Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the new apostolic nuncio to the United States, is pictured at his residence at the Vatican Oct. 20. He succeeds the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Posted on 10/20/2011 7:46:30 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Jewish groups have called on the Vatican to suspend reconciliation talks with a traditionalist group after one of its bishops argued that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus.
"Comments like these take us back decades to the dark days before there was a meaningful and mutually respectful dialogue between Jews and Roman Catholics," Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Oct. 19.
"We call upon the Catholic Church to suspend negotiations with extremist Catholic tendencies until it is clear that these groups show a clear commitment to tackling anti-Semitism within their ranks," he said.
He was referring to comments by Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of St. Pius X, who said recently in his online newsletter that the killing of Jesus "was truly deicide, the killing of God" and that "only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide" because they clamored for his crucifixion.
Bishop Williamson criticized modern church leaders who have moved away from that position, and said: "Until (the Jews) convert at the end of the world, as the church has always taught they will do, they seem bound to choose to go on acting, collectively, as enemies of the true Messiah."
Bishop Williamson, one of four bishops whose excommunication was lifted in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, became well-known at that time for his remarks denying the Holocaust. He has since been told by the Vatican that he will not be welcomed into full communion in the church until he disavows and publicly apologizes for those comments.
Meanwhile, Bishop Williamson has grown increasingly estranged from the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the head of the society, recently told Bishop Williamson to stop publishing his online newsletter.
In New York, the Anti-Defamation League called on the Vatican to publicly repudiate Bishop Williamson's remarks.
"Bishop Williamson's remarks are further evidence that the Society of St. Pius X has no place in the mainstream church," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director.
"It is hard for us to imagine how a congregation that does not accept fundamental church teachings against anti-Semitism, and promotes classic anti-Jewish canards, can be accepted back into the fold," he said.
In its landmark 1965 document on non-Christian religions, "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican Council affirmed that "though Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion."
The document said that although the church is the new "people of God," the Jews "should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed." The text also underlined the church's "common heritage" with the Jews.
Ping!
I think the Jewish leaders in question need an “irrelevant nutcase” filter on their outrage machine.
So what?
Where would Christianity be if Jesus had not been crucified in exactly the manner the prophesies said He would be?
Actually, I killed Jesus.
When and your descendants have faced systematic persecution for 1,700 years, you can tell the “Jooooz” to not pay attention to a Catholic “irrelevant nutcase” - his kind of talk led to the murder of countless Jews by “outraged” mobs.
He’s an irrelevant nutcase.
Amen. The Jews are no more Deicides than I am. And no less.
He’s an irrelevant nutcase.
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If he’s such an irrelevant nutjob, why in God’s name is the Vatican so interested in bringing him back into the fold? This attempt at reconciliation has been going on now, for what?, a couple of years now?
Ok everyone one more time-Jesus was CRUSIFIED(sp?). The Romans CRUSIFIED people NOT THE JEWS. The JEWS STONED people. OH and Caiaphas and his Roman Appointed toadies were probably not much for Jews either. If they were then they would have NEVER accepted the Roman Appointment.
Rome wants SSPX to come back into the fold. What Williamson does is his own business. I get the feeling he says stuff like this at least partly to make reconciliation impossible. Fellay should think seriously about showing Williamson the door, IMO.
He is only reiterating what the Catholic Church has taught for 2000 years. How is that irrelevant?
We are all responsible for his death by our sins.
It is a wonderful and merciful God that sacrificied for us and we are so unworthy.
While many Jews have become Catholic, I have always wanted to ask my Jewish friends have they considered accepting Jesus as our Lord and God?
I guess I would like to ask my non-Catholic Christian friends why they belong to a church established by man rather than the original ONE HOLY CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC Church established by Jesus Christ?
I would ask my Catholic friends if they fully appreciate the sacrifice of the Mass and our ability to receive the body and blood of Christ? Do they view Mass as an obligation or as an opportunity to be with Jesus Christ?
