Roundup: Cardinal George, German bishops weigh in on Holocaust denial; rabbi defends Pope

February 04, 2009

On a day when a Vatican Radio news roundup cited criticism from ten German bishops, Cardinal Francis George, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement on the controversy surrounding Pope Benedict’s decision to lift the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied the extent of the Holocaust. “Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the personal penalty of excommunication incurred by four schismatic bishops belonging to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre,” Cardinal George explained. “This gesture on the part of the Holy Father was an act of mercy and personal concern for the ordained and lay members of this Society and was meant to coincide with the fiftieth commemoration of the convening of the Second Vatican Council. The Holy Father's lifting of the excommunications is but a first step toward receiving these four bishops, and the priests who serve under them, back into full communion with the Catholic Church. If these bishops are to exercise their ministry as true teachers and pastors of the Catholic Church, they, like all Catholic bishops, will have to give their assent to all that the Church professes, including the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.” Cardinal George continued, “As is now widely known, one of the four bishops, Richard Williamson, has recently made some deeply offensive and utterly false statements about the Holocaust of the Second World War. Bishop Williamson has denied historical facts about the Shoah, in which six million Jews were cruelly annihilated, innocent victims of blind racial and religious hatred. These comments have evoked understandable outrage from within the Jewish community and also from among our own Catholic people. No Catholic, whether lay person, priest or bishop can ever negate the memory of the Shoah, just as no Catholic should ever tolerate expressions of anti-Semitism and religious bigotry.” An American rabbi. Irwin Kula, has come to the defense of Pope Benedict:

Something is off kilter here. Is it possible that the leadership of Jewish defense agencies, people with the best of motivation who have historically done critical work in fighting anti-Semitism, have become so possessed by their roles as monitors of anti-Semitism, so haunted by unresolved fears, guilt, and even shame regarding the Holocaust, and perhaps so unconsciously driven by how these issues literally keep their institutions afloat, that they have become incapable of distinguishing between a bishop's ridiculous, loopy, discredited views about the Holocaust and a Church from the Pope down which has clearly and repeatedly recognized the evil done to Jews in the Holocaust and called for that evil to never be forgotten.

 

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Further information:

• President of U.S. Bishops Says Holocaust Denial 'Deeply Offensive and Utterly False' (USCCB)
• German bishops criticise Pope amid calls he should step down (Bild)
• On Holocaust-denying bishop, a voice of dissent (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
• About Irwin Kula (Simple Wisdom)
• Analysis: Rare public criticism heard at Vatican (AP)
• Austrian Catholics up in arms over pope's comments (AFP)
• Germans fall out of love with their pope (Reuters blog)