Holocaust-denier Bishop Williamson returns with his verbal wrecking ball

The Vatican-SSPX talks are a “dialogue of the deaf,” Bishop Richard Williamson said in an interview with French anti-zionist Pierre Danet, posted at DailyMotion Tuesday.

Stepping on the pope's toes, already aching after a tense peacemaking visit to Rome's main synagogue last week, Williamson broke his months of silence by saying of the talks:

I think it will finish by becoming a dialogue of the deaf, because of two things. One: The two positions in themselves are irreconcilable. For example 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 it’s irreconcilable. Therefore of three things, one: either they say 2+2=4 , enounce reality and say 2+2=5 –that is to say the Fraternity would abandon the truth that God forbids us to do or that those who say that 2+2=5 convert and return to the truth or the two come half-way, that means everyone decides that 2+2=4 ½ . It’s wrong. Therefore, either the Fraternity betrays itself or Rome converts, or it is a dialogue of the deaf.

[Full translation of the interview here.]

The pope set off a firestorm of criticism by lifting the excommunication from four Society of St Pius X bishops last January, among them holocaust-denier Williamson. The pope eventually admitted his handling of the matter was a mistake. Yet controversy over the attempt to reconcile with the historically anti-Semitic SSPX continues to simmer.

In his most recent interview Williamson skates past his Holocaust denial, still without apologizing. Yet his interview is still rich in points of controversy. For example, he does say Christians have been "chased out" of the Holy Land and he defies mainstream Catholicism with the claim that Jews who don't accept Jesus are no longer the "chosen people."

Williamson's comments probably do harm by giving resounding affirmation to negative views of the Vatican's attempt to reconcile with SSPX. Yet he is not a spokesman for SSPX. Williamson is, in effect, speaking out of turn. His Holocaust denial caused such an uproar early last year that the head of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay, issued a gag order and Williamson was removed as head of the SSPX seminary in Argentina. Now at home in Britain, he lives in an SSPX home in the Wimbledon section of London in what he called "an unexpected but quite agreeable sabbatical year.”

Do you not wonder if Bishop Fellay will now further define for Williamson the restrictions of that sabbatical?

[H/T: Cathy Lynn Grossman ]

Pay up, Bishop Williamson

A German court has ruled that Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the an ultra-traditionalist Catholic splinter group Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), has to pay a 12,000 Euros ($16,822) fine for incitement.

Calling into question Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift his excommunication and that of three other Lefebvrite bishops, Williamson denied in a televised interview that the Holocaust occurred. The interview was conducted near Regensburg shortly before the excommunications were lifted.

He has two weeks to appeal and apparently will, even as the Vatican carries forward unification talks with SSPX.

For shame, sir.

Advanced knowledge of Williamson's radicalism? 'Calumny' the cardinal says

The anticipated Swedish television broadcast aired discussing who knew what, when, about SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson's Holocaust denial.

Catholic Culture reports:

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos has heatedly denied a report that he had been informed about the extreme views of Bishop Richard Williamson prior to the January 2009 announcement that the Pope was lifting the excommunications of Williamson and other bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).
In a Swedish television broadcast earlier this week, Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm disclosed that he was aware of Bishop Williamson's statements questioning the severity of the Holocaust, and had alerted Vatican officials to those statements. But Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos -- who, as president of the Ecclesia Dei commission at that time, was primarily responsible for Vatican talks with the SSPX, told the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung that it was "calumny" to say that he had been informed of Williamson's views.

Francesco Colafemmina writes that Cardinal Castrillon said that prior to the lifting of SSPX Bishop's excommunication "none of us knew nothing about Bishop Williamson's statements. None of us! And no one had the duty to know it!"

Thus ends the finger-pointing, for a while.

It still isn't true, I tell you!

Swedish television coverage of what the pope knew and when he knew it is now scheduled to air tonight and the Catholic News Agency to reports:

The director of the Holy See’s press office, Father Federico Lombardi, denied again today that Pope Benedict knew Bishop Richard Williamson held Holocaust diminishing beliefs before the Pontiff lifted the excommunication of the Pius X Society bishop. Such charges only “lead to creating confusion for no reason,” he said.

Whew!

Bishop Williamson the unrepetant radical rightist

Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson's disingenuous apology was well-rejected by the Vatican. It is unclear whether the Society of St Pius X can withstand careful scrutiny today, but Williamson is a creature of the radical, racist right. The London Times' Damian Thompson writes:

Trawling through Williamson's sermons is a sad experience. There's an intense piety there, powerful faith, but it's poisoned by anger, hatred and an all-consuming paranoia. This troubled man has links to the political Far Right, and has written about Hitler "liberating" Germany from the control of Jewish money.

