This is idiocy. The Pope has crossed a line here, and my respect for him has been downgraded.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict Saturday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust, despite warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm Catholic-Jewish relations and foment anti-Semitism.
The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops who were thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission.
One of the four bishops, the British-born Richard Williamson, has made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.
In comments to Swedish television broadcast Wednesday, he said "I believe there were no gas chambers" and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of six million.
Before the excommunication was lifted, leaders in the Jewish community, including groups of Holocaust survivors, said such a move would be a dangerous blow to half a century of interfaith dialogue.
Rome's chief rabbi said Williamson's rehabilitation would open "a deep wound."
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, called him "a despicable liar whose only goal is to revive the centuries-old hate against Jews."
I have two comments:
1) A Holocaust denier ought not be considered to be rehabilitated, unless he has gone through some sort of profound shift in worldview involving both his intellectual and empathic capacities. If he has not had such a paradigm shift in worldview, then we ought not trust him when he says he is rehabilitated. What makes the Pope think this man has had such a shift in thinking?
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Williamson's views were absolutely indefensible. But he denied that rehabilitating Williamson implied that the Vatican shared them.
"They are his personal ideas ... that we certainly don't share but they have nothing to do with the issue of the excommunication and the removal of the excommunication," Lombardi told AP Television News.
Williamson's comments cast a cloud over the pope's efforts to normalize
relations with the Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X, which Lefebvre founded in 1969. Lefebvre was opposed to the liberalizing reforms of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, particularly its ecumenical outreach and its decision to allow Mass to be celebrated in local languages instead of Latin.
Despite concerns from liberal Catholics, Benedict has made clear from the
start of his pontificate that he wanted to reintegrate the group back into the Vatican's fold, meeting within months of his election with the current head of the society, Bishop Bernard Fellay.
In 2007, Benedict answered one of Fellay's key demands by relaxing
restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass. In lifting the excommunication decree, he answered the society's second condition for beginning theological discussions about normalizing relations.
The decree from the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops said Benedict remits the automatic excommunication that the four bishops incurred and said the 1988 decree declaring their consecrations a schismatic act had no legal standing any longer.
In a statement Saturday, Fellay, who is one of the rehabilitated bishops,
expressed his gratitude to Benedict and said the decree would help the whole Roman Catholic Church.
"Thanks to this gesture, Catholics attached to tradition throughout the world will no longer be unjustly stigmatized and condemned for having kept the faith of their fathers," Fellay said in a letter to his supporters.
Fellay, meanwhile, has distanced the society from Williamson's remarks about the Holocaust, saying Williamson only had authority to discuss matters of faith and that he was personally responsible for his own opinions.
But Fellay also berated Swedish state television, accusing it in a Jan.
letter of having introduced the Holocaust issue in the interview with the
obvious intention of misrepresenting and maligning, the society.
While Williamson's comments may be offensive and erroneous, they are not an excommunicable offense, said Monsignor Robert Wister, professor of church history at Immaculate Conception School of Theology at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
"To deny the Holocaust is not a heresy even though it is a lie," he said. The excommunication can be lifted because he is not a heretic, but he remains a liar.
41 comments:
I'm furious.
"You would think Joseph Ratzinger, with his life history, would be at the fore to recognize exactly what is happening for what it is. Forced to join the Hitler Youth at 14, he refused to attend meetings. His father was an enemy of the Nazism who believed it was in direct conflict to his Catholic faith. Taken together, you would hope Pope Benedict would be more vocal, more condemning of what he sees happening in Europe and throughout the world as the protests against Israel grow ever more numerous, loud and violent. When he sees the very same thing happening to the same people, now in the name of Islam instead of Nazism. He knew firsthand the horrors of the Nazis. Of anti-Semitism."
"Benedict should use this, find a way to exhort Catholics worldwide, get them to take the lead in understanding not only the physical danger but the spiritual danger now presented by Islam and anti-Semitism. Exhort them to openly condemn Hamas, Hezbollah as well as the smashing of Synagogue windows, burning of cars in Paris, boycotting Jewish businesses in Rome, attacks on Jews in London or Brussels. Exhort them to preach to their Christian brothers – Catholic or otherwise – to see the evil we now face and do something, say something, anything, in condemnation of it."
quoth I several weeks ago.
I am beyond furious. Apoplectic.
WTH?!!?
I can't believe my eyes!
The world has gone upside down.
And this particular Pope, of all people!
One has to wonder just how hard this man truly rebelled against the Hitler Youth.
I don't get this. I just do not understand it.
Why drag Dewinter into this? When has he ever said or done anything against the Jews?
Jeppo,
Do you read this blog all the time, and yet only comment when I bring up the VB?
I didn't drag DeWinter into this. I'm making a point about how a racist can not simply become a non-racist just like that.
No one among us believes this Holocaust Denier sudddenly is ok with Jews, right?
When you say Holocaust denier, you're talking about Williamson, not Dewinter, right?
Sure I comment on other matters, like Islamo-penis-falling-off chemicals in the water supply, for instance.
:)
Jeppo,
To my knowledge, DeWinter is not a Holocaust denier. He just hangs out with them.
;-)
The Pope and he are on equal terms in that sense. The Pope has proven himself to be a real jerk.
Anyway, glad you read and comment. I guess the reason I asked that is cuz you know well that to me this is a minor issue. I just don't like being lied to and told what to think, whether it's by the Pope or by Pamela/Baron/Brim/Spencer, or Charles.
And, I hope I don't sound rude. All I'm trying to say is the reason I don't let the issue go is because they don't.
Of course, Charles and I are on the same side on this one, but there are other things I don't agree with him on, like, for instance, his Scientism.
He would probably deny that he's a scientist, and it may well be true that he isn't. However, one time he and his Kilgore assaulted me in the comments section and demanded to know why I said a particular thing about Nietzsche and I spent four hours the next day looking up quotes from my collection of Nietzsche books (because I couldn't find the quotes by searching online. The next day, I sent them off to both Charles and Kilgore and I rec'd NO response.
I thought that was insulting.
Here's my take on that subject, for the record (since I'm discussing it and it might get back to those two):
I believe in Evolution.
However, as a Christian, I believe the Universe is Created by God, and continues to be Created by God. That is not to say that I believe that everything that happens is God's Will. However, I do believe He has a hand in everything. This can not be proven, nor can it be disproved. It's a matter of faith.
Scientific theories have philosophical implications. A very dangerous thing happens when scientists meander (blindly sometimes) into the Philosophical world, turning their Descriptive Theories into Moral Prescriptions.
Hey, this is just what goes on.
This, what the pope did IS the way it is.
Same as Council of Nicaea
Haman
Bayreuth Festival and Passions
Crusades as they passed
And so on...
One continuum, and now the pope has STUPIDLY and to his dishonor personally and the church's rejoined the worldwide parade which has grown RABID since the IDF was compelled to act.
There
is
no
excuse
But it's just the same old thing.
Deju vu all over again.
If anyone expects thing to change, you are delusional
From the day the Assyrians exiled them, enhanced by the Roman expulsion and diaspora .. this minority tribe has been the world's dog to kick.
If aliens have observed this stuff, we are doomed.
The issue of whether one is in communion with the Church or not should not be determined by politics or the sinful nature of the communicant.
All of us are sinners, so that is no criterion.
I'm not familiar with this individual or his case, but a person is in or out of communion only based on whether they are in accord with the teachings of the Church.
In other words, being in communion does not confer "respectability" or forgiveness, or indicate social acceptance. It's simply confirming that the communicant is not teaching anything contrary to Christian belief.
A person is or should be out of communion if, for example, he or she is teaching that Jesus is not Christ, Jesus is not God, Jesus was never truly human, Jesus was not resurrected, Jesus did not establish the Church, the Church is not guided by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was never crucified, not all humans have souls, the soul is not eternal, God is not in Trinity, not everyone can be saved, the Church has no sacramental power, etc. etc.
If a person denied that Hitler ever even existed, or said that Genghis Khan was a good ruler, or defended the Russian revolution, or championed Napoleon -- none of things alone would have any bearing on the question of excommunication. (They would matter if the person making these arguments invoked some point or philosophy that contradicted Biblical teachings or the nature of the Church.
