PHYLLIS CARTER'S JOURNAL: REMEMBERING MY FRIEND, THE GENTLEMAN, MICHAEL STEELER

Michael Steeler was dying of AIDS when I first saw him on The Fifth Estate on CBC TV and contacted him. We exchanged letters for years and I finally went to Toronto to meet him.

Michael Steeler took on the Roman Catholic Church for its actions in the Holocaust and their treatment of homosexual people. He was a fascinating and wonderful man. I was thinking of him today.

He once said to me, when I said I felt so helpless in fighting the system, "Stand on my shoulders and you will do more than I have." It reminds me of Jesus telling the people that they would do even more than he had.

Before his AIDS diagnosis in 1990, Steeler had led a distinguished career as a banker, ship broker and publisher of trade magazines.

This is the email I set to my friend, Brian, who had graciously provided me with the tickets for the train trip to Toronto so I could meet Michael Steeler.

Hi Brian,

I don't remember if I sent this to you in June. It is thanks to you giving me that train ticket that I was able to meet Michael Steeler. We only had two or three hours together, but it was one of the highlights of my life.

When I arrived at the train station in Toronto, he was sitting on a railing watching for me. He had never seen me - not even a picture of me. I think I had told him I would be wearing a little straw hat that looked like those worn by European school children.

When he approached me, he was incredulous. He took my hand and asked me to turn around, so he could get a good look at me. Then he said he was so surprised that I looked so young.

Memory can be very vivid, but I am so glad that I always write things down in journals and notes, and save on computer disks. I do have a few photos Mike had sent me, but I don't remember if I took any on that important day. But I have all of Michael's letters, and the video of his TV appearance where I first saw him.

Phyllis

During our brief meeting in Michael's apartment, he served me a lovely lunch and showed me ancient documents of his family history, documents with red wax royal seals and ribbons, historical documents such as I would have previously only seen in a museum. And Michael gave me a beautiful book on heraldry. He signed the book "To Scrapper", a name I cherish in his memory.

CBC newsmagazine stirs controversy over Galicia Division
by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky's blessing of Ukrainian veterans of the Galicia Division at the 50th anniversary of its formation in the summer of 1993 is once again a focus of controversy in the North American media.

On March 5 and 10, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television newsmagazine "The Fifth Estate" broadcast a segment titled "Disorder in the Order," in its usual Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoon time slots.

Reporter Francine Pelletier focused on Michael Steeler, a man who recently resigned from the Sovereign Order of St. Stanislas, a Polish chivalric order that has a presence in North America, because he learned that Russian neo-fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky was accepted as a member and had been appointed deputy grand prior for the Russian Federation.

Before getting to the question of Mr. Zhirinovsky, however, the broadcast touched on matters Ukrainian. With a photograph of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church's senior hierarch filling the screen, Ms. Pelletier mentioned that Mr. Steeler, a member of the order since 1990 who had risen to the post of Canadian grand prior, became concerned that Cardinal Lubachivsky "blessed a reunion of second world war veterans, including veterans from the Nazi SS Galicia division," and wrote to the Vatican's secretary of state to express his concern.

"What was a prince of the Catholic Church doing blessing former Nazis?" Ms. Pelletier related, "That's what the grand prior of Canada, Michael Steeler, wanted to know."
In an interview setting, Mr. Steeler then said, "And I think that the blessing of the SS by Lubachivsky was to restore confidence in the Nazi SS, and that they were to be presented as knights, and therefore honorable people. It's Holocaust denial."

The "Disorder in the Order" of the segment's title allegedly became manifest when the order's grand master, Count Juliusz Sokolnicki, asked Mr. Steeler to desist in his "crusade" after initially having been "very, very much in favor of my questioning the pope about this."

Mr. Steeler's dissaffection was further exacerbated when he learned that the openly racist Mr. Zhirinovsky was made a high-ranking officer of the order. In the program, Count Sokolnicki and the U.S.-based St. Stanislas grand chancellor, Maj. Gen. Earl Morris, are seen issuing apologia for Mr. Zhirinovsky.

Count Sokolnicki calls the Russian "liberal democratic." Gen. Morris says that Mr. Zhirinovsky is "a nationalist - extremist - but I'd rather have a nationalist than a Communist."

Mr. Steeler, a Toronto-area banker, a descendant of various European aristocratic families and a member of six chivalric orders, is now dying of AIDS and, as he told the CBC, is "looking for a fight."

How it was that Mr. Steeler's interest in the "Galicia" Division and Cardinal Lubachivsky was aroused was not explained during the program.

Ms. Pelletier related that Pope John Paul II once accepted an insignia from the order, and gave the order and its companions his blessing.

Cardinal Lubachivsky's blessing of the Galicia Division, a combat group formed in July 1943 as a formation under the Waffen SS, was part of the controversy generated by the CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast, "The Ugly Face of Freedom" shown in October 1993.

In December 1986, Canadian Justice Jules Deschenes issued a report in which it was stated, "If the only allegation against a resident of Canada is that he was a member of the Galician Division, that is not an individual which we consider should be made the subject of an investigation."

THE VATICAN AND THE NAZIS, THE GALICIA SS, MUSSOLINI IN MONTREAL, AND ONE MAN WHO FOUGHT THE VATICAN TO HIS LAST BREATH, MICHAEL STEELER.

THE VATICAN BLESSED THE NAZI S.S. - SMOKE AND MIRRORS
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2010/03/vatican-blessed-nazis-smoke-and-mirrors.html

MICHAEL STEELER TOOK ON THE VATICAN
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2010/06/michael-steeler-took-on-vatican_2916.html

THE NAZIS AND THE CHURCH PHOTOGRAPHS
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2012/03/nazis-and-church-photographs_4086.html

BENITO MUSSOLINI AND THE CHURCH IN MONTREAL - WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS ?
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2012/03/benito-mussolini-and-church-in-montreal_6110.html

THE VATICAN - MAFIA CONNECTION - WASH AWAY YOUR SINS - LAUNDER MONEY - IN GOD'S NAME
http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com/2012/03/vatican-mafia-connection-wash-away-your.html