Even more bizarre than his frequently expressed view that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were not carried out by terrorists, all of those assertions were in public view well before his excommunication was lifted.

We need not play that reprehensible game, "Kick the Pope," to wonder where this is going and exactly why Pope Benedict XVI put matters on this path, making the radical right more bold and the Catholic Church's position of moral authority less powerful.

Williamson apologizes but does not recant

Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson apologized today, after being booted out of Argentina, where on Feb. 9 he was dismissed as director of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) seminary in La Reja.

"I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them," Williamson said, according to the website of Zenit, a Catholic news agency. . . .
"To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise," he said. . . .
He did not say in his apology whether he had changed his views.

His failure to recant earned him the immediate rejection of some Jewish groups. This is a case in which half a measure should not be good enough for anyone.

Lest anyone be confused about where we stand: "Never again."

Holocaust-denying bishop ordered out of Argentina

Unrepentant Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson is being booted out of Argentina, where on Feb. 9 he was dismissed as director of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) seminary in La Reja. He has 10 days to leave.

Legally, Williamson failed to declare his true job as director of a seminary on immigration forms interior ministry, but Argentine officials make it clear that his Holocaust-denials "profoundly insulted Argentine society, the Jewish community and all of humanity by denying the historic truth."

Argentina's Jewish population, one of the world's largest, praised the decision.

Ordered by Pope Benedict XVI to recant, Williamson has not done so, claiming he needed time to research the issue so that he can act with sincerity. The head of Williamson's Swiss-based society, Monsignor Bernard Fellay, said in an interview published Monday that Williamson should be given time to reconsider his denials.

There is pressure on the pope to further repudiate Williamson's views, and time appears to be running out, now in more than one regard.

Vatican demands that Holocaust-denier repudiate his positions [Updated]

Besieged by angry response to the un-excommunication of four right-wing bishops, the Vatican demanded today for the first time that the Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson repudiate his "previous statements in 'an absolutely, unequivocal and public manner.'”

The National Catholic Register reported:

In addition, said the statement from the Vatican Secretariat of State, Pope Benedict XVI did not know about the controversial statements by British-born Bishop Richard Williamson when he lifted the excommunication of him and three other traditionalist bishops ordained illicitly in 1988.

. . .

“The positions of Bishop Williamson on the Holocaust are absolutely unacceptable and are strongly rejected by the Holy Father,” the statement said.

U.S. Bishops and others are in effect getting the appropriately high standard for reconciliation that they have demanded.

Addendum

The Associated Press reported Wednesday afternoon that the requirement is not for Williamson alone:

In addition to its demand of Williamson, the Vatican said the society as a whole must fully recognize the teachings of Vatican II and all the popes who came during and after it in order to have a legitimate canonical function in the church.

Enforced, that should dispose of concerns that this reconciliation involves either acceptance of formerly rejected far-right ideologies into the church, or a sharp rightward shift by the church itself.

It was of overarching importance. "This was the sign the Jewish world has been waiting for," said Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress.

Inflamed anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism's ugly flames were already flaring when Pope Benedict XVI extended his olive branch to a Holocaust-denier and three other right-wing bishops.

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Since Dec. 27 some 60 cases of anti-Semitism – graffiti, four synagogues desecrated, and an attack on a Jewish youth – took place, according to Richard Prasquier of the Council of French Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). Two Muslim youth were attacked by Jewish gangs.

In Germany Stephan J. Kramer, a leader of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, reported in Der Tagesspiegel:

The council, which represents Germany’s more than 100,000- member Jewish community, received about 40 percent more hate e- mail a week than usual during the recent conflict in Gaza . . . . A tenth of the 300 weekly messages were explicit death threats directed at council members, he was cited as saying.

In Turkey, according to Reuters:

Turkey's centuries-old Jewish community says it is alarmed by anti-Semitism that emerged during protests at Israel's Gaza assault, and is questioning how this reflects its status in the predominantly Muslim republic.

In Argentina, according to Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman:

An outburst of hateful rhetoric against Israel and in-your-face anti-Semitism has not been seen like this in Argentina for decades.

And on it goes, as David Rothkopf further documents in his blog at Foreign Policy magazine, citing both events abroad and personal experience.

These events involve various forms of harm to ordinary people, not high-level negotiations among variously outraged or apologetic faith leaders. People who should, we feel, have been more carefuly considered as "an internal affair" with such dramatic external effects was attended to by the Vatican.