[BTW, a Jew who denied the Holocaust would still be a Jew]
Brian,
As I said, it would be one thing for the Pope to reinstate the man as a member of the Church. But, to reinstate the man as a Priest or as a Bishop would be beyond the pale, in my opinion.
Of course, we still don't know which is the case, because, as per usual, we can not trust the mainstream media to tell us the truth.
Regarding your question, "A Holocaust denier ought not be considered to be rehabilitated, unless he has gone through some sort of profound shift in worldview involving both his intellectual and empathic capacities. If he has not had such a paradigm shift in worldview, then we ought not trust him when he says he is rehabilitated. What makes the Pope think this man has had such a shift in thinking?"
Accepting him again as a communicant in no way indicates approval of his actions or non-theological beliefs. It is not an act of rehabilitation. He was not ex-communicated for his non-theological beliefs. He was ex-communicated for the "unauthorized consecration by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, deemed by the Holy See to be "unlawful" and "a schismatic act"."
As I said, I don't know the details of this case, but the fact that he has been accepted again as a communicant would indicate that he must have repented of his earlier action and stated that in fact the Church is correct and that he was formerly a schismatic.
BTW, I'm not a Roman Catholic.
Re: "does this mean he is once again a Priest, a Bishop? Or, is he simply an ordinary member of the Catholic Church?"
With respect, I think your question indicates a lack of understanding of The Church. There are no "ordinary members". Being in communion means that the communicant has accepted the Churches teachings (especially regarding the nature of the mass itself). Whether he's still a priest, or again a priest, or bishop is not indicated, but I doubt he would be without first being repentant and proving that he understood and agreed with the Church's teachings.
His bizarre [perhaps he's insane?] and offensive opinions about the Holocaust, and his behaviour, would have a direct bearing on his status as a priest or bishop, since then he would be expected to uphold a higher standard of behaviour and education than if he was a non-cleric or non-anchorite.
Re: "we can not trust the mainstream media to tell us the truth."
You're right there. That's why I'm with-holding judgment regarding the correctness of his being re-instated as a communicant.
The very first sentence of the article is nonsense. "Pope Benedict Saturday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop" By "traditionalist" they mean he expects men not to wear shorts to Church, etc. Obviously if he was a traditionalist, theologically, then he'd never have been excommunicated in the first place!
Brian,
YOu said: ...since then he would be expected to uphold a higher standard of behaviour and education than if he was a non-cleric or non-anchorite.
I say: that's what i meant when I said it would matter whether he was a Priest/Bishop, or ordinary member of the Church. I meant to say that as a Priest of Bishop he ought to be held to stricter account.
Thanks. I agree.
By the way, I've read the big 1000 page Catechism of the Catholic Church. I think when you say that a person ought to adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church in order to be a communicant, you mean that he ought to hold to the Apostle's Creed. No one agrees with the entire Catechism, except perhaps through faith.
:)
Brian,
By traditionalist, they probably mean a Bishop who does not adhere to the teachings of the Vatican II.
If you live in the U.S. you would be aware of these types of Catholics as they made an appearence around the time Mel Gibson released The Passion. His father and he go to such a Catholic Church. They are not considered to be part of the Catholic Church as a whole.
Pastorius,
As I said, I'm not an RC anyway, so I'm not interested in defending the Church theologically or dogmatically.
I just tried to point out that being in communion is not like being a member of a country club. It doesn't necessarily indicate moral "acceptance" or "rehabilitation".
I think this article is much better and more informative than the AP one:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0123/1232474675771.html
Without agreeing in any way with Williamson's politics, I have to say I can appreciate these concerns:
"Archbishop Lefebvre’s opposition to change concerned much more than fundamental liturgical questions, however. Essentially, he argued that Pope John Paul II had made too many concessions to Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others in his pursuit of improved ecumenical and inter-religious relations.
"Archbishop Lefebvre was not much impressed by showcase occasions such as John Paul II’s widely acclaimed Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi in October 1986, attended by 150 different religious leaders including the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Buddhist monks, Lutheran ministers, Japanese Shintoists, Jewish Rabbis, Muslim Imams, Sikhs, African animists, North American Indians and many others."
