Posted on 01/28/2009 11:11:13 AM PST by forkinsocket
Pope Benedict XVI insisted on Wednesday that he felt "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews.
Benedict spoke days after his decision to revoke the excommunication of a bishop who says no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust provoked an outcry among Jews.
Benedict said Wednesday that he hoped the memory of the Holocaust would also serve as a warning against the "unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the hearts of men."
He spoke during a public audience at the Vatican.
The Vatican had already distanced itself from comments by bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II. The Holy See said that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson's views.
But on Tuesday the Chief Rabbinate of Israel broke off official ties with the Vatican indefinitely in protest over the Pope's decision to reinstate a known Holocaust denier.
The Chief Rabbinate also canceled a meeting scheduled for March 2-4 in Rome with the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
In a letter to the commission's chairman, Cardinal Walter Casper, Chief Rabbinate Director-General Oded Weiner wrote that "without a public apology and recanting, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue."
According to a Chief Rabbinate source, the letter was leaked to the Israeli press before it was received by the Vatican, which might further complicate relations between the Chief Rabbinate and the Catholic Church.
Last week, in an attempt to heal a decades-old rift between the Church and a group of ultra-conservative breakaway group of clergymen, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of four bishops. The four Catholic bishops belong to the Society of Saint Pius, which opposed changes in Catholic doctrine made in the 1960s under the Second Vatican Council.
One of them is Britain's Bishop Richard Williamson, who is being investigated for Holocaust denial in Germany, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
In a recent interview with Swedish state television, Williamson denied the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.
"I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers," Williamson told the interviewer.
"The historical evidence is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers," Williamson reportedly said.
He has also reportedly endorsed the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claimed that Jews are bent on world domination.
In a parallel development Tuesday, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the Society of Saint Pius, distanced himself from Williamson's comments.
Fellay said he has forbidden Williamson from speaking publicly about any historical or political questions and that his views "don't reflect in any way the position of the society."
"We ask forgiveness of the Supreme Pontiff and all the men of good will for the dramatic consequences of this act," Fellay said.
Haifa Chief Rabbi Shear Yishuv Cohen, chairman of the Rabbinate's commission, told The Jerusalem Post that he expected Williamson to publicly retract his statements before meetings could be renewed.
"I understand the Pope's efforts to bring about unity in the Church, but he should be aware that, indirectly, he hurt Jews. We expect him to do the best to repair the situation." Weiner's letter called Williamson's comments "odious" and "outrageous."
Rabbi David Rosen, Director of the American Jewish Committee's Department for Interreligious Affairs, and an advisory member of the Chief rabbinate's commission, said that the Pope's decision has created an atmosphere of "bad faith."
Rosen reckoned that the Pope's move to lift Williamson's excommunication, which was made public just days before International Holocaust Day, was made due to a lack of proper consultation.
"I tend to believe that the Pope simply was not informed about Williamson in advance and now he is in a very uncomfortable situation."
Rosen said that the Pope had a history of improper preparation, leading to large-scale blunders. He cited a speech made in Regensburg, Germany, in which he quoted a medieval emperor who called Islam "evil and inhuman," comments that sparked a wave of Islamic-led violence against Catholic churches around the world.
Rosen said that the Rabbinate expected the Pope to take tangible steps against Williamson.
"I don't think it is my place to tell the Church precisely what to do. But Williamson should be censured in some way or forced to retract his statements.
"Until that happens, we may be in contact with the Vatican on an individual level, but there will be no official meetings."
Wow, could he be any more of a nutjob?
>>Let’s say, after an Islamic dictator killed off half the world’s population of Catholics...
...that the Grand Mufti in Mecca then brought back into the fold an imam that said it never happened at all.<<
There is a bit of a difference. The Catholic Church had nothing to do with the killing of Jews. Many Priests, Nuns and even the Pope condemned the actions then worked to save those being killed. Do the Muslims have a Irena Sendler in their midst?
Would the Grand Mufti be able to say the same knowing that the Quran calls for non-Muslims to be a slave, a muslim or dead?
Sounds like a real piece of crap!
Israel expels Venezuela envoy
BBC | 28 January 2009 | Staff
Posted on 01/28/2009 11:04:51 AM PST by forkinsocket
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2173622/posts
And will Williamson remain a bishop, return to being a priest, or be defrocked?
In the sacramental sense, yes. Of course.
In the practical sense, I think not. In fact, I won't be too surprised if, should the bulk of SSPX formally reconcile with the Church, Williamson departs from SSPX and starts his own religion with himself at its head. It wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened, and he seems to have the right combination of nuttiness and arrogance. Of course, the alternative of obeying Fellay's order to STHU and ending his life in quiet obscurity (for the good of the order and of the Church) is also possible.
