In what has been described as an unusally personal statement, the Pope has apologized for the Vatican's handling of the Williamson matter.
And for those who need a reminder of both the lies Williamson has spread and of the fact of just how much information about him was available, see all these collections of videos.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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Dr. Lipstadt,
The full text in a rough translation is available:
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/03/papal-letter-about-lifting-of-sspx.html
Two quotes from the text seem pertinent to the debates carried out here.
1.) "That the Fraternity of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical position in the Church is not based ultimately on disciplinary grounds but on doctrinal ones. As long as the Fraternity does not possess a canonical position in the Church, its officials do not exercise legitimate offices in the Church. One has therefore to distinguish between disciplinary level affecting the persons as persons, and the level of doctrine, at which office and institution are concerned. To say it once again: As long as the doctrinal issues are not resolved, the Fraternity has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers, even if they are free from ecclesiastical censure, do not exercise in a legitimate way any ministry in the Church."
In other words they are not now nor were they ever "re-instated".
2.)"Even more therefore I thank the Jewish friends who have helped to quickly clear away the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust, which - as in the time of Pope John Paul II - also during the entire time of my pontificate had existed and God be praised continues to exist."
In other words, "I'm Pope but my best friends in this mess have been Jews, not my fellow Bishops."
"...those who need a reminder of both the lies Williamson has spread and of the fact of just how much information about him was available..."
Some need a reminder of the fact that anti-Jewish hatred has always been, from its very inception, a main ingredient of Christian doctrine. Therefore it's perfectly acceptable to be a Christian and at the same time an anti-Semite. The existence of Williamson and his anti-Jewish sentiment and "beliefs", an existence many in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church were cognizant of, did not really cause a stir until recently, for whatever reason, but mostly because it refects bad on a Pope which was at one time an Hitler Youth (another segment of history that really didn't ruffle any feathers in the Catholic Church pecking order or the laity).
This Church, with its repugnant god-business, is so capsulized by sophisms and morbid sainthoods as to nurture stupidities and asinine, shameless obsequiousness as have been exampled by certain submissions to this blog. And these submissions are nothing more than justifications of this same shameless obsequiousness and its propagation; submissions that will not in any measure assist in the eradication of anti-Jewish hatred but only cloak that hatred with religious sounding, and therefore repugnant, apology.
These submissions have nothing to do with confronting anti-Jewish hatred and everything to do with cloaking the malevolency of evident New Testament anti-Jewish hatred with "ecumenical" (a term which within the context of Pauline doctrine is obvious mendacity) scoria, even to the absurd extent of blaming the very Catholics who foment anti-Jewish hatred yet justifying their existence within the Catholic Church from which they emerge.
Please, can we be done with all this provocative and apologetic subterfuge?
"If one wants an intellectual life one must lift up one's eyes and see the covenant, worth more than the cow pens of Lot's vision." -Avi Erlich, from Ancient Zionism
No ones ever claimed that 6 million Jews were gassed, the correct number is in the region of 2.5 million people, being Jews and non-Jews who were gassed in the camps [how I hate the word 'gassed', it seems to suggest that the unfortuanates concerned were given an general anesthetic] Another one million Jews and non-Jews were shot, and there bodies hidden from public view by being thrown into mass graves, a further 500 000 detainees succumbed in various ways with gross starvation being the underlying cause of death, and about one million simply dissapeared presumed dead, killed, liquidated [read murdered] or displaced. The total Jewish death toll was in the region of 5 million dead, some claim 4.5 million, whilst others claim 6 million died. Williamson, an Catholic Priest disputes these figures. A priests office holds certain responsibilities with regards to 'discovering the truth, spreading the truth and educating sinners, fools and the gullible, nor must he openly consort with racists and hatemongers'. The furore is over the fact that he spoke nonsense with a certain amount of conviction and failed to 'ask advice from those better informed [than himself] of what went on during WW2 in Europe. It was always open to him to send a routine [students enquiry] on the Holocaust death toll figures to the Yad Vashem Museum in Israel, to any Rabbi or Synagogue, or to the Vatican itself, or Wilkpedia. All these sources would have provided authoritive answers. At all material times as an acting Priest of the Catholic church, it was his duty to check his facts'. He claims no one was gassed and immediately exposes himself as an Fool. People of his ilk should not hold public office, so he was dismissed. For whats it's worth the 'Vatican Press office' will confirm for him that thousands of Italian Jews were deported, gassed and murdered during the Holocaust.
Actually it was noted last year year in The Catholic Herald, a British newspaper, that Bishop Williamson had publically endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claimed that world Jewery was engaged in an enterprise "to prepare the Anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem".
The article can be found here.
The man was on record as an anti-Semite before his views on the Shoah became known as well.
And still more fallout from the Williamson affair: Israeli T.V. protests Williamson's denial with comic skit depicting Jesus as too fat too walk on water. The Blessed Virgin is depicted as a teen knocked up by school chum.
http://mpelembe.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2009/2/23/4102133.html
Mike Mann:
Not all antisemites are Holocaust deniers.
BUT-
All Holocaust Deniers - every single one of them - is an antisemite.
But you knew that.
A good book you should read, Mr. Mann, is History On Trial, the story of Prof. Lipstadt's battle with Holocaust-denier David Irving. As for Bishop Williamson being anti-Semitic, and regarding the knee-jerk reactions of people like me, I can verify for your benefit that all Holocaust deniers I've come up against have, without exception, been anti-Jewish biggots and pseudo-historians. The numbers speak for themselves. If you want to believe otherwise, go right ahead. Personally, I think such assumptions are grossly imprudent.
Prof. Lipstadt, I apologize for the grammatical mistakes in my last post. My father passed away this past friday and so, consequently, I was rather distracted. He was an Irish-Canadian, pro-Israel, impious red-neck. He and my mother were fortunate enough to have had Jewish friends when they lived in Toronto long ago. Their lives were changed for the better because of those friendships. I can proudly say that an Israeli Jew stayed an entire weekend at my father's farm back in the 80s. (My youngest son is named after this Israeli Jew.) I know this has very little to do with this blog, but what the hell: if we can discuss the politics of Catholic bishopry dating back to the days of Ambrose and Bernard, then we can mention an old Irish-Canadian who taught me the finer points of defending the Jewish people and the Israel that has become their sovereign homeland once again, no matter whether it offended the rest of the world or not.
Happy Shabbos from your fire-breathing, Irish-Canadian friend, Prof. Lipstadt.
Sincerely, Hockey Hound
ROME, February 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The dissident, leftist movement in the Catholic Church over the last forty years has severely undermined the teaching of the Catholic Church on the moral teachings on life and family, a prominent US Orthodox rabbi told LifeSiteNews.com. Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the head of a group of 800 Orthodox rabbis in the US and Canada, also dismissed the accusations that the Holy See had not sufficiently distanced itself from the comments made by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) on the Holocaust.
"I support this move" to reconcile the traditionalist faction in the Church, he said, "because I understand the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem. There is a strong left wing of the Church that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith."
Rabbi Levin said that he understands "perfectly" why the reconciliation is vital to the fight against abortion and the homosexualist movement.
"I understand that it is very important to fill the pews of the Catholic Church not with cultural Catholics and left-wingers who are helping to destroy the Catholic Church and corrupt the values of the Catholic Church." This corruption, he said, "has a trickle-down effect to every single religious community in the world."
"What’s the Pope doing? He’s trying to bring the traditionalists back in because they have a lot of very important things to contribute the commonweal of Catholicism.
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