Posted on 01/30/2009 10:12:00 AM PST by NYer
Another member of the SSPX has decided to share his thoughts about the Holocaust with the world:
In the wake of a global furor triggered by Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to lift the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops, including one who cast doubt on the Holocaust, another leader in the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has questioned whether the Nazis used gas chambers for anything other than “disinfection,” and said that people who hold revisionist views on the Holocaust are not anti-Semites.You can read more, and the full translation of his interview, at the NCR link.
Fr. Floriano Abrahamowicz, a pastor and spokesperson for the Society of St. Pius X in northeastern Italy, also referred to Jews as “a people of deicide,” referring to the death of Christ, and suggested that the Jewish Holocaust has been “exalted” over what he called “other genocides,” such as the Allied bombing of German cities and the Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip.
On the other hand, Abrahamowicz insisted that the traditionalist movement founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is not “anti-Semitic.” Among other things, Abrahamowicz said, he himself has Jewish roots on his father’s side.
The comments came in a Jan. 29 interview with the Italian newspaper La Tribuna di Treviso.
Eeek!
For all values of "with" such that "with" = "without."
There are also midrashim that identify Cham/Kena`an with black skin, thick lips, kinky hair, etc., based on Cham's behavior on the Tevah (Ark). There was quite a stir among traditional insular Orthodox Jews when a literal descendant of Cham from East Africa was elected President.
"Chosen People" doesn't mean good or bad. It means chosen. They were chosen by God to reveal His Son, His character, His teachings, and His plan for His people. He could have just as easily chosen the Chinese or Indians.
It is plain from the reading of the TaNa"KH that Israel are the "good guys." Suddenly in the NT and traditional chr*stianity they become the exact opposite, the "bad guys." That's a very big problem.
As a Christian, we take the Old Testament as Gospel along with the New Testament. Contrary to some opinions, the OT completely agrees with the NT. God is never changing and there is no plan "B". Jesus wasn't an "excuse" to start a new religion, He was the fulfillment of OT prophesy. Jesus was born Jewish, lived as a Jew, and died as a Jew. God is still the Father of Jews. We, as his children have been "grafted" in, or "adopted" into the family of God. We are not separate from God, but a part of Him. I'm sure you have been preached to about the importance of accepting Jesus as Messiah, but your salvation is not my responsibility. As a Christian, I am to declare the "Good News". What you do with it is up to you and your God. The NT tells of "perfected" Jews( remember the brewhaha over Ann Coulter comments to a Jew on MSNBC). Christians are perfected Jews. The "Jews for Jesus" people prefer to be called "believers". All they have done is accept the Bible and it's prophesy. They are complete because they have accepted Jesus as King of the Jews. Many Christians reach different things about th fate of the Jews, but I believe the Jews will be left behind after the Rapture of the church. When they see the prophesies come true, they will repent and become believers. The tribes will produce the 144,000 preachers( not the Jehova Wittneses) and they will preach the gospel on Earth after the church is gone.
So what happens to Israel and the Jews is VERY central to a TRUE Christian. The Jew haters, are not Christian, period. They hate their own family and the family of God. They might as well strap on a belt and blow up a bus.
As Christians today, these tenents are not spoken of much anymore. That leaves a bunch of interpretations out there with no leadership.
But you're a philo-Semitic Biblicist chr*stian, which is a very recent development in chr*stian history. For most of chr*stian history chr*stians had the same opinions of Jews that Bp. Williamson does. And most of these chr*stians never accepted the "old testament" as anything other than a string of chr*stological allegories. Most Catholics and Orthodox on this forum vociferously reject the notion that these Biblical events actually happened (especially if they "violate the laws of nature").
The SSPX website, THE MYSTERY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN HISTORY . I wasn't suggesting it was mainstream Catholic thought, in my post 47 noted is as the type of theological issue that might have to be dealt with. You might note the views on Jews there, which are more problematical than this one.
Isaac isn't worth arguing since, but I drew that from Ishmael, the first to be born and the natural offspring of the slave, Hagar, represents the Synagogue of the Jews, which glories in its descent from the flesh of Abraham. But Isaac, born miraculously of the sterile Sarah according to a Promise of God, represents the Church which, like Isaac, is born by faith in the Promise of Christ. I can see where that could be as easily read a miraculously in the sense she was able to bear children by virtue of a miracle, my conclusion came from the contrast with the flesh of Abraham/
“So you’re saying that religious truth claims are purely subjective and unverifiable? Okay. Thanks for confiding that”
No I believe Jesus Christ is the Son Of God. His Gospel is verifiable and clear. Thank you too and have a good day.
As an allegory, it is possible to say something like “see, it is possible to descend from someone in the physical line, but have less filial rights than someone chosen spiritually, like Jacob was preferred to Esau”. That is using the Bible as a source of general guidance. However, the Christian teaching is that the literal story is the historical fact, just like it would be taught in Judaism.
I think you’ve pegged it.
Are you saying there are no Jews in Hell? I don't know of any true Christians that make Jews the bad guys. There are some Ayrian Nation groups that burn crosses and carry Bibles that is true.
....." But you're a philo-Semitic Biblicist chr*stian"....
Wow, I don't even know what that is. That is why I believe the Bible instead of traditions of men. This is why you see many Catholics here defending the pope, instead of the Truth. If the pope says so, so be it. What I have said here is that he screwed up. It is dangerous to let these people back into the church if they preach heresy. Many here are more interested in protecting the Catholic Church than the Truth. They brought us the cover ups in the alter boys scandals and other CRAP. Same people in denial about what is going on. Yeah, everything is fine and the pope is always right. As for me, I will seek the Truth.
Thank for the link. I am suprised you chose the passage on the two sets of brothers, as in context it is fairly orthodox. It analogizes the concept of spiritual adoption without actually claiming that the Jews are NOT of Isaac and Jacob. My previous remark is more to the interpretation that you were giving than to the excerpt itself.
I did not read it closely, but some of the conclusions toward the end cannot please a Jew, and they are unorthodox. It is not the position of the Church that the Jews and Christians should not mix, not have equal civil rights, or that Christianity and Judaism are in some kind of cosmic unending struggle. I read the fathers of the Church daily, and I do come across some strong language, but it is always confined to the historical conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees and the persecution of the Church immediately after that.
Whether or not Frs. Michael Crowdy & Kenneth Novak are at liberty to express their private exegesis as Catholics is not for me to say, but I can see how it could be problematic.
Good post. As much as we hate to admit it, we too subscribe to a politically correct version of history with certain topics off limits, unexamined critically. Third Reich, Third Rail!
Would someone please clarify this for me? Who are the Sedevacantists, the SSPX or the SSPV?
Yeah, everything is fine and the pope is always right.
I hope this is intended as an imprecise caricature. The pope is not always right and the current Pope would be the first to say so. Popes can and do screw up. I tire of saying it but Dante's Inferno is thick with popes.
There's enough controversy about what we actually teach. It gets tedious to have to explain that a lot of what we are accused of is not what we teach or think.
I think you misconstrue the use of John and the Ante-Nicene fathers of “the Jews” when they really mean the factions earlier Gospels called “the Pharisees.” The Pharisees did not own Judaism, but after the twin shocks of Christian revelation and the disaster of the Jewish War and the sack of Jerusalem—which destroyed the credit of the Saducees, the hard-core deniers of Christ’s divinity were the only ones left who at once BOTH admitted the validity of the Hebrew Scriptures BUT ALSO denied Messianic status to Jesus.
It was the Pharisees who broke fellowship with the Christians—many or most of whom were Jews who did not believe that they had created a new religion by recognising Jesus as the Christ, any more than the later pharisaical Jews who recognised bar-Kochba as the Christ believed THEY were breaking with Scripture and the history of Judaism.
The enmity with the “Jews” then, as understood by the Church Fathers, is a dispute between factions of fundamentally one unique chain of covenants, the “Jews” being those who accepted all the previous ones but who would not admit the final perfect covenant for all mankind.
Absolutely. There is an alarming amount of anger. My sister was at the March for Life in DC, and sure enough, there was a sign proclaiming that Norvus Ordo attending Catholics were going to hell. It never occured to me that the March for Life would be a good place to whale on people's liturgical choices.
But that's a perfect example. They don't realize that the "more Catholic than the Pope" stance is essentially protestant, as well as the kind of thing that makes me want to rule out pathology as the first explanation. (and the second, and third ...)
That is just messed up.
Okay class, let's open our Summas to the articles on Temperance ....
You wrote:
“I can’t imagine what the Pope was thinking when he deciding to start embracing this band of nutcases.”
