Posted on 02/04/2009 4:16:31 PM PST by DeepThought42
Responding to global outrage, especially in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany, the Vatican for the first time on Wednesday called on a recently rehabilitated bishop to take back his statements denying the Holocaust.
Late last month, the pope revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, including British-born Richard Williamson, who in an interview broadcast last month denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers.
A statement issued on Wednesday by the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Bishop Williamson “must absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah,” or Holocaust, which it said were “unknown to the Holy Father at the time he revoked the excommunication.”
The unsigned statement seemed a clear indication that the Vatican was facing an internal and external political crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
UG. Holy Father, stay the course. Do not let these anti catholics sway you. You are the leader of the Catholic Church, the Barq of Peter. Not the Jews, Not the Muslims, Not the secularists. Lead your Church. Stand your ground. Please......
good
Unless this is all just a tribalistic squabble, where members of some groups are angry that members of other groups are attacking their group. Then I understand it all too well, because such things are so common these days.
I think once he was made a Bishop, he remained a Bishop. It was that he was made a bishop by an ArchBishop without permission. In fact, the Pope had explicitly forbidden the Archbishop to do this.
A Swedish interview with Bishop Williamson, done in Sept., was held and then released at the same time as the Pope's action.
It is being alleged, and I find it quite easy to believe, that this was done on purpose to sabotage Pope Benedict.
The exommunications were related to doctrine and obedience, had nothing to do with the statements by Williamson, who should have kept his mouth shut and has been since ordered to do just that on issues pertaining to politics and history.
As a Catholic, I am disugusted by your comment.
Careful where you swing that “dishonesty” stick “utahson.” The eye you beam may be your own...
So if in the eyes of the church Mr. Williamson is not and never was a bishop, and if he apparently is satisfied with that resolution of the matter, the whole controversy is whether the pope can decide that a Holocaust denier is or is not merely a member of the Church?
He is a bishop.
So by denying the the slaughter of 6 million Jews he is not being dishonest?
So if Archbishop Lefebvre made Mr. Williamson a bishop, even though it was against the instructions of the then-pope, he was in fact according to Catholic doctrine a bishop after that point, and is still now, now that his excommunication has been rescinded?
No; in the eyes of the Church Bp Williamson is in fact a Bishop, though his consecration was illegal. This act leaves him suspended, not rehabilitated.
The whole controversy is that people who know better are playing the ‘holocaust’ card pretty heavily in their never ending war against the Roman Catholic Church.
The Pope does not have the right to excommunicate anyone based on that person’s view of historical events. It is not a tenet of the faith.
One’s belief in a historical event is not required as part of the Catholic faith.
I do not think you understand the rules of excommunication. I suggest that you spend some time getting up to speed on the subject.
So in your thinking the Pope has failed to lead?
And do you align yourself with the extremist liberal bishops who are calling for him to step down?
Are you really a Catholic? Because you don’t seem to know what has happened. The excommunication was lifted; this was also done for Orthodox bishops. That is a first step to start a dialogue which may or not end in the SSPX or the Orthodox returning home.
You must know that the Pope and the SSPX both repeated their statements condemning anti -semitism in all forms. Further, the SSPX has muzzled Williamson.
Here’s the facts: the excommunications are lifted, but the individuals remain suspended from their faculties under Roman Catholic law. To have suspension lifted will require much negotiation. Their organization, the SSPX is irregular under canon law.
So what, exactly, is there to be ashamed of?
But as a Catholic you already knew all this, no?
Honesty should be a requirement of its representatives.
Yes; you should be honest. Bp Williamson is not a church representative. He is a suspended bishop who will have to declaim much to have his suspension lifted.
You know this as a Catholic, right?
Why “its” representatives?
Why not “our” representatives?
As I say, careful with that dishonesty stick...
Most altar boys know how to spell their job.
Why do you use the past tense in referring to your church attendance?
Care to take another bite at the dishonesty apple?
Then your formation is lacking or you were not paying attention since this is simple and a long standing situation with the Orthodox.
Which was it?
As for your ‘catholic’ upbringing, it is not a Sunday ‘service’ Rather, it is Mass, Holy Eucharist, Sunday liturgy even.
Service, I believe, is a word used by protestants, though.
I would be disgusted with the utterly mendacious and distorted manner that MSM have handled it ... except that I expect the worst sort of perfidy from that noisome bunch.
I reserve my disgust for FReepers who drink the MSM Kool-Aid uncritically. They should know better.
BXVI can not help it if unscrupulous like Angela Merkel, Card Kaspar, the MSM, the Israeli Rabbinate or the Weisenthal Center misrepresent this to bash the Church. He will just have to stay the course.
I believe it did. If I were proven wrong, though, I would not have been dishonest in my belief.