One thing that bugs me is the way everyone in the world seems to feel they have the right to tell the Roman Catholic Church [and Christians in general] what they should believe.
While looking into this case of Williamson, I noticed that many Jewish individuls and groups are presuming to determine who is in communion with the RC Church. Bizarre.
Of course many RCs bring this on themselves by getting involved in politics, for example, saying that US immigration policy is un-Christian, and nonsense like that.
One other thing about excommunication. The RC Church teaches that those who promote abortion have effectively ex-communicated themselves. This is not directly related to the question of crime or politics however. It's related to the contradiction of the Church's teaching that life begins at conception.
I don't know why a large number of abortion-promoting/defending RC politicians have not been denied communion.
Brian,
I am not a Catholic. However, I do own many of the Pope's books, plus quite a few books by other Catholic thinkers. Additionally, I am a subscriber to First Things magazine. I, myself, am a pretty typical American Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian. In other words, I'm an idiot.
:)
Never mind that I have degrees in Philosophy and Literature, and that I contribute greatly to society. I am an idiot.
As far as the political mainstream is concerned.
Anyway, it is this idiots opinion that religion, along with government and the media, is a locus of power within society. Thus, we all ought to be able to criticize religion, whether we adhere to any particular religion, or we are a Godless atheist.
;-)
If Religion is beyond criticism, then it's power is unchecked and our society will become out of balance.
Anyway, it's fun talking with you.
Thanks for dropping by and hashing this out with me.
I hope we get to the bottom of the story. I'd much rather continue liking Pope Benedict.
Hi
I never said that religion is [or religious groups are] above criticism.
It just bugs me when people who don't know, or frankly don't even care, what communion means feel they have the right or ability to judge who should be in communion.
For example, Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, writes that he objects to, "the re-admittance to full communion of a bishop who appears to publicly reject key teachings of the Second Vatican Council."
This is absurd. Does Foxman understand or even care about Vatican II? Does he accept the "key teachings of the Second Vatican Council"? Somehow I doubt it. What is he, a Trinitarian Jew?
[I don't accept Vatican II, but then I don't accept Vatican I or the Council of Trent or whatever. In fact...I'm particularly annoyed by the 1438-39 Council of Ferrara-Florence! For some strange reason it never occurred to me to write to the Pope demanding that he only baptize those who reject Ferrara-Florence...]
Now, as we both seem to agree, if Foxman limited his complaints to Williamson's status as a bishop, he'd have something to debate, since the bishops represent the Church in every way. But instead, becasue he doesn't even know what communion really means, he presumes to dictate that Williamson should be denied the blood and the body of Christ, when he doesn't even accept that it is the body and blood of Christ? Talk about chutzpah! If I was Benedict, I'd write back to Foxman (c/o the New York Times), saying, "My son, I am pleased that you recognize the power of the holy sacraments! I look forward to baptizing you."
Brian,
I'm not a big fan of Abe Foxman, so you won't hear me defending him. Additionally, I think you are correct here. He overstepped the boundaries of his own knowledge.
So, to clarify, before I guessed that the individuals concerned had repented of whatever it was that got them excommunicated. In fact it appears that the pope is saying they should never have been excommunicated in the first place.
Either way, it's an internal matter. But if they were never really excommunicated, where does that leave the Church's non-Christian [even atheist] critics?
This is correct: "To deny the Holocaust is not a heresy even though it is a lie."
Well, I can't speak for the Abe Foxman's of the world, but where it leaves me is the man ought to have no authority within the Church.
Pretty much right where I started.
Ok. I am RC (Recovering Catholic). Briana is correct as the Church has made no statement on the Holocaust as part of it's dogma (which is a stain on them) this priest is eligible for rehabilitation and probably even as a priest. I don't like it, I don't agree with it, I personally think it's abhorrent but it is what it is. For the ludicrousness of it all consider that what he said does not rise to excommunication, but a divorce does.
That said and especially though not soley in light of the rising anti-semitism Benedict should have immediately turned around and denounced this guy's statements in the next breath.
Unfortunately the only way to get him out of the Church based only on this would be through a change in Church teachings.
