Pope Welcomes Back 'Holocaust Denier' Bishop Richard Williamson

Pope Benedict XVI’s rehabilitatation of a British bishop who denies that millions of Jews died in Nazi gas chambers has alarmed Catholics who fear it risks dealing a fatal blow to the inter-faith dialogue promoted by his predecessor.

Over the weekend the Pope issued a decree welcoming back into the Roman Catholic Church Richard Williamson, 68, and three other breakaway bishops excommunicated by John Paul II in 1988. The bishops had been ordained without Vatican permission by the renegade French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

The Vatican decree referred to the need to overcome the “scandal of divisiveness” and seek reconciliation and “full communion” with Lefebvre’s order, the ultra-conservative Society or Fraternity of St Pius X. It lifted the excommunication not only of Bishop Williamson, rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina, but also of Bernard Fellay, the leader of the order, Alfonso de Gallareta, and Tissier de Mallerais.

Renzo Gattegna, head of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy, said the rehabilitation of Bishop Williamson was “terrible not only for Jewish people but for the whole of humanity”. He said that Italian Jews would refuse to take part in joint prayers with Christians on Tuesday marking Holocaust Day, known in Italy as “The Day of Memory”.

Some Vatican officials are also saying privately that although the Pope’s stated aim was to unite the Church by bringing the rebels back into the fold, his move would have the opposite effect. “The Church will pay a price for this” one Vatican prelate said. “The Pope is undermining the legacy of John Paul II.”

Benedict’s actions are also reviving his old nickname when he was Cardinal Ratzinger — that of the “Panzerkardinal”, known for his hardline conservatism as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“This is not so much an act of grace as a surrender,” the veteran Vatican watcher Marco Politi said. Benedict wanted a new era of reconciliation, “but the new era has begun with a lie. The Pope has made a openly declared and unshakeable anti-Semite a legitimate Bishop”.

Lefebvre, who died in 1991, had set up “a fanatical and reactionary counter-Church which openly contested, repudiated and defamed all the crucial points of Vatican II, from respect for the Jews to modernisation of the liturgy”. There are an estimated 500 Lefebvrist bishops and 600,000 followers worldwide.

Gianni Gennari, a theologian and contributor to the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire, said it was “shameful that the lifting of the excommunications was not accompanied by any repentance whatever on the part of the Lefebvrists”.

Bishop Williamson, who has said that the Vatican is controlled by Satan and that the Jews are bent on world domination, reiterated in a broadcast last week on Swedish television that the historical evidence was “hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers”.

He added: “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers.”

Prosecutors in Regensburg in Germany, where the interview took place — and where the Pope once studied and taught — have opened an inquiry. Holocaust denial is an offence under German law.

Father Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesman, insisted the lifting of the excommunications had “absolutely nothing to do” with Williamson’s views on the Holocaust. “One is not connected to the other,” he said. Vatican Radio said Williamson’s statements had been condemned by other members of the St Pius X fraternity.

This month Elia Enrico Richetti, the chief rabbi of Venice, said Jews had been deeply offended by the reintroduction by the Pope in March of a Good Friday Latin prayer for the conversion of the Jews as part of the revived Tridentine Mass. “We are moving toward the cancellation of 50 years of Church history” the rabbi said.

Other Catholic-Jewish tensions include plans by the Pope to beatify Pius XII, the wartime pontiff accused by critics of failing to speak out in defence of Jews. The Vatican insists that Pius helped the Jews while avoiding public statements that would have made matters worse, and has demanded the removal of a plaque attacking him at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

The Pope has twice visited synagogues, in the US and his native Germany, and sought to make amends with the Islamic world after a speech at Regensburg two years ago in which he appeared to suggest that Islam was inherently violent and irrational. However, he recently declared that inter-religious dialogue “in the strict sense of the word” between Christians, Jews and Muslims was “not possible”.

 By Richard Owen / Times Online

Comments

[Mary O]

Later, the Pope issued a semi-conciliatory statement regarding the importance of a dialogue with the Jews. Let's refer to the New Testament: Pontius Pilate had a rather interesting dialogue with the Jews, who demanded the freedom of the criminal Barabbas, rather than the release of Jesus. The whole NT in fact documents the dialogue of Jesus Christ with the Jews; His words oppose Jewish attitudes and doctrines on nearly every page. Christianity was born in contradiction to the Jews, and no compromise is possible.

[Mary O]

"The Pope has twice visited synagogues, in the US and his native Germany, ..."
Pre-Vatican II Catholics were advised never to enter houses of worship of other faiths. The Pope should not enter a synagogue; since the Jews deny Christ. The Jews certainly do not accept us as their brothers and sisters in faith. They hate us, call us "goyim," and dare to interfere with the Church's internal affairs. Let's just drop them. We need to shake the "anything goes" attitude of the 1960s. Ecumenism is like multiculturalism; in affirming all faiths, we deny any central faith. And, the whole point of having a "Catholic" (meaning: universal)and "One True" Church is that there is only one true faith. Catholic ecumenism is an oxymoron.

[Mary O]

"Some Vatican officials are also saying privately that although the Pope’s stated aim was to unite the Church by bringing the rebels back into the fold, his move would have the opposite effect ..."

I disagree. Vatican II basically got rid of all Catholic traditions, everything that made the Catholic faith unique. As a child I watched these changes happen: prayers no longer needed to be memorized for God could be addressed in any words; the catechism was thrown out the window; such concepts as "mortal sin" were no longer discussed; sin itself was just a product of being "underprivileged," and we weren't to make "value judgements"; Latin was no longer taught, and Ancient Rome (and Old Europe) disappeared from the curricula; Lenten fasts or sacrifices were deemed unnecessary; beloved holy days (like All Saint's Day) disappeared in favor a hyper-commercialized Holloween which was more "fun"; suddenly we could eat meat on Friday, women could go hatless to Mass (in sweatpants); in "theology" (not religion) class, we made collages relating to the leftist social agenda. The Acquinas doctrine that a good person of any faith might be "saved" was misinterpreted and exaggerated to make the Church seem useless. The worst aspect, however, was the imposition of Leftism by the clergy and its hierarchy which alienated the primarily conservative Catholic community. We went from the One True Faith and being confirmed as "Soldiers of God" to Christianity-Lite in a span of about 10 years (1962-1972). Now we need to go back to some of our old customs and most importantly our history, and get in touch with our true Catholic identity. BTW: We don't need any dialog with the Jews at all.

[Peter Schaenk]

The Pope recently declared that; "...inter-religious dialogue in the strict sense of the word between Christians, Jews and Muslims was not possible”.

Thanks for your comments.