I can. I think it went something like this:
“I will be merciful and lift the excommunications even though they don’t deserve it. After all, Christ has forgiven all the world’s sins - including my own - and we certainly didn’t deserve that.”
I'm VERY good at that.
The fact still remains that these people shouldn't have been allowed back in the church if they haven't changed their views.
Were they booted for their crazy anti-semitism? I thought it was for getting behind some unauthorized consecrations. My recollection was that the leadership hung back for a really, really long time but then excommunicated them (which is not strictly speaking "booted") because of the consecration.
I suppose SOME will bury their heads in the sand. Personally I'd like to have some sense of what Papa Ben thought he was doing and whay his reasons were. I'm certainly very concerned, upset, knickers-in-a-twist, about this, but I'm not ready to say he blew it.
As for being embarrassed, we've been embarrassed since before Peter looked up and said, "I do not know the man." Embarrassed is salutory. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.
You wrote:
“If the pope doesn’t nip this in the bud RIGHT NOW, you will see a schism form very quickly. It isn’t a small matter. This is a HUGE mistake.”
No, actually the pope isn’t making any mistake at all. Even if SSPX were filled with anti-semites (and there are plenty in SSPX) lifting the excommunications was still a great thing to do. Bishop Williamson simply doesn’t matter. Liberals will use his idiotic comments to attack the pope and Church. So what else is new?
There will be no new schism from this. Oh, some so-called Catholics might leave and use the SSPX as their excuse, but it will just be an excuse from liberals and only liberals will be fooled by it.
Don’t be fooled.
The anti-VIIers are my older son's favorite show at the March for Life. Great for comic relief. He almost missed them this year; I had to point them out. Down to one lonely sign.
sitetest
This is indeed the stated teaching of the Catholic Church. It has been repeated many times. Here for example is an encyclical by Pope Benedict XIV (the same pope who wrote an encyclical condemning usury):
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Ben14/b14aquo.htm
We adopt the same norm of action as did the Roman Pontiffs who were Our venerable predecessors. Alexander III forbade Christians under heavy penalties to accept permanent domestic service under Jews. "Let them not continually devote themselves to the service of Jews for a wage." He sets out the reason for this in the decretal Ad haec, de Judaeis. "Because Jewish ways do not harmonize in any way with ours and they could easily turn the minds of the simple to their own superstitions and faithlessness through continual intercourse and unceasing acquaintance." Innocent III, after saying that Jews were being received by Christians into their cities, warns that the method and condition of this reception should guard against their repaying the benefit with evildoing. "They on being admitted to our acquaintance in a spirit of mercy, repay us, the popular proverb says, as the mouse in the wallet, the snake in the lap and fire in the bosom usually repay their host." The same Pope stated that it was fitting for Jews to serve Christians rather than vice versa and added: "Let not the sons of the free woman be servants of the sons of the handmaid; but as servants rejected by their lord for whose death they evilly conspired, let them realize that the result of this deed is to make them servants of those whom Christ's death made free," as we read in his decretal Etsi Judaeos. Likewise in the decretal Cum sit nimis under the same heading de Judaeis, et Saracenis, he forbids the promotion of Jews to public office: "forbidding Jews to be promoted to public offices since in such circumstances they may be very dangerous to Christians." Innocent IV, also, in writing to St. Louis, King of France, who intended to drive the Jews beyond the boundaries of his kingdom, approves of this plan since the Jews gave very little heed to the regulations made by the Apostolic See in their regard: "Since We strive with all Our heart for the salvation of souls, We grant you full power by the authority of this letter to expel the Jews, particularly since We have learned that they do not obey the said statutes issued by this See against them"
And to show that this was not a new or eccentric opinion, he quoted some of the many previous papal bulls that had said the same thing:
It is enough to peruse decretals with the heading de Judaeis, et Saracenis; the constitutions of Our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs Nicholas IV, Paul IV, St. Pius V, Gregory XIII and Clement VIII are readily available in the Roman Bullarium. To understand these matters most clearly, Venerable Brothers, you do not even need to read those. You will recall the statutes and prescripts of the synods of your predecessors; they always entered in their constitutions every measure concerning the Jews which was sanctioned and ordained by the Roman Pontiffs. I read the fathers of the Church daily, and I do come across some strong language, but it is always confined to the historical conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees and the persecution of the Church immediately after that.
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