The Catholic founder of AQ does not “spew anti-Catholicism.” The approach is different no doubt, and not one that I think is beneficial much of the time, but charity and truth trump those concerns. If we have Jesuits and Franciscans Maronites, Ukrainians, etc we can have the SSPXers. I am very glad to hear the website has been scrubbed.
Some seem to be skeptical; I suppose that’s not unreasonable on some level. A child’s first letters it makes with a parent’s hand are not truly the child’s; in time, the child can write poetry. Please give it a chance. It may not work out for all of them but the Holy Father nor Cardinal Castrillon are showing great example of patience and charity and some justice as well.
Faith and Morality suppose History and politics (which is “social morality” and has nothing to do with political parties). Separating Faith from politics is the essence of liberal Catholicism. Moreover, historical facts are the basis of Catholic Faith: for instance, if Jesus’ birth, death and Resurrection were not historical facts, our Faith would collapse. Jesus was born under Augustus’ reign and died under Pontius Pilatus’ authority. Similarly, exterminationism is the basis of the holocaustical religion, which intends to replace the Holocaust of Jesus, Redeemer of mankind, by the Holocaust of the Jewish people.
2) It is impossible to restore Faith in its integrity without restoring social or political life (“Restaurare omnia in Christo”, was Saint Pius X’s motto) and without having an historical knowledge based on facts and not myths, especially if those are instruments to propose a new theological concept (Holocaust of the Jews) and to unhinge the traditional Catholic concept (Holocaust of the Christ).
3) Holocaust was the basis of Vatican II’s new doctrine about deicide (“Nostra aetate”), of Paul VI’s reform of Good Friday’s prayer (NOM, 1970), of John Paul II’s theory about “the Old Covenant which was never cancelled” (in Magonza, 1981). Moreover, the “theology of God’s silence” was born following reflections on Holocaust, as it is presented by the “exterminationists.” Some theologists (following Hans Jonas’ and Giovanni Battista Metz’s steps) deny Providence and God’s goodness and call into question His existence because God allowed Holocaust. Holocaust is for talmudic Judaism a “metahistorical absolute”, a sacrificial act which has a saving value. After the destruction of the Temple (70 AD), rabbinical exegesis replaced Mosaic Faith in a personal Messiah by Faith in a “collective Messiah”, who is the Jewish people. Christianism cannot accept this sacralization of the Jewish Holocaust, which would be the denying of its own identity and Faith: the only Holocaust is the Sacrifice of Christ. Admitting another saving and “metahistorical” Holocaust besides Jesus’ would be an act of apostasy. Unfortunately, the new Judaic conciliar and postconciliar theology of the council grew in a progressist Catholic environment, we hope it did not pollute the environment bound to Tradition. Therefore, the Priest’s duty is to warn the faithful.
4) It does not seem me a sin or a breaking to express one’s own opinion about historical validity of a vast literature concerning the “re-examination” (and not “negation”) of Holocaust’s thesis, introduced by the pro-Soviet Gromiko in 1948. Many historians, in Israel as well, assert there is no historical certainty about a IIIrd Reich’s plan to destroy the Jewish people with gas chambers. Of course, there were deportations to concentration camps, where many Jews were killed. Killing an innocent is a crime and a serious sin against the fifth commandment. Bishop Richard Williamson expressed it clearly during the interview, he said nothing contrary to Faith and Morality, outlined only his opinion, which does not discredit the integral Catholic doctrine. If the bishop as a bishop talks about Faith and Morality, with an ecclesiastic authority, it does not mean he could not talk , without an ecclesiastic authority, about History or social morality. Moreover, if Bishop Williamson’s positions or, better said, opinions about the Holocaust do not reflect FSSPX’s opinions, so I wonder: in such a case, if it is lawful for the Fraternity to talk about History or politics, why is it not the same for Bishop Williamson?
5) It is at least naive to deceive oneself into believing a small “mea culpa” (one hoped they came to an end with John Paul’s death) could appease the anger and the hatred of Judaism against Christ and His Church. In fact, the chief rabbi of Rome (Riccardo Di Signi) said at once that Bishop Fellay’s apologies (who only talked about “inappropriateness”) were completely insufficient and irrelevant. Thus it is necessary to re-examine the old theological positions against Judaism which, as Jules Isaac said (belittling the Holocaust), deny religious freedom (ecumenism, negation of the deicide, appropriateness of the Saint Pius V Mass), as the Italian rabbi reaffirmed in 2007. Then Di Segni asked the FSSPX not to limit itself to silence the one “negationist” bishop (who in reality is not negationist), but to make clear its very thought about Vatican II’s doctrine and about Judaism. The very problem, according to Di Segni, is the theological position of the FSSPX about Judaism, and if it is not made clear (that is, if a new position is accepted, as Bishop Lefebvre’s positions about ecumenism and deicid are clear), the question remains open. We should not to imagine to calm down a lion who wants to waste (his prey) just by giving him a little ball of meat. Di Segni will accuse us of anti-Semitism, as he did with Bishop Williamson.
6) If Jesus Christ had not made inappropriate sermons (“you whose father is the devil”, Jean, VIII, 48), he would have died in His bed and would not have accomplished the Father’s will. Saint Paul advises to “preach appropriately and inappropriately”. Saint Thomas, in the theological Sum, writes “it is necessary to preach the truth to the Jews, without being afraid of irritating them, as Jesus who taught publicly the truth which they hated, and reproached them for their vice, without being afraid of irritating them” (Saint Thomas, III, 42, 2). The Apostles were “happy to suffer persecutions” from the Sanhedrin because they preached about Christ crucified by the High Priests and they were not frightened of disrepute, on the contrary they loved it.
7) Cardinal Bagnasco was more firm and fair, he talked about a campaign orchestrated by the media. He did not re-excommunicate anyone.
8) I hope these facts will not lead to new divides. Perhaps a greater doctrinal firmness and a real brotherly charity would have saved what a harshness of heart and a theological-historical-political weakness seem to have endangered. The responsible one does not seem me to be Bishop Williamson: father Reginaldo Garrigou-Lagrange wrote “liberals are broad-minded in doctrine because they do not believe firmly, and pitiless in practice, because they do not really love.”
9) Endly Benedict XVI intervened (this morning) in defence, unfortunately, of the Holocaust, and he told that the normalisation of the relations with the “traditionalists” depends on their whole acceptance of Vatican II. Perhaps all these events have be useful in taking away all ambiguity, the Catholics bound to Tradition know that, if they do not accept “Nostra aetate” and the postconciliar “Judaeo-christianism”, there will be no room for them.
10) Let God give us the courage – in this sad time of “universal apostasy” – to maintain the Faith in the Holocaust of Christ, the only real Redeemer of mankind.
Don Curzio Nitoglia
28th January 2009