It's A Start
The Pope has condemned Holocaust denial, and said that the un-excommunicated (re-communicated?) bishops don't get full re-admittance without accepting Vatican II, which purged a lot of anti-semitism from church doctrine.
posted by QueensGuy @ 5:58 AM
6 Comments:
As a technical matter, Vatican II while addressing anti-semitism did not really address Holocaust denial.
That being said, 2000 years of entitled supremacy can lead to extreme acts of blindness to public relations.
Exactly correct. That's why I phrased it that way, and said that it's a start.
I'm curious. What do you think the pope should have done three weeks ago?
In Germany, holocaust denial is a crime. Yet a person who has been convicted of holocaust denial does not lose their right to due process in any future criminal proceedings. Would you support a stricter standard, according to which a holocaust denier is not entitled to due process?
That is what most of the critics in the past three weeks seem to have been calling for. These four bishops were excommunicated (for reasons unrelated to antisemitism) in 1988. After twenty years of canonical process and negotiations, the next step was the lifting of these excommunications. When it turned out that one of the four was a holocaust denier, do you think his excomminication should not have been lifted?
(Remember, once the excommunication is lifted, Williamson and the other three become again full members of the Catholic Church -- and therefore they now have the canonical right to attend confession and, after doing so, to attend Mass. They don't have any right to act as priests or bishops; they are still canonically suspended from ministry.)
Or would you say that holocaust deniers are entitled to due process, but this should always be accompanied by a public statement by the Vatican denouncing their views? I think that on a pragmatic level, that's a very good idea. But would you support a similar rule for the United States, stating that whenever a racist receives any benefit from due process (e.g., when he is assigned a public defender, or when illegally seized evidence against him is suppressed), the judge is required to make a public statement that this should not be seen as an endorsement of the defendant's racist views?
Lawrence, you lost me. I see no connection between the criminal law of Germany or due process rights of any government and this matter. I see no need for due process within the church. Frankly, they can run their excommunication, readmission, return to ministry, etc. proceedings however they like, with whatever protections they choose. What I'm saying, and I believe LA Guy would agree, is that the sensitive move would have been to make strong statements against anti-semitism and holocaust denial prior to any kind of rapprochement with this guy. The last pope seemed to get it about the sensitivities of others; this guy not so much.
QG: I see no connection between the criminal law of Germany or due process rights of any government and this matter. I see no need for due process within the church.
The Catholic Church's system of canon law was codified in the 13th century, and has developed continuously since that time. As with civil law, positive legislation and judicial precedent are both binding, and those accused of delicts have a number of specific rights.
My point was that those who opposed the revocation of the excommunications were essentially arguing that canon law should be suspended in the case of really bad people -- and yet I suspect that most of the people arguing this do not support the suspension of civil laws in the case of really bad people.
QG: What I'm saying, and I believe LA Guy would agree, is that the sensitive move would have been to make strong statements against anti-semitism and holocaust denial prior to any kind of rapprochement with this guy.
I agree.
QG: The last pope seemed to get it about the sensitivities of others; this guy not so much.
My perspective -- and this why my tone in my post above probably was one of frustration -- is that both popes are coming from the same place, but since John Paul II had a more cuddly and warm personality, they are treated differently.
In his first trip to Germany after being elected pope, Benedict visited the ancient synagogue in Cologne. In 2006 he visited Auschwitz. On both occasions, and many others, he publicly spoke about the Holocaust and condemned antisemitism. Shouldn't this be recalled when assessing how to interpret the lifting of the excommunications?
I very much agree there should have been a statement made at the time. And I have no way of knowing who in the Vatican was aware of Williamson's views. Certainly a google search would have revealed them.
Nonetheless, in the time since then, the pope's public speech on January 28 (condeming the "forgetting" or "reduction" of the Shoah) and the Vatican statement of February 4 (stating that Williamson must recant his holocaust denial "in an absolutely unequivocal and public way" before he can function as a bishop) both seemed pretty clear to me. Yet they weren't even mentioned in the New York Times article you linked to, which therefore gives the impression that the pope's statement today that "any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable" was the first time he's addressed this issue.
Now, none of this was said by you. Yet your subject line ("It's a start") -- reiterated by you in your comment above -- seems to imply that it is merely a start, or that it's a start but the process is not yet complete. I don't know if that was your intention, but I think that was a reasonable way for me to read your subject line.
I think the problem here is what's to discuss? What sort of due process are we talking about? If a guy support Holocaust denial, that's it, he's out. The only sort of due process I could understand in such a case is an inquiry into whether or not he supports it.
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