Pasto -- I too have read the Catechism. It gives me headaches. It's partly why I drink. And according to it I should probably have been excommunicated by the age of three.
Here's an admission that's ripe for endless humor. The Catechism sits next to my toilet in my bathroom. I read it during my library moments. It's a great bathroom read (for a Philosophy guy) because it's all short and sweet chapters, and you feel like you actually learned something.
Ok, everyone can make fun of me now.
And, of course, if you were Muslims, you'd just cut my head off for this.
MR
Re: "the Church has made no statement on the Holocaust as part of it's dogma (which is a stain on them)"
Why on Earth should it? I think it's already covered in the parts about not killing people and generally being good.
You think the dogma of the Church should also cover the Stalin-Mao split, Paris 68, "was 9-11 an inside job?", Jenin a war crime?, IRA vs INLA, Salem, Hiroshima, affirmative action laws in Michigan, the morality of sales taxes, American aggression against Serbia...?
If that's your understanding of Dogma [established belief or doctrine, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from], then I feel sorry for you.
Briana -- I phrased that badly.
you said:
"Re: "the Church has made no statement on the Holocaust as part of it's dogma (which is a stain on them)"
Why on Earth should it? I think it's already covered in the parts about not killing people and generally being good."
You are correct. And had this priest condoned the Holocaust or participated in it then it would be (among other things) an excommunicable offense as Church law now stands.
However, what he said is he doesn't believe it happened. A lie. The most foul of lies but still a lie. Not "The Holocaust was a good thing" or "Hitler didn't get them all" (which I've heard from "good churched" Catholics and American Fundmentalist Evangelicals alike) it would be regarded differently. But as it stands it is no more excommunicable than saying 9/11 was an inside job. Moonbat territory to be sure. But not something that will get you kicked out of the church.
I'm sorry you don't like it. I don't like it either. I think I made that clear.
And there should be hue and cry over it. But you need to understand not only what was done but why if you want to truly understand what you're fighting.
Sassing at me ain't gonna do much other than make you feel better so go ahead, have at it.
But please don't bother feeling sorry for me.
Brian -- apologies for getting your name wrong. My bad and unintended.
Brian -- I'm not even sure why you & I are arguing this. We agree on the why, at least as the facts present themselves. I just phrased it very badly.
Further, in one of your comments you mentioned why aren't more RC politicians excommunicated for their stand on abortion.
Very true. But at least (& it's not enough) both Biden & Pelosi have been told by American Bishops they should not be receiving communion.
I think I'll just shut up and exit stage right.
Pastorius said...
One has to wonder just how hard this man truly rebelled against the Hitler Youth.
We have only his and the vaticans word for this.
Lets not forget it was not until 1965 that the Vatican eliminated the phrase "perfidious Jews" from the liturgy of a Holy Week service.
More disturding,It was not until March 16, 1998 That the Vatican apologised to Jews on behalf of the entire Roman Catholic community, for failing to speak out against the Nazi holocaust during World War Two. To me this is blatant holocaust denial
In his letter accompanying the apology, the Pope said the holocaust remained an indelible stain on the 20th century.
But the document makes no criticism of the Pope of the time, Pius XII, who has been accused by the Jews of pro-German tendencies.
The Vatican mentions that Pius XII saved hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives himself or through his representatives.
But the document failed to explain why Pope Pius never took sides during World War Two by speaking out against the holocaust while it was actually taking place.
The Vatican has always maintained he did everything he could behind the scenes to stop the slaughter.
It did not address the Vaticans approved anti-Semitic measures adopted by the French Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis.
It did not address the Vaticans reaction to Kristallnacht, the night in Germany in 1938 when Nazis burnt synagogues, smashed Jewish shop windows and murdered Jews. It also found that, in reply to pressure from Bishop Konrad von Preysing of Berlin for the Vatican to do something to help the Jews, Pius had said it was up to local bishops to decide when to speak and when to remain silent, given the risk of reprisals.
Or why Pius twice received Ante Pavelic, the Croatian Ustashe dictator, in 1941 and 1943, despite the fact that he had learnt of the Catholic Ustashe regime's massacre of Jews, Gipsies and Orthodox Serbs.
