Rabbi Speaks on Pope Benedict Controversy: Leftist Catholics Using Jews to Attack the Pope

LifeSiteNews ^ | February 10, 2009 | John-Henry Westen

[GonzoII]

Tuesday February 10, 2009

---

Rabbi Speaks on Pope Benedict Controversy: Leftist Catholics Using Jews to Attack the Pope

Says, "church hierarchy should take strong action in dealing with this type of insurrection"

John-Henry Westen
February 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A prominent Jewish Rabbi who represents over 1000 Rabbis in North America spoke to LifeSiteNews.com last week regarding the recent controversy around Pope Benedict XVI and his lifting the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX).  Rabbi Yehuda Levin says he sees the media attack on Pope Benedict as being more about the influx of morally conservative Catholics into the mainstream of the Catholic Church, rather than anything else, including the holocaust denial of one of the SSPX bishops, which has received widespread media coverage.

The SSPX faithful, in addition to offering the Mass in its ancient Latin form, are also known for their orthodoxy on moral matters. The mainstreaming of such Catholics into the Church would boost the numbers of pro-life and pro-family Catholics significantly, especially in Europe.

Rabbi Levin said that he believed that the Vatican has dealt appropriately with the controversial comments by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. However, he said that while this will will put to rest the "ridiculous" suggestions that the Pope is anti-Semitic, it will not end the controversy.

"At this point there has been a wonderfully strong renunciation of Bishop Williamson by the Vatican and therefore the Jewish community from their statements seems to be satisfied that things are going in the right way," he said.  "This is just going to increase the frenzy of left wing Catholics, whether outside the Church or inside, because they now have to carry the ball in terms of keeping the attack on the Pope going."

German dissident priest-theologian Hans Kung is one such left-wing Catholic, who recently suggested in an article that Barack Obama would make a better Pope than Benedict. Writing in the German publication Sueddeutsche, Kung expressed his wish that Obama were the Pope.  "The mood in the church is oppressive, reforms are paralyzed, and the church in crisis," he said. "Benedict is unteachable in matters of birth control and abortion, arrogant and without transparency and restrictive of freedom and human rights." 

Immediately after the media brought to light the comments by Bishop Williamson on the holocaust, the Pope - who was not previously aware of Williamson's position - denounced his statements; the head of the SSPX did the same.  The Vatican insisted that the Bishop would have to, in order to be a Bishop in good standing within the Church, "distance himself, in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner, from his positions" regarding the Jewish holocaust.  Moreover, the SSPX removed Williamson from his post as head of their seminary in Argentina.

The mainstream media was slow to report on all these latter details and so, for a time, Jewish groups continued to express outrage at the decision to lift the excommunications of the bishops.  Last week, as news of the Pope's reaction got out, those same Jewish groups let up on their pressure, pressure which was used by liberal Catholics within the Church to criticize the Pope. 

Two liberal German theologians called on the Pope to resign over the affair. Several bishops also criticized the Pope, notably Cardinal Karl Lehmann, a former chairman of the German bishops' conference.  In contrast, several faithful Bishops thanked the Pope for his action to reach out to the SSPX to foster unity, and also criticized Bishop Williamson for his remarks.

Rabbi Levin suggests that there is a "silver lining" within the crisis.  "It has now become very clear, for all to see, the extreme danger that having some who hold high positions in the church seeking to destroy their own church and attack their own pope."  He added: "The silver lining is that its now that the battle lines have been drawn."

"The remedy, I believe," said the Rabbi, "is that church hierarchy should take strong action in dealing with this type of insurrection."  He added: "This should be a significant signal to the Pope, that it is absolutely essential that the right people be appointed in every place all over the world.   And church faithful need to have unambiguous leadership that's totally in line with traditional church teaching." 

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021007.html

---

Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.

[GonzoII]

"This should be a significant signal to the Pope, that it is absolutely essential that the right people be appointed in every place all over the world. And church faithful need to have unambiguous leadership that's totally in line with traditional church teaching."

[Natural Law]

The left has suffered tremendous defeats at the hands of the Pope and his “nonexistent” divisions. It was, after all, the Pope who kicked over the first domino (Poland) that brought down the Soviet empire. They are in a full out assault on the moral authority of the Catholic Church. All one needs to to to understand their fear is to realize that there are 80 million Catholics in the US and that if they all voted along the moral teachings of the Church would instantly shift the political power to the right. Overnight the states of CA, NM, MO, LA, IA, MN, WI, MI, PA, DE, RI, NY, NJ, MA and CT would become red states.

[maryz]

Rabbi Levin has a blog: http://rabbilevin.blogspot.com/. He is the spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, the oldest Orthodox Jewish Rabbinic organization in the country.

[hlmencken3]

Rabbi Yehudah Levin is not associated with the much more well-known (but similarly named) Orthodox Union. The recognizable OU’s rabbinic organization is the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America). It’s a very important distinction!

[GonzoII]

It’s a very important distinction!

Okay.

Have they or would they weigh in on this?

[rangeryder]

Hans Kung has long been a serious internal nemesis of the Catholic Church. He strongly disliked Pope John XXIII because of his traditional ideals. Yet, he disliked the Roman Curia even more, because he felt that the Curia had influence over the Popes and could force the Popes to compromise on "important" liberal issues up for debate. Once, Kung was asked if he would like to be a member of the Curia, and he replied, (paraphrase), "no, that would be to sell my soul". This is why Kung so hates Pope Benedict XVI, Benedict has turned out to be far more traditional than most Catholics expected, and far less influenced by the Curia than Kungw. In 1979 Kung was banned from teaching at any Catholic University due to his denial of Papal Infallibility, (the Pope's final word on matters of faith and morals, that is to say, salvation, is considered to be protected by the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church, in order to prevent deadly doctrinal errors in God's One True Church).

Kung has long been at odds with the Vatican, and why he has not been excommunicated for his heritical teachings is a mystery to me. There is precious little orthodoxy in his teaching, but unlike the apostate Luther, he doesn't have the gulliones to just leave the Church and go found his own. Maybe he just feels he can do more damage from within.

[hlmencken3]

I don’t believe they would weigh in on this at all. ‘The Rav’ Soloveitchik, in the famous essay “Confrontation” prohibited interfaith dialog.

The RCA does list Policies & Positions publicly on their website.

Their website is

http://www.rabbis.org/about_us.cfm

where they emphasize

...The RCA includes rabbis who have been ordained by many dozens of yeshivot and prominent rabbinic personalities. During its many decades, it has been led by outstanding rabbinic personalities.

Most notable and distinguished was the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, guiding spirit and mentor to the RCA until his death in 1993.

The RCA has been an important partner with many Jewish organizations, including Yeshiva University and RIETS in New York, Beth Medrash L’Torah in Chicago, The Beth Din of America, The Orthodox Union (of which it is the rabbinic authority), The Chief Rabbinate of Israel, various Israeli governmental agencies and offices, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Religious Zionists of America, the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish Welfare Board, the Memorial Foundation, and a variety of rabbinic groups and organizations, including Chief Rabbinates, all around the world...

[vox_freedom]

Thank you for posting this article. It is nice and refreshing to see a prominent rabbi supported Pope Benedict XVI.