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Is The Bishop A Heretic?
One of the four bishops, the British-born Richard Williamson, has
made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Nazi
Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.
In comments to Swedish television broadcast Wednesday, he said "I
believe there were no gas chambers" and only up to 300,000 Jews
perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of six million.
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The Pope Has Forgiven Him
Pope Benedict Saturday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop who
denies the Holocaust, despite warnings from Jewish leaders that it
would seriously harm Catholic-Jewish relations and foment
anti-Semitism.
The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the excommunication
of four traditionalist bishops who were thrown out of the Roman
Catholic Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission.
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The ADL Warns The Pope
Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote to
Cardinal Walter Kasper in order to express his opposition to any
eventual ecclesial re-integration of Bishop Williamson. When the
excommunication of the four SSPX bishops was lifted nonetheless,
Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, commented that Williamson's
views had no impact on the decision. Monsignor Robert Wister,
professor of church history, opined that Williamson's comments may be
"offensive and erroneous" but "not a heresy and "not an excommunicable
offense", calling Williamson a "not a heretic, but ... a liar".[18]
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Holocaust Survivors Protest
Before the excommunication was lifted, leaders in the Jewish
community, including groups of Holocaust survivors, said such a move
would be a dangerous blow to half a century of interfaith dialogue.
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Judaism Head Rebbe
Rome's chief rabbi said Williamson's rehabilitation would open "a
deep wound, and asked the Vatican to halt the reported rehabilitation.6
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French Jews Protest
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, called him
"a despicable liar whose only goal is to revive the centuries-old hate
against Jews."
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