As a Catholic, you are no doubt familiar with the sin of detraction.
Yes, the Nazis killed 15 million Slavs, Jews, Gypsies and handicapped as untermenschen.
Good point; we should welcome utahson back home, though; he’s clearly been on the wrong side of the Tiber quite awhile.
In the words of JP the Great: Ut Unum Sint.
Indeed. I’ll go slaughter the fatted calf—will you go get the robes?
Yes indeed, and I’ll bring the wine. The good stuff in new wineskins.
Indeed ... when I review the list of folks who are verbally attacking God’s servant Benedict ... I notice that he’s making (as usual) all the right enemies.
I think you are right; Bp Fellay will not allow this moment to pass thanks to a - with all due respect - crank like Williamson to get in the way.
In last fifteen years, I have not attended Mass regularly because of my personal feeling with the loss of a loved one. That being said, I am a Catholic and was raised one and still believe in the teachings of the Church. Both my parents were Eucharist Ministers, taught CCD and taught Sunday school teachers for about 12 years. When I do go to Mass, I do not take communion because I am not fulfilling the responsibilities I should to receive the body of Christ.
The four SSPX bishops have NOT been “rehabilitated” or “reinstated.”
They have had one particular juridical penalty lifted.
They are still suspended and irregular. I.e., they are still forbidden by Church law to celebrate any sacrament or exercise any office in the Church. They have not even been restored to full communion with the Catholic Church.
But the Pope is to be held responsible for everything they say?
Williamson IS a bishop. But he is a suspended bishop.
Fine, but my question was not where you are today but rather - were you poorly formed or were you not listening since you obviously can not figure out what has happened: the offices that these men have received have had a sanction removed. However, they remain personally suspended and most certainly have not been rehabilitated.
So what is the beef? They are suspended and have not been welcomed back into the fold What is there to be ashamed of? They will have to renounce much to be brought back to the fold.
Detraction of others is usually fueled by an outraged conscience of one’s own; when the guilt is purged, so is the indignation.
While I do not agree with the statements this man said, he personally has a right to believe whatever he does that is not ex cathedra, just as we can choose to believe or not in Fatima, Lourdes, and any other matter that is not dogma of the church.
You may not like it, but the popes authority ends at declaring on faith and morals within and regarding the deposit of faith, not opinions. While he can excommunicate someone for opposing church teaching,(ie Pelosi, Kennedy supporting abortion) he cannot excommunicate or reprimand those who do not agree with things like apparitions, or other opinions that do not disagree with church dogma.
While the Holocaust was indeed horrible, and even one person being murdered at the hands of the Nazi’s was appalling, so too is the Holocaust of the innocents condoned by the same people who decry the Jewish Holocaust, yet here, they are not only silent, but in support of it through voting for people who will expand it in large numbers. FYI, this bishop has NOT been brought back into the fold as a bishop, but as a catholic man with no power in the church. He is not the leader of a flock anymore, just catholic. If there can be “catholics for choice, catholics for women priests, and catholics for gay marriage, surely there is room for a catholic who denies the Holocaust was 6 million, hmmm?
Detraction of others is usually fueled by an outraged conscience of one's own; when the guilt is purged, so is the indignation
I hope I read you right on this sentence. I have thought it through carefully.
I stand corrected but I relate it to the case of David Irving, a historian. Irving served ten months in an Austrian prison in 2006. Besides revising the figures of six million dead downward, he was accused of "glorifying the NAZI party. He was ill advised to visit Austria.
Irving was only seven years old, when the war ended. He was in England throughout the war. I believe that it was 30,000 Jews who were identified in Austria and sent out on railway trains. A large number perished.
Simply put, it was the Austrians who were responsible, not Irving or his country. We now know the British were the losers after all, in WW2. Losers in what that country is today.
You know, even though I was pretty unimpressed with your original comment, I am glad that you are honorable enough to abstain from Communion while not in a state of grace, a concept too many Catholics fail to grasp. I'll remember you in my prayers, and hope you will look into this situation more carefully before you malign the Pope. The loudest Catholic voices against him are those who are the most liberal and the most radical and the most dangerous to the Faith. That should tell you all you need to know. They were waiting for a moment like this.
???
I don’t have a dog in the legal fight over David Irving, although I do think it’s remarkable how few defenders of free thought were willing to stick to their principles in his defence.
Freedom for the right kinds of free thought, in the end. Maybe the ACLU could publish a list of authors it won’t defend—some sort of Index, maybe...
I liked your sentence.
A fair point regarding the thoughtcrime laws of Austria and Germany; not that I was thinking of them at that moment.
My apologies in using it to illustrate thought crime, which exists in the very countries- Austria and Germany. Countries which brought us to the very fact of the holocaust.
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