 2006: #7 & #8

~ This profile is an abridged version of a complete article. Read the unabridged version here. ~

Every January Inside the Vatican names top ten "People of the Year." This Newsflash features 2006's number 7 and 8. We will be updating you each day with two new profiles from our "Top 10" for 2006.

Top Ten People of 2006: #7 & #8

YEHUDA LEVIN #7

BY INSIDE THE VATICAN STAFF

In the world of ecumenical relations, few can match the courage and achievements of the Jewish Rabbi Yehuda Levin. For more than a quarter of a century, this energetic religious leader has fought for pro-life and pro-life family values across the globe, uniting peoples of many faiths, emerging as a hero in the ongoing "culture wars."

Photo: Pro-life Rabbi Yehuda Levin with Pope John Paul II

Now just over 52, hailing from Brooklyn, New York, the father of nine children -- and grandfather of two -- Rabbi Levin is one of the best-known and most respected Orthodox Jewish leaders in America.

For many years, he has been a special representative of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the US and Canada, and the Rabbinical Alliance of America, with a joint membership of 1,000 rabbis, representing the philosophy of more than 2 million Orthodox and traditional Jews worldwide. He speaks on religion and morality from a Jewish Torah perspective and is the chief spokesman for Jews for Morality. He has become a fixture at the annual address to the March for Life Rally in Washington, D.C. (organized by pro-life Catholic stalwart Nellie Gray) held every January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

The lay Catholic leaders he has worked with include Judie Brown of the American Life League and Dr. William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. But perhaps his most fruitful collaborations have been with leaders of the Christian clergy, including the late John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, Vatican officials, and the Pope himself. Rabbi Levin’s active support for Catholic causes and values is enough to make Catholics themselves blush. Consider:

--In the 1980s, after the late John Cardinal O’Connor, then the bishop of Scranton, was appointed the archbishop of New York, he was greeted by a chorus of criticism from the secular media for drawing a parallel between abortion and the Holocaust. Rabbi Levin immediately rose to the cardinal’s defense and said the comparison, intended to highlight the sacredness of innocent human life, was both powerful and apt. During the 1990’s, having become a close personal friend of the cardinal, Rabbi Levin was invited to the archbishop’s New York residence during a papal visit to meet with Pope John Paul II, where he informed the pontiff of Jewish pro-life and pro-family activism.

--When Father Paul Marx of Human Life International drew attention to the involvement of certain Jewish individuals and organizations in abortion -- as he had to Catholic, Protestant and secular support for this radical evil -- he was accused, outrageously, of anti-Semitism. Rabbi Levin, who himself has often criticized secular Jews for condoning abortion, condemned these attacks with vigor and declared that Fr. Marx was a strong friend and ally of the Jewish community, standing shoulder to shoulder with him in his defense of innocent life within the womb.

--In 2000, when an aggressive campaign was launched by secularists to expel, or at least downgrade, the Holy See’s observer status at the United Nations, Rabbi Levin participated in a major press conference at the UN (covered by ITV that same year) in support of the Church’s presence, saying it was indispensable to the organization’s moral and political health. His view prevailed, and the efforts to downgrade the Church’s UN status failed.

--During the last few years, Rabbi Levin has led efforts to counter the homosexual agenda in the Holy Land, outspokenly opposing an annual "Gay Parade" march through the streets of Jerusalem. In May of 2006, Rabbi Levin wrote a special letter to Pope Benedict XVI, imploring him and the Church for help: "We plead for the Most Esteemed Pontiff to strongly condemn the intended upcoming sacrilege... If we have any chance of preventing this blasphemy, it is only if the leaders and practitioners of the other faiths speak loudly, unequivocally and often." As a result of this dramatic appeal, transmitted through diplomatic circles, the Holy See, in a highly unusual act, sent a telegram to the Israeli officials urging them to cancel the scheduled gay parade through the streets of Jerusalem. This international pressure, initiated by Rabbi Levin, worked: the parade, originally scheduled for August, was delayed and then eventually cancelled, and the advocates of the "gay" ideology were required to confine their event to a small, isolated stadium in November, surrounded by the police, away from the main streets of Jerusalem, where families with children would have been forced to watch.

At a time when so many political and even religious leaders refuse to call sin a sin, and when many use timid language, Rabbi Levin is not afraid to call moral evil by its proper name.

At the pro-family events he attends, he speaks the language of an Old Testament prophet, calling wayward children back to God. Abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, pornography -- you name the moral evil, and Rabbi Levin is sure to have unequivocally condemned it.

Having achieved so much in his life, Rabbi Levin has not slowed down, but actually redoubled his efforts. "So much has been accomplished, and yet so much remains to be done," he says. "Jews, Christians and all good people of faith are under attack, and yet many don’t even recognize it, and if they do, they make needless concessions in order to get along. I don’t believe in cowering before the secular establishment, but standing up for my moral beliefs and asking people who share them to join me."

