Gesture
Normally I don't care about the internal affairs of a religion, but I really don't understand why the Pope, even in an attempt to deal with a schism, would rehabilitate a Holocaust denier.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:13 AM
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9 Comments:
Indeed. Particularly when the Pope himself is a former Hitler Youth member.
This action justifies the reference to the pontiff as an ex-Nazi (even if he was an unwilling one)
You would think that the church bigwigs would at least manage the public relations aspect a bit better other than to say the issue is "extraneous." Particularly harsh phrasing when talking about mass murder and an organization that is believed to have sat on its hands when it might have acted to prevent it.
The church could have pointed out that plenty of its members have plenty of crazy ideas that the church does not agree with or in this case (hopefully) finds abhorrent but that on matters of faith, it welcomes believers etc....
Unfortunately this is more of the same mindset that was evident when it lashed out journalists and lawyers for exposing the clergy sex abuse scandals and the hierarchy's enabling behavior.
Not being a Catholic, I may be off base, but I don't believe conferring sainthood on someone declares that they are particularly virtuous or good. I believe sainthood is granted to individuals the Church believes performed some number of miracles - indicating that they were specially chosen by God to serve some purpose. This is why, as incredibly virtuous as Mother Theresa appears to have been, she wasn't going to become a saint until it was determined that she had performed a few miracles.
Saints are not "perfect" people. Again, I'm no expert, but I think saints can be highly flawed individuals. Start with Saint Peter, who denied Christ 3 times. Saint Thomas disbelieved Jesus' divinity until it was deminstrated to him. I don't know what the miracles Pius the XII is said to have performed, but it really is not a political matter if the Catholic Church believes he was given miraculous powers, even if he made terrible mistakes as Pope.
I think there is some confusion as the linked story appear to have been edited into insensibility [another failure by the mainstream media].
I think (LA Guy correct me if I am wrong)LA Guy and the first 2 comments are referring to the Vatican's very recent rehabilitation of a schismatic bishop (Williamson of England] who denies the Holocaust (see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99855373&ft=1&f=2 for another link-NPR was the only one I could find quickly).
The linked article in the main post seems to leave out this out but leaves in a background reference to the Pius XII controversy to which Denver Guy is responding.
Just figured it out- the link in the main post is to page 3 in the story- go to page 1 of that story to get it all.
I'll fix the link. I linked to the last page I read.
He's not rehabilitated. He and the three other SSPX bishops are still suspended from all faculties: they may not ordain any bishops, priests, or deacons, and they have no authority in the church. The pope removed their excommunications, but that doesn't put them in full communion with the Catholic Church. It's just the first step.
The second step is for them to sit down with representatives of the Church and discuss their view of the Second Vatican Council. If they continue to reject Vatican II as a legitimate council, then reunion with the SSPX will remain impossible. (And if they accept it, that means, among other things, accepting its teaching about the Jews and members of other religions.)
The politics might have worked out differently if just one bishop was involved. But there are four bishops leading the SSPX. For the pope to say "I am removing the excommunications from three of you, but not from Bishop Williamson, because he's an anti-semite", would be pretty close to saying that being an anti-semite is an excommunicable offense. But it clearly isn't. (Nor is rape, or murder, or tax evasion. The basic idea of the Church is that sinners remain in the church and are given the opportunity to repent.)
Moreover, strictly speaking, someone could claim that "only 300,000 Jews died in the holocaust" because he truly cared about the Jewish people and thought that historians had made an error in calculation. Obviously we know that's absurd, and in my estimation, when someone denies or minimizes the Holocaust, it's a safe bet that they actually do believe in the Holocaust, but think it was a good thing. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Bishop Williamson claims to not hate Jews. So to argue that he should be excommunicated for that is to say that certain (clearly false) claims about history are ipso facto proof of malicious intent, and that that intent is punishable by excommunication. Again, I think that would be a bad idea.
If the SSPX is reunited with the Catholic Church, then the pope has to decide what to do with the four bishops. If he were to give Bishop Williamson any actual position in the Church at that point, then I would very much object, since that would be tantamount to a signal that his views were less than totally unacceptable.
Historical note: Marcel Lefebvre was the leader of the SSPX, and its sole bishop. The Vatican fought with him for years, and forbid him to ordain any other bishops. By 1988 he was 83 years old, and realized what the Vatican's game was: once he died, the SSPX would die with him. So he ordained four younger bishops to lead the SSPX after him, and at that point, by canon law, he and the four were excommunicated (because you may not ordain a new bishop without approval from the pope). Lefebvre died in 1991, and since then the SSPX has been lead by these four. Williamson is an antisemite and a conspiracy nut (he not only hates Jews and Freemasons, but also hates women who wear pants and The Sound of Music). The other three bishops don't say the crazy things he says -- but neither do they denounce him for it.
However, the rest of the SSPX members are not excommunicated, even though they are in a state of quasi-schism. (The canonical status of the society is actually unclear, but that has been true historically of all schisms. In 1530 no one was sure if Lutheranism was a new church or a reform movement within the Church.)
Personally, I think the best case scenario is that during negotiations with the Catholic Church, the SSPX splits in two, and one faction reunites with Catholicism. People such as Williamson (who has been saying for decades that the Freemasons and Jews and relativists and pagans hijacked Vatican II, and that Rome today is "under the power of Satan") are simply not going to rejoin today's Catholic Church under any circumstances.
Oh, he believes that the Bush Administration staged 9/11, too.
Hmmm. Maybe my prediction of an intra-SSPX split will come true more quickly than I expected.
Bishop Fellay (the nominal leader among the four bishops) has ordered Williamson to shut up about politics and history. Take a look at the comments on this blog entry of a blog sympathetic to the SSPX. Some of the commenters are very positive. Others (e.g., the 4th and 6th comments) are from folks who are already accusing Bishop Fellay of having "sold out"....
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