Examine the Pope's words, and there's only one thing to conclude (Holocaust deniers)

[IndianaGreen]

Robert Fisk’s World: Examine the Pope's words, and there's only one thing to conclude

Benedict will demean other religions to prove Christianity’s ‘superiority’

Saturday, 28 February 2009

So it's all the fault of the Pope's satraps. "Vatican advisers blamed for Pope's woes," I was informed by one headline. "A self-imposed cone (sic) of silence surrounds Benedict." And now poor old Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, the solitary German who found himself manning an anti-aircraft gun at the end of the Second World War ("briefly" and "unwillingly", I know) has had some "harsh words" for his advisers because – according to the Vatican – he "had no idea of Bishop Williamson's views before lifting an excommunication order against him last month".

Williamson, I should add, is the disgusting British-born prelate of the Society of Saint Pius X who has said that "not a single Jew died in a gas chamber" in the Second World War. This Cambridge-educated priest says he is prepared to "re-examine" the historical evidence of the Holocaust – but, needless to say, declines to visit Auschwitz. Unsurprisingly, the Vatican has rejected Williamson's mealy-mouthed apology to those who suffered "injustice" at Nazi hands.

Now a lot of folk will go along with the line that the Holy Father is so stupid – so utterly out of touch with Planet Earth and all its Catholic children, so "cut off from the real world" (here I quote a Vatican "insider") – that he has no idea how disastrously his actions are received. Hmmm. Well, I wonder.

For was this not the same Pope who actually visited Auschwitz and – to the understandable outrage of Jewish dignitaries who were present – blamed a Nazi "gang" for the Jewish Holocaust? Before this infallible pronouncement, an awful lot of people thought that the Nazi German nation was to blame for Auschwitz, but old Joseph apparently thought it was a mafia clique in Berlin that murdered six million European Jews. And – here we go again – was this not the same ex-Cardinal Ratzinger (anti-divorce, anti-gay and anti-aircraft, as I always remind myself) who delivered a lecture at Regensburg in 2006 in which he quoted from a Byzantine text which characterised the Prophet Mohamed as evil and inhuman?

Chancellor Merkel, it was, who called up the old boy to point out that pardoning Williamson gave the impression that Holocaust denial was "permissible". The last time a German Chancellor took so serious an interest in the words of the Holy Father, of course, was more than 60 years earlier when A Hitler Esq profoundly hoped that Pope Pius XII would abide by Williamson's line on the Holocaust. That particular pope's silence is well expressed in the sinister black statue of His Holiness in St Peter's Basilica, a bespectacled cadaver that so shocked a Muslim friend of mine that she took 36 photos of the thing "because he looked so evil".

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html

The German Pope also made peace with anti-Semitic Pope Pius X Society

Society of Saint Pius X Distances Itself from Holocaust Denial

The ultra-conservative Catholic group SSPX is finally beginning to clean house. On Monday, the Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson reportedly lost his job as leader of a seminary in Argentina. And the group's Web site no longer argues that the Jews are guilty of deicide.

It has been almost three weeks since Bishop Richard Williamson's controversial, Holocaust-denying interview was broadcast on Swedish television. Only now, though, is the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), to which Williamson belongs, taking steps to dampen the furore his comments created. On Monday, according to a report from the Argentinean news agency Diarios y Noticias, Williamson was removed from his position as head of a seminary not far from Buenos Aires.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,606422,00.html

[iconicgnom]

1. Well, we (I'm from a Catholic family) knew this pope was a disaster in the first place.

In fact we, and I'm speaking of Catholics who go back generations, also had issues with pronouncements of the previous pope.

c'est la vie.

[IndianaGreen]

2. "The Mystery of the Jews"

Thanks to another DUer that pointed out the following article that clearly shows that Holocaust deniers are not a firebrand within the Pius X Society, but that they represent the core anti-Semitic views of that group. This article quotes from "The Mystery of the Jews" which was until very recently posted in the website of Pius X Society. Here is an excerpt:

The Anti-Semitism of the Society of St. Pius X

Posted at: 2009-01-31 10:37:00.0
Author: James Martin, S.J.

The ongoing debate over Pope Benedict's decision to lift the ban of excommunication on four bishop-members of the Society of St. Pius X has been split into to general discussions. First, the (currently) more explosive issue of the reception of Bishop Williamson into full communion with the Catholic church in light of his absurd comments on the Holocaust, which the Vatican has rejected and Cardinal Kasper termed "gibberish." (This is the issue that has been receiving more media attention.) Second, the more complex question of why the pope would move to lift the ban on a group that has as its raison d'etre the rejection of the Second Vatican Council. The first, you might say, is a more political-historical question; the second a more ecclesial-theological one.

But the two issues are linked. For one thing, a rejection of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which includes a rejection of "Nostra Aetate," means that is more difficult for members of the Society to engage in dialogue with Jews, to respect Jewish history and to understand Jewish concerns, as well as to reflect on the sad history of Christian anti-Semitism.

Still, the question remains: Is anti-Semitism a pattern that pervades the Society of St. Pius X, or is it simply a bigotry expressed by only a few members?

The Society's website indicates the former. This appalling article, entitled "The Mystery of the Jews," is still on their official American website, as of this morning (Saturday).

It includes these comments, which read less like a contemporary theological reflection on the Jewish faith and more like passages Mein Kampf. For the record, the article was written in 1997:

"It is public knowledge that the Jewish sector, relatively small compared to the Gentile sector which devotes itself to the creation of wealth, controls especially the financial power that is exercised through banks."

"Then these Jews, in the name of their Law, their Torah, and to serve the material interests of their nation and race, demanded the blood of Him who had been promised them as their blessing. They stirred up the Gentiles against Jesus. Using them to carry out their plans, they crucified the One who was to be raised up as a "sign of contradiction".

"Judaism is inimical to all nations in general, and in a special manner to Christian nations."

"Catholics are not to enter into commercial, social, nor political relations which are bound hypocritically to seek the ruin of Christendom. Jews must not live together with Christians because this is what their own Jewish laws ordain and also because their errors and material superiority have virulent consequences among other peoples."

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=2D6AFB07-1438-5036-4F1C9D841C32199D

When compared with all the efforts of JPII to heal relations with the Jewish community, as well as his own conduct during the Nazi occupation of Poland, the current German Pope seems like a throwback to the days of the Inquisition.