British MP Dennis McShane has disturbingly well-wrought piece in the Timesonline today about the rise of anti-Semitism in his country and throughout Europe: “The writing on the synagogue wall“. It has within it a short paragraph that appears to be an oxymoron – but a telling one:
“The Pope embraces a Holocaust-denying Winchester and Cambridge-educated bishop; slogans such as ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas’ are chanted in Amsterdam;”
These few words embody the irrationality of anti-Semitism. How can there be no Holocaust and Jews being gassed at the same time? Perhaps Richard Willamson, the “Holocaust-denying Winchester and Cambridge-educated bishop” above, who says “there were no gas chambers” can explain that to us?
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While you are pondering that, the new government in Tel Aviv it talking about truncating Israel.
No, no no no no! McShane has misrepresented the Benedict’s stance on Williamson. Pope Benedict was trying to heal a schism that had developed between Rome and some local misordained clergy; he was providing a pathway for certain improperly ordained individuals back into the church. It’s just that he ran afoul of Williamson’s reprehensible beliefs when he did that. Those beliefs were not considered or even known by Benedict at the time of the decision.
Furthermore, Williamson’s sect, as well as the Vatican itself has censured him and placed restrictions on both his speech and his pathway back into the Catholic Church. Those punishments directly address his Holocaust-denying statements. The Society of St. Pius X effectively stuck a gag order onto him. And the Holy See came right out and said that recanting was the price of readmission:
“Bishop Williamson, in order to be admitted to episcopal functions within the church, will have to take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah, which the Holy Father was not aware of when the excommunication was lifted…”
I’m aware that McShane is only trying to do good and highlight the rise of irrationality in the form of antisemetism in Europe. But he accidentally wrongs the Pope in saying he’s “embraced” Williamson. The more accurate statement is that the Pope has given him a path to absolution, and that path includes the renunciation of those stupid and antihistorical beliefs. The Catholic response to Williamson has been steadfast and direct, and has brooked no disagreement about the reality of the Holocaust.
Sorry about the derail, Roger, but I felt a strong need to address that point.
It’s no use trying to understand the logical inconsistencies. Anti-Semitism has nothing to do with logic or reason. It is purely emotional. A reversion to the worst of tribalism, in which, to use the postmodern term, the “other” is not seen as human or real.
I’ve always been very interested in the 30s & 40s, but never wanted to relive them….
Thank God for the Jericho missiles.
Thinking that people aren’t crazy, is crazy.
We’re stuck with our selves. Try to enjoy the circus, but pack heat.
Given the spineless Press, the best thing America has going for it is the 2d Amendment.
And I understand the lefty Israeli leader wants to give up ‘land for peace.’ Wow. Maybe they should start with her backyard?
Thanks El Mondo, very clear and helpful post.
No need to stretch so far for contradictory absurdity in the nature and character of Richard Williamson. Consider the photograph of Williamson that accompanies Malte Lehming’s piece currently on the PJM homepage.
Is that an English miter on Williamson’s head? A Latin miter? No, it’s a Levite miter. And in Williamson’s hand is Judean shepherd King David’s royal crook.
Not an oxymoron? As absurdly contradictory as a Nazi in Jewish prayer shawl and phylacteries.
Your explanation is helpful, El Mondo, but how is it possible that the Pope knew nothing about Williamson’s beliefs when he made his decision? It was certainly someone’s responsibility at the Vatican to inform him of such things before he made any decisions. Instead, he has had to do damage control after the fact. It’s bad enough we have to deal with this kind of stuff in the Obama administration, but the Vatican has no excuse for getting these things wrong. I certainly don’t believe the Pope is antisemitic, but I do think there are elements in the Vatican that are. And they need to be cleaned out. By this Pope.
OT: Go Kamsky!
Showdown in Bulgaria beginning Tuesday
Reminiscent of Bobby Fischer, without the anti-semitism
OT: More on Kamsky
What happens if you trade land for peace, and they get your land, but you don’t get any peace?
I’m under the impression that this has been tried before with little success, but perhaps someone who is an expert can elaborate.
Honestly, I can’t see how it matters what Williamson thinks about the Holocaust. He can still be a Christian and be stupid, can’t he? Or a bigot?
It’s not like the Pope made him a bishop. The Pope un-excommunicated him is all.
Well I suspect that there’s no real contradiction, because two different groups are involved here. Williamson and his ilk think that the Holocaust never happened, and the Hamas cheerleaders know it happened, they’re just upset some Jews survived it. I’ve been appalled lately to hear the various Arab and pro-Arab protesters yelling various references to the Holocaust at Jews, without much mention in the media. You can bet if the Klan managed to get a rally together and yelled something like that, it’d be front-page news.
I grant that I haven’t been following the Williamson story closely. But has he actually made any Anti-Semitic statements? Or just he have a differing opinion on a single aspect of the Nazi atrocities?
It seems to me that there is a great cognitive dissonance in the theory that you are a friend of the Jewish people if you revel in, and demand adherence to, the needless slaughter of 6 million. But that if you dissent and say “Thank goodness!” you are obviously the second coming of Adolf himself.
I grant you that Williamson may have said hateful things about the Jewish people that I’m unaware of. But in absence of that I cannot see how he can be called an Anti-Semite for not finding cheer or comfort in a lesser death toll. That very idea is an oxymoron itself.
The Grey Zone, a film from 2002, has to be one of the most horrible films ever — far harder to watch than any “slasher” or “horror” film that brims with amazing special effects. TGZ is not perfect cinema, but many images in it are powerful and disturbing. The film follows closely events as described in a book by a physician who was forced to assist Mengele; AFAIK The Grey Zone is a historically accurate drama in which real people are portrayed quite faithfully.
How comforting it would be to learn that the Holocaust is a colossal fraud! Maybe that’s why we should consider deniers like Irving to be hypersensitive creatures, unable to cope with the reality of evil. — Or, I dunno, maybe just damn Nazis.
The Kamsky info was interesting.
There’s no disconnect; Holocaust denial simply takes the wind out of Jews’ sails (you can’t “enjoy” victim status if you’re not really a victim), so you “deny” the Holocaust ever happened, knowing all the while that it did. I have to think that even the most vehement denier began from the same contradictory proposition as the most vