“Fr. Whelan, a Catholic priest from Savannah came in and spoke words of cheer to the condemned and prayed for the forgiveness of their crimes. This lone priest was the only minister of the Gospel that ever came into the prison to speak a kind word or set aright our misguided souls. He made regular visits to the prison, consoled the dying and anointed the dead of his faith. Too much praise cannot be accorded this reverend gentleman for trying to turn sinners to Christ; but in the Last Day, Heaven will cry out for vengeance on ministers of other denominations for their indifference toward their kindred confined in prison.”

Charles Fosdick, Company K, 5th Iowa Volunteers

Hattip to commenter Jim Schmidt.  Faithful readers of this blog will recall my post Priest of Andersonville in which I related the story of Father Peter Whelan, a Roman Catholic priest and Confederate Army chaplain who, on his own initiative, ministered to the tens of thousands of Union prisoners of war at the infamous Andersonville prison in 1864.

(Source)

A retired U.S. general on Thursday said Dutch U.N. troops defending Srebrenica in the Bosnian war failed to prevent the 1995 genocide partly because their ranks included openly gay soldiers.

John Sheehan, a former NATO commander and senior Marine officer, made the remarks at a Senate hearing where he argued against plans by President Obama to end a ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military.

Sheehan said that after the end of the Cold War, European militaries changed and concluded “there was no longer a need for an active combat capability.”

He said this “socialization” process “included open homosexuality” and led to “a focus on peacekeeping operations because they did not believe the Germans were going to attack again or the Soviets were coming back.”

“The case in point that I’m referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs,” he said, referring to the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed to protect Bosnian Muslim civilians.

“The battalion was understrength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone polls, marched the Muslims off and executed them.”

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, pressed him to clarify his comments.

“Did the Dutch leaders tell you it (the fall of Srebrenica) was because there were gay soldiers there?” asked an incredulous Levin.

“Yes,” Sheehan said and added: “They included that as part of the problem.”…(Source)

My goodness…are you allowed to say such things anymore? Only in America…for now.