There was nothing said abot the Catholic Rat lines which aided nazis to escape to South America
But the Pope can kiss the Koran
I am not Catholic, and I have no detailed knowledge of Vatican II except its intended SPIRIT.
"They are his personal ideas ... that we certainly don't share but they have nothing to do with the issue of the excommunication and the removal of the excommunication," Lombardi told AP Television News.
There is no HONEST way for the church to say that reinstating theses execrable CREATURES has nothing to do with this.
If the Pope is saying he is too stupid to realize the consequences of this decision, it's a lie.
The Pope is saying AT THE KINDEST INTERPRETATION POSSIBLE, IMHO, I don't really care. This is a church decision for church reasons, and antisemitism EVEN IF ENHANCED, and DESPITE THE FACTUAL HISTORY OF THIS CHURCH and the jews since the 4th century cannot be considered, nor can how we look, or any perceptions which come from that.
THAT SAYS VOLUMES.
He has brought shame to his name, and shame to the church, and that's all there is to it
He has placed the church as saying 'denial and antisemitism? This has nothing to do with catholicism, people deny the holocaust and hate the jews in racist ignorance, but they still can be good catholics, thus we remove excommunication'
SHAME
Shiva,
You said: in reply to pressure from Bishop Konrad von Preysing of Berlin for the Vatican to do something to help the Jews, Pius had said it was up to local bishops to decide when to speak and when to remain silent, given the risk of reprisals.
I say: I did know this part of history.
Interesting, because this is exactly what we are seeing today. The Pope spoke out on Islam. A nun was killed, and then the Pope decided not to speak out on Islam anymore.
My statement on this has been that Christians are told in the Bible that we will suffer persecution, and that not only are we supposed to expect it, but we are supposed to glory in it.
Thus, it seems to me that it is antithetical to the Church's stated ideals and purposes to try to make the life of the Missionary safe, by keeping quiet.
Therefore, I think the Pope is NOT doing his duty when he keeps his mouth shut to try to make life easier for his representatives around the world.
Epa,
You said: There is no HONEST way for the church to say that reinstating theses execrable CREATURES has nothing to do with this.
I say: Israel would except Noam Chomsky as a citizen. That's pretty much the same thing as the Catholic Church accepting this guy as a member.
Get it?
Now, if the guy is being reinstated as a bishop of priest, then that is another matter.
The Church didn't suffer enough?
http://www.booksforcatholics.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=B&Product_Code=PERS&Category_Code=Church_History
But thanks for spreading anti-Christian propaganda. Great for the Jihad ...
Unlike lowlifes such as the US president or congress, or the UN, the Pope is bound by divine law, and has no power to deny the saving grace of the sacrament of the Eucharist to any believer just because they happen to have weird ideas about history.
Pastorius
Whatever claims we hear from the Vaticn concerning anti-semitism and the Holocaust we shold not forget that
Good Friday liturgy of the Tridentine Mass, which dates back to 1570. Was not altered until !959, The prayer stated: "Oremus et pro perfidies Judaeis" (Let us pray for the perfidious Jews).
On the first Good Friday after his election to the papacy in 1959, Pope John XXIII eliminated the adjective "perfidious" from the prayer. Since then the expression "Let us pray for the Jews" has been used.
That same year, he also eliminated from the rite of baptism the phrase used for Jewish catechumens: "Horresce Jusaicam perfidiam, respue Hebraicam superstitionem" (Disavow Jewish unbelieving, deny Hebrew superstition).
perfidious[Latin perfidus]
Adjective Literary treacherous or deceitful
Here is a statement that warrants some thought, especially with what we have witnessed the last few weeks all over the western world
In March 1995 the Alliance of Baptists issued "A Baptist Statement on Jewish-Christian Relations"; a revision of this statement was released on April 25, 2003. In part, is says:
As Baptist Christians we are the inheritors of and, in our turn, have been the transmitters of a theology which lays the blame for the death of Jesus at the feet of the Jews; a theology which has taken the anti-Jewish polemic of the Christian Scriptures out of its first century context and has usurped for the Church the biblical promises and prerogatives given by God to the Jews...The madness, the hatred, the dehumanizing attitudes which led to the events known collectively as the Holocaust did not occur overnight or within the span of a few years, but were the culmination of centuries of such Christian theology, teaching and church-sanctioned action directed against the Jews simply because they were Jews.