I think you are misconstruing Tax-Chick's post. SSPXer Williamson is a schismatic and an irrelevant nutcase, and, incidentally an imbecile. He has been charged, I believe, by Germany for his expression of his opinions that the Holocaust never occurred. He is a source of great humiliation to his fellow schismatics of SSPX. He is not alone in that respect as their Bishop de Mallerais has a mouth on him towards John Paul II that makes Williamson seem mild as an irrelevant nutcase and imbecile. John Paul II excommunicated these two and about four others of their cult including its founder Marcel LeFebvre. They are crazies who assume that somehow pope-bashing and making a career of offensive remarks is "traditional."
Benedict XVI is the universal pastor of the Church and, although, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II, he signed off on the original excommunications as did Bernardin Cardinal Gantin of Dahomey who was then head of the Congregation for Bishops, Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunications but not (as I understand it) the Declaration of Schism (also by John Paul II). In these "discussions," Benedict XVI seems to show near infinite patience with the impertinent pretensions of these malcontents such as their current ringleader Fellay who presumes to "instruct" the pope as to the content of Catholicism in a vain attempt to "correct" the pope. One suspects that SSPX is likely to remain in the outer darkness where they appear to belong in spite of incessant breathless propaganda from them about how the Vatican will surrender to them at any moment.
I can certainly assure you that neither Tax-Chick nor I nor anyone having any business calling him/herself a Catholic on FR or elsewhere wants people of the Jewish Faith or of Jewish ancestry persecuted in the slightest, much less systematically, much less for 1700 years. I would be willing to offer leadership to an outraged mob of Catholics in your defense or that of your co-religionists if ever again you should be so persecuted and I would say confidently that we have got your back. If they want to get to you, they will have to come through us. I suspect that plenty of other Christians here and elsewhere feel the same way. One Holocaust was more than enough.
I acknowledge that there have been many shameful episodes of anti-Semitism in history and all too many by Catholics. OTOH, I am partially English and I do not defend the behavior of the likes of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, partially German and despise Hitler and Bismarck, partially Scottish but loathe those in league with Edward I (Longshanks), partially Irish and am repulsed by the Castle Irish and those who "drank the soup" during the famine.
Give us credit that we often learn from history and that one important thing we learn is not to repeat the worst of it.
May G-d bless you and yours!
1. We Catholics worship Jesus (a Jew) as the second Person of the Holy Trinity, i.e. as G-d. If Williamson doesn't get that, he is no Catholic and no Christian at all. Any purported Christian of whatever denomination making anti-Semitic noise is a schizophrenic, charitably speaking. Without Judaism and Jews, there could be no Christianity.
2. Jews generally have gotten a verrrry bum rap over the misbehavior of Annas and Caiphas and that little mob demanding Christ's crucifixion. One of those two, informed by Pontius Pilate that he found no guilt in Christ, replied by saying: Let His Blood be upon us and upon our children." No one died and left those two in charge of calling down punishment upon anyone but themselves personally and the mopes in the crowd who voluntarily agreed with them. They had no authority to speak for their own children much less those of all the pious Jews all over Jerusalem who were preparing their Passover Seder and attending to their ordinary obligations in life. The Blood Libel is/was an historical outrage and Christians need to concede that it is.
Again, may G-d bless you and yours!
No. Anyone in schism is automatically excommunicated. SSPX bishops have always denied the charge of schism and Pope Benedict's disavowal of the excommunications provides acknowledgment that their is no schism. Benedict's admission that the Latin Mass was never suspended, despite the words and actions of previous liberal popes and bishops, shows that the SSPX was correct in that regard as well.
I acknowledge that there have been many shameful episodes of anti-Semitism in history and all too many by Catholics. OTOH, I am partially English and I do not defend the behavior of the likes of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, partially German and despise Hitler and Bismarck, partially Scottish but loathe those in league with Edward I (Longshanks), partially Irish and am repulsed by the Castle Irish and those who "drank the soup" during the famine.
Is their any more historic guilt you wish to pile on the heads of Catholics? One never sees Jews or Muslims slobbering with such self-abasement about their misdeeds against Christianity. Get a grip.
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