The big picture, here, is a lot bigger than one recalcitrant, illicitly consecrated, antisemitic nutcase.
The Holocaust is also a historical fact, and one much closer in history, much broader in scope, and therefore much easier to verify. A man who is either so poor in his understanding of history or so twisted that he would deny the widespread slaughter of the Jewish people has no business in a position of power in an organization that stands or falls on the basis of historical truth.
Reinstating Williamson is a massive blunder, and given Israel's situation--surrounded by enemies who deny the Holocaust but want to make another one happen--the rabbinate has every right and every responsibility to consider it a hostile act against the Jewish people.
Shalom.
"Deliberately"? You want us to take everything the Vatican does in the best possible light, but you cheerfully slander the Rabbinate at the drop of a hat?
I think you should apologize and rephrase.
No I'm not. I'm suggesting that some Jews have no other faith. And the Orthodox are the last I'd suspect of this.
So, you’re suggesting the Pope should have ignored the issue of reconciling the SSPX and left the excommunications in place, just to not look bad?
Shalom aleichem.
I don’t think anyone here is disputing the historicity of the Holocaust. Certainly I am not.
The Resurrection is the good news of man’s triumph over death in the divine man Jesus. It is the indispensable basis of Christian faith and hope. The Holocaust is equally real, but no faith relies upon it. Jews would have continued to be Jews if the Holocaust had never happened.
I think that a wiser course would have been to issue the reconciliation and a general excommunication of Holocaust deniers at the same time. And I think that the knee-jerk defense of the Vatican and pile-on to the Rabbinate demonstrated by some of the laity here doesn't help Jewish-Christian relations, and needs to be called out.
Understand, I like the current Pontiff. I do think that he made a misstep. I also think that if the Rabbinate responded any less strongly, the concerns of the Jewish people on this matter would be swept under the rug with a few platitudes.
Shalom.
Are you suggesting that anyone who denies the holocaust should be excommunicated? What about non-Catholics? What would happen to them?
In politics (and this is politics), appearance is everything. Like it or not, whether it was the intention or not (and I know that legitimizing denial was not the Pope's intent), accepting Williamson back into the fold will be read as a tacit acceptance of those who deny the slaughter of six million Jews by those who are in denial, not just by the Rabbinate. Since the current stance of the Palistinian Authority, Hamas, Iran, and most of the Muslim world is that the Holocaust never happened (though they think it's a good idea) and therefore Israel is illegitimate, the Pope's appearance of acceptance represents a danger to Israel's appearance of legitimacy, and therefore to her continued survival.
The Rabbinate would be irresponsible if they let this slide without the strongest possible protest, especially since the Vatican has been trying to position herself as a neutral arbiter of affairs in the Holy Land for several decades now.
Shalom.
I think you should apologize and rephrase.
Actually, people with charitable relations do take people's actions in the best possible light. In this case, it is simply not reasonable to interpret the excommunication as an endorsement of Williamson's wacky views when the Pope has specifically contradicted those wacky views countless times, and most recently again as a result of this brouhaha. The Pope and the Church in general are not Holocaust deniers, and as the Church made clear in the Vatican II magisterial document Nostra Aetate, are not anti-Semitic and reject any doctrine of collective guilt. Given the above, I feel it must be a deliberate desire to slander the Pope and the Church for the Chief Rabbi to treat them as if this action shows they were endorsing Holocaust denial. Neither the excommunication nor the lifting thereof clearly have ANYTHING to do with endorsing Holocause denial. Having nutty views on historical matters not part of the deposit of the faith is not an excommunicable offense.
See posts #33 and 35.
Yes. Quite aside from the moral issue (denying the Holocaust amounts to bearing false witness against 16 million people), a blanket excommunication of all Holocaust deniers would send a message that the Vatican will not countenance the perversion of history by its members. This would have the not-incidental benefit of sending a message to the leaders of the Middle-east as well.
What about non-Catholics? What would happen to them?
Non-Catholics are obviously out of the Pope's chain-of-command, and therefore not his responsibility.
Shalom.
I’ve got a hard time agreeing that the deniers should have religious sanctions against them.
What about those who think that 9/11 was staged?
What about those who think the world is flat.
What about those who think the sun revolves around the earth?
And those who don’t believe in the Armenian genocide?
Should they be excommunicated?
But the Rabbinate also has the right to break off relations with those whose decisions empower and encourage Israel's enemies.
Shalom.
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