Traditionalist bishop may be charged with holocaust denial in Germany
Problem for the Pope
Cathcon translation of an article in this week's Der Spiegel. Now on line.
A bishop of the Society of Pope St Pius X denies the holocaust.
Anti-semitic tendencies lead to tension between German Catholics and the Central Council for Jews in Germany.
The history of the Catholic Church is also the history of separations from Her, of heresy and of error. When the religious deviationists win many supporters, they can be considered, like the Protestants, a church and when rather they remain among themselves, they can be considered as a sect.
Presently, one of the most important splits in the Catholic religious universe is an association of priests, which takes its name from an especially pious Pope, named “The Society of Saint Pius X”. The group founded in 1970 by the conservative and later excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre celebrates the Mass in Latin to this day, holds confession in high honour and fights in general things which conform to “an anti-Christian consumer and fun-fuelled society”.
The fundamentalists are thoroughly successful in conversion work. Just in Germany, they have about 10000 supporters and worldwide dependent operations in over thirty countries. In more than fifty places in Germany they have a church or at least a chapel. “We are the tip of the spear against the further destruction of Church and society” says the German district superior, Father Franz Schmidberger, convinced by himself.
The reality is that the Society is so subversive that the top of the Vatican recently tried to bring them back into the womb of the Church.
Since Pope Benedict XVI invited the General Superior of the Society, Bernard Fellay and his German representative Schmidberger to his summer residence in Castelgandolfo a great shuttle diplomacy has been set in train.
As a sign of a great coming together, the Pope has given the word for Mass in the old Rite, which is again more often than in the past possible in the Catholic Church without the need to obtain special permission for a service in Latin. The Society sees the majority of the Sacraments which they dispense such as baptism, confirmation, Mass, Last Rites and also priestly orders as recognised by Rome. In May of last year, the Vatican published a clarification that the Society is being courted by the Vatican.
All was going along a good path, but now a problem has surfaced. The tip of the Catholic traditionalist spear is not only pious, it is in parts also antisemitic. This makes the change brought about by the rapprochement also into a problem for the German Bishops’ Conference and, at the same time, for the German Pope himself, who in May will make his first visit to Israel in order to push ahead reconciliation between Christians and Jews.
The antisemitism of the leadership of the Society of Pope St Pius X showed itself to the representatives of the Pope just before Christmas, when the District Head Father Schmidberger sent a circular letter to all 27 bishops, in which he took the position,
“The Jews of our day.....share in the guilt of deicide so long as they don’t distance themselves from their forefathers through belief in the divinity of Christ and baptism”.
After this statement, there has been tension between the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Bishops Conference.
Dieter Graumann, Vice President of the Council sees the letter as propagating the “worst clichés against Jews” and asked the Bishops to distance themselves or to find a clear position statement. So far only the Hamburg Bishop, Hans-Jochen Jaschke has made use of the opportunity to answer publicly and that was in the form of a reprimand: Graumann probably does not know that the Catholic Church has nothing to do with the Society of Pope St Pius X, whereby every criticism of the Vatican and her representatives is irresponsible.
Schmidberger rejects the complaint, “These are only religious propositions”. For those knowledgeable in the matter, the anti-Jewish excursions are however no surprise, reservations about Jews having a long history in the Catholic Church and considered only to have been overcome since the Second Vatican Council in the middle of the sixties. The Society with its rejection of all fashionable innovations are also inheritors of this tradition. Exactly their fundamentalist convictions make them attractive to certain sorts of people, which is significant for the willingness of these people to donate money for the building of new churches.
Money flows because the Society does not only pray and talk, they are also prepared to fight for their case on Germany’s streets. Recently they could be found with demonstrators in front of the House of Art in Munich to protest against a “blasphemous exhibition”-which included a crucified frog. During the Christopher Street Day in Stuttgart, their supporters stood on the side of the street armed with rosaries, murmuring prayers against the alleged vice.
A particularly enthusiastic representative of the Society is Bishop Richard Williamson, born in Great Britain, who was commissioned by the founder, Archbishop Lefebrve when the latter was near death to continue the life’s work of the Archbishop. Williamson is frequently in Germany in order to push ahead with this development. In consequence, the next generation lies close to his heart, that will be introduced into the so-called crusader camps. “Life as we know it is coming to an end”, he said a short while ago in a talk to confirmation candidates. “Martyrdom is perhaps coming. Perhaps our blood will be necessary to bring about the cleansing of the Catholic Church”.
An event which took place on the sidelines of a deaconing at the end of last year on All Saints Day can only severely damage the in any case tense relations between Catholics and Jews. Williamson travelled to Zaitkofen where the Society operate a seminary in a small baroque castle to make a Swedish convert, Sten Sandmark into a deacon of the Society. As his departure from the Protestant church was taken as a scandal in the far north, a Stockholm TV reporter Ali Fagan was there. After the deaconing, they both placed themselves in the chapel for an interview in front of the camera
Talk turned to the Nazis. One sees in the film Williamson breathing in and then says he does not believe six million Jews to have been gassed.
To the surprised counter-question “Were there no gas chambers?” “I believe there were no gas chambers, yes”. In the matter of the Holocaust, he associated himself with the “revisionists” who believe that “two to three hundred thousand Jews died in Nazi concentration camps. But none of them died as a result of gas in gas chambers”.
Then the cleric talked much about technically unsuitable chimney heights and unsuitable , as they could not be sealed, doors which can still be seen by tourists in Auschwitz. “if this is not anti-semitism” added the interviewer, “what is it then?”
Bishop Williamson “If anti-semitism is bad, it is against the truth. When something is true, it is not bad. I am not interested in the word anti-semitism”.
SVT1 will show the one hour long documentary film on Wednesday this week on the programme “Uppdrag granskning” “The Task of Checking” and it will also be available on the internet.
The Central Council is now going to examine whether a legal case be possible as denial of the holocaust is a crime in Germany.
Graumann is also awaiting a clear statement from the German Bishops Conference, in the context of the Papal visit to Israel.
“They who cannot or do not wish to distance themselves, make themselves complicit”
Excommunication to be lifted within days
A further round up of what the blogs and news services are saying
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Comments
It matters not if what he said is something that is true, or something he firmly believes. It is political suicide, and he is too intelligent not to know this.
What do the French say, "Not every truth should be spoken aloud?"
Bottom line: it would have been very easy to say, "My opinion about the historical accuracy of holocaust accounts has nothing to do with my vocation and duties as the shepherd of souls. Let's move on."
Mornac
"It matters not if what he said is something that is true, or something he firmly believes. It is political suicide, and he is too intelligent not to know this."
With all due respect, Tim, usually when the Press comes out with something "awful" that Bishop Williamson says, especially about the Jews, it means that something good might be going on in Rome with the Pope and the SSPX and that will not be tolerated especially by the Jews. As far as "political suicide" politics are nothing when compared to the Truth of Heaven and Hell. This is not about "politics" but PRINCIPALITIES. God bless.
Ironically, in the grand scheme of things the Jews are the greatest deniers with their denial of Christ, the Son of God and their biblical messiah.
Unpopular thoughts and speech are trivial compared to the vicious prosecution an imprisonment for them based on selfish political reasons without regard for veracity.
I am sure that His Lordship does not hate jews, he is just saying that he does not beleive everything the press and the world would like to make us think. Remember that the press and the world are anticatholic.
Also remember that being anticatholic is to hate catholics.
Oh, but I forgot the fact that anticatholisism is not any crime...
"One may wish to consult the monumental new book "Judaism Discovered" by Michael Hoffman to get a much deeper and clearer understanding of the powerful and actually demonic force which is at ground zero of Orthodox Judaism. This incredible book which has in effect been banned from sales by Amazon.com, the largest bookstore in the world, is a testament to the immense power of the Judaic world, the world which have us lock up the courageous Bishop Williamson for denying one of its "sacred truths."
