Cardinal Mahony bans Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson from Archdiocese of Los Angeles Churches

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles today announced he is barring the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson from entering any church in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

In an extraordinary move, Mahony and two Jewish leaders penned a joint op-ed piece published in both the archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, and a local Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Journal.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, Rabbi Gary Greenebaum and Seth Brysk wrote in part:

Williamson's recent "apologies" fall far short of satisfying the letter or the spirit of the Vatican's directives. Yet while Williamson seems unwilling or unable to reject his odious positions, many religious and civic leaders have used his situation to acknowledge the Holocaust and to affirm its unique and terrible place in history.

We are heartened by the many leaders around the world who have rejected Williamson's views. In particular, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Argentine Minister of the Interior Florencio Randazzo, whose country recently expelled Williamson, not to mention nearly 50 Catholic members of the U.S. Congress who wrote to the Vatican to express their concerns.

In the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Williamson is hereby banned from entering any Catholic church, school or other facility, until he and his group comply fully and unequivocally with the Vatican's directives regarding the Holocaust. Later this year, I, Cardinal Mahony, will visit Israel and pay my respects to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.

Holocaust deniers like Williamson will find no sympathetic ear or place of refuge in the Catholic Church, of which he is not --- and may never become --- a member. . . .

For our part, as Catholic and Jewish leaders in Los Angeles, we recognize that only by working together with renewed vigilance will we be able to keep anti-Semitism at bay and prevent its reassertion as a legitimate expression.

Their entire statement is here.

Bishop Williamson has made himself an object of repudiation and placed himself in danger of being cast out of Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) by failing to recant promptly his repellent and historically unfounded views. Catholic thinking has suggested a suitably humble statement of the sort that has been overdue from Williamson, for decades.