OTTO VON HABSBURG #8

BY CATHY PEARSON

The past and future of Europe have hovered as a haunting subtext beneath all the headlines of 2006. Europe the cradle of Christendom, where Christianity has become politically incorrect. Europe that stopped Islamic invasions at Tours and Lepanto and Vienna, but where now in some of its countries "Mohammed" is the single most popular name registered for newborn boys. Europe the 21st century’s amnesiac lost child, bent on demographic suicide yet still hearkening to its unique destiny as the heart of Christian civilization.

Photo: Otto von Habsburg meets Pope Benedict XVI

If the "problem of Europe" weighs heavily on the heart of this Bavarian Pope, no one man better personifies a truly Catholic response to it than does Dr. Otto von Habsburg, whose decades of public service in the political arena exemplify the best in Europe’s Christian past and its hopes for a peaceful, united and still-Christian future.

Heir to a 700-year-old imperial dynasty, the present-day head of the House of Habsburg has taken up the same mantle of responsibility worn by the Austrian emperors and the Holy Roman Emperors before them, without benefit of any of the office’s perks or powers.

The man who would become the visionary architect of the new united Europe began life as the son and heir of the last emperor-king of the Austro-Hungarian empire -- the recently beatified Karl of the House of Austria -- who had inherited the thrones of the dual monarchy as World War I raged. Crown-prince Otto as a 4-year-old cut a memorable figure in plumed hat and court attire when Emperor Karl was crowned as King of Hungary -- the last formal coronation and anointing of a Catholic monarch, of which Hungary has just celebrated the 90th anniversary on December 30 (coverage in our upcoming February issue).

But Dr. von Habsburg’s achievements are not the gift of privilege but the hard-won fruit of struggle and perseverance against the direst circumstances. Barely two years after the coronation, the tragedy of World War I -- which Emperor Karl struggled desperately but unsuccessfully to stop -- brought on the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the fall of its monarchy. Stripped of all power, robbed of public honor by a malicious campaign of lies, and with even their private possessions confiscated, the imperial family had to look on, penniless and powerless, from their forced exile in Switzerland, as revolutions, anarchy and economic collapse ravaged their formerly thriving lands. Attempting twice to regain the Hungarian throne -- urged on by Hungarians and by Pope Benedict XV but betrayed by treachery -- Emperor Karl and Empress Zita were captured and sent to a more distant exile on the island of Madeira. Otto was not yet 10 years old when his father died in exile, leaving Empress Zita with seven children and another on the way. Forbidden to return to their homeland, lacking any means of support, the family first took refuge in Spain and later moved to Belgium, depending on the kindness of others.

At the age of 12, Otto took a job on a Spanish fishing boat, and the empress and other children, always looking for ways to make ends meet, yet focused on the goal of getting Otto the education he would need as a future public servant. Repaying their sacrifices, Otto excelled as a student, went on to college in Germany and earned a Ph.D. in political and social studies with highest honors from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Like his father who spoke all the languages of the empire, Otto would become fluent in at least five languages. Equipped by his formal education and the priceless legacy of his early homeschooling in the arts of government, Archduke Otto would indeed embark on a career of public service to the nations of the former empire, and the broader Europe of which they were a part, that spanned over seven decades.

An early pioneer in the Pan-Europa movement which he would one day head, he did as much as any man alive to lay the groundwork for the European Union. When vision became reality, he served for two decades (1979-1999) in the European Parliament (as an elected member from Bavaria, where he had settled with his wife, Regina von Sachsen-Meiningen, in the 1950’s).

Still going strong at 94, equally at home in the halls of academia and government, Dr. von Habsburg is an author of books (including a history of his ancestor Emperor Charles V) and countless learned papers, a sought-after speaker, a man of prodigious work habits and seemingly inexhaustible energy (his office door warns, "If you have nothing to do, please don’t do it here").

In numerous ways the long and distinguished career of this globally-recognized Catholic layman could have made him a potential Person of the Year in more years than Inside the Vatican has been published. But it is for one unique contribution that we now honor Dr. Otto von Habsburg: the ideal of selfless political leadership.

While still in office and then in exile, Emperor Karl personally taught Otto as his successor that the office of a ruler is one of holy service and selfless sacrifice for the good of the peoples entrusted to him. The crown and its responsibilities had been given by God and could not honorably be laid down.

Otto shows how that ideal is as relevant to a democratic age as it was in the days of monarchy. Europe has done very well for itself by following Otto von Habsburg’s vision of a continent of free peoples united in their diversity. One might dare hope that they might follow his lead one step further, and find their highest common purpose in bringing their private and public lives under the gentle scepter of the crucified King. And one might dare pray that their leaders, conforming themselves to that King who came not to be served but to serve, might -- after the example of both Otto and his sainted father -- find their highest calling in selflessly serving their people as truly Christian statesmen.

~ This profile is an abridged version of a complete article. Read the unabridged version here. ~

Top Ten People: #9 & #10

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