Shiva,
My admiration for the Baptist church increases.
:)
We learn something new here everyday at IBA.
Pastorius said...
We learn something new here everyday at IBA.
We sure do, and some of it is not so pleasant
Now If the Vatican was promised a share of the booty, I am very sure they would be more active in tackling islam
Among Nazi puppet regimes, the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia also maintained concentration camps and confiscated the assets of its victims in the campaign of ethnic cleansing to clear "Greater Croatia" of Serbs, Roma, and Jews. Victims' assets were deposited in the Croatian treasury. In 21 October 1946, U.S. Army Intelligence memo from treasury agent Emerson Bigelow[6] The Bigelow memo asserted that at the time of the collapse of the Ustasha in 1945, 150 million Swiss francs had been impounded by British authorities at the Austro-Swiss border and the balance was held in one of the Vatican’s numbered Swiss bank accounts. The intelligence reports also suggest that more than 200 million Swiss francs were eventually transferred to Vatican City and the IOR with the assistance of Roman Catholic clergy and the Franciscan Order.[citation needed] Such claims are denied by the Vatican Bank.
How did a post about Benedict recommunicating a creep become such a rant of anti-Catholicism, such an attack on the Church?
Listen, wake me when you get to the part where after the priests are done shagging the nuns they rape the little girls and sodomize the little boys because, quite frankly, I've listened to this shit all my life and have better things to do.
At least you're not as foul as the venom they're throwing around at the Jawa Report. Or LGF.
Lefebvre
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s father died in 1944 in the Nazi concentration camp at Sonnenburg (East Brandenburg, Germany), where he had been imprisoned by the Gestapo because of his work for the French Resistance and British Intelligence.
Archbishop Lefebvre was convicted of a hate crime against Muslims in a French court in 1990 and sentenced to pay a fine of 5,000 francs when he warned that “it is your wives, your daughters, your children who will be kidnapped and dragged off to a certain kind of places as they exist in Casablanca”.
He founded The Society of St Pius X [SSPX].
It seems his “opposition to change” (as the bright sparks in the press put it) concerned much more than liturgical matters (which, no doubt, the press think are dumb things to be concerned about).
Essentially, he argued that Pope John Paul II had made too many concessions to Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others in his pursuit of improved ecumenical and inter-religious relations. Archbishop Lefebvre was not much impressed by showcase occasions such as John Paul II’s widely acclaimed Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi in October 1986, attended by 150 different religious leaders including the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Buddhist monks, Lutheran ministers, Japanese Shintoists, Jewish Rabbis, Muslim Imams, Sikhs, African animists, North American Indians and many others.
On these points at least, Lefevbre has my sympathy. On the other hand, his argument with Rome is just yet another argument between schismatics.
Bishop [?] Fellay, Superior General of SSPX [PDF at www.sspx.org]:
We have learned of an interview given by Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of our Society of Saint Pius X, to Swedish television. In this interview, he comments on historical questions, particularly the question of the genocide of Jews by the National Socialists.
It is obvious that a Catholic bishop can only speak with ecclesiastical authority about matters concerning faith and morals. Our Society claims no authority on other matters. Its mission is the propagation and restoration of authentic Catholic doctrine, set forth in the dogmas of the Faith. It is for this that we are known, accepted and esteemed throughout the world.
We are deeply grieved to see how much harm the violation of this mandate can do to our mission. Bishop Williamson’s statements do not in any way reflect the position of our Society. This is why I have forbidden him, until further notice, to make any public statements on political or historical issues.
We ask forgiveness of the Sovereign Pontiff and of all people of good will for the dramatic consequences of such an act. While we recognize how inappropriate these declarations were, we can only note with sadness that the incessant accusations against our Society are also obviously intended to discredit it.
This we cannot accept, and we declare that we will continue to preach Catholic doctrine and administer the sacraments of grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Menzingen, January 27, 2009
+ Bernard Fellay, Superior General, SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X
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