James B. Phillips"
Need we Catholics do the same when dealing with the enemies of the Cross?
The Holocaust and numbers
A Danish holocaust historian / archeologist maintains that the six million number comes from unreliable Soviet sources.
He thinks the number of Jewish victims probably is closer to around 4 million. This gentleman is not a revisionist, and was connected to the Danish government financed 'Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies' of The Danish Institute for International Studies.
The 'Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies' department has mainly been concerned with 'holocaust education', and refuting 'deniers'. The professor is certainly not a revisionist. He is also a promoter of more 'holocaust education', and holocaust museums, and recently published a book about Nazi doctor Mengele.
Quote:
"During the time close to Germany's capitulation, keeping track of the number of inmates, amongst others in Auschwitz was done less conscientious.
Since at the same time the six million number is based on inaccurate Soviet figures, today there is no evidence to conclude that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. The number is probably closer to four million"
The statements of the Danish holocaust archeologist show clearly that there is no consensus about the canonized 6,000,000 number, even outside of so called 'revisionist circles' and 'anti-Semites'.
The persecution of revisionists should be stopped; the development of thought crime enforcement is now even creeping into the climate / global warming / CO2 debate, where the term 'CO2 deniers' has become popular.
Many Traditional Catholics--mostly fogies like me but some young'uns, too--will know the writings of the Frenchman Vicomte Léon de Poncins. Monsieur le Vicomte is the great midcentury chronicler of Masonic and Judaic conspiracies both within and without the Church. He was suspicious of Vatican II, not just before it was "cool" to be so, but even while the council was being organized!
Poncins was also a close student of what was not yet called the Shoah or Holocaust. His own studies convinced him that the true number of Jewish noncombatants killed by the Nazi regime was well under half a million. He also regarded the amended figure as quite sufficiently indicative of Nazi evil; it did not need mendacious inflation to make an effect on him.
The Leuchter Report, to which His Excellency referred at length in the televised interview, is only one of many truly scholarly works produced by serious critics of the infamous numbers racket that threatens Europeans with imprisonment and Americans with social, financial, and professional ruin. The campaign to suppress dissent in this part of the secular arena has been frighteningly successful. The Apostles' "fear of the Jews," frequently referred to in the Gospels and Acts, has descended to our times as surely as the apostolic succession itself.
Ah, you must mean a passion for truth, along with a passion for distinguishing between the irreformable and inspired teachings of the One True Church on the one hand and the vagaries of history and historiography and the corrupting pressures of political correctness on the other.
I thank him on behalf of all the other posters on this thread for compelling me to exercise my grey cells a bit before I return to the diet of media propaganda and Hollywood perversion that most secularists expect us to consume as our sole nourishment.
What's your take on that diet, Jake?
My last post didn't get through.
It's fine with me; its your blog.
But allow me to tell the readers that I have tried to respond in vain.
By the way, I don't consider my blog a 'revisionist website'.
It is more about freedom of speech and exposing oppression and abuse of power.
Thank you
Balder
"I believe the good bishop has been gravely mislead regarding the
principles of historical criticism, and erred in accepting the
opinion of those who have no credentials to talk about the issue.
As Mr. Ferrara points out in his article on this controversy over at
The Remnant, the German officers in charge of the program themselves
admit to these numbers.
My question is, and this it one which seems everyone is ignoring, is
why did this Swedish TV station even seek an interview with the
Bishop at this time, and why ask those questions? And who let the
Bishop go to an interview without sufficient counsel or councillors?
Knowing little about the Bishop, but enough, his comments do not
surprise me, but not being a member of the SSPX, I am nevertheless
amazed that anyone over there did not think to establish norms of
conduct which would have prevented the interview from ever happening.
Williamson was as exploited by the enemies of the Church as he was by
revisionists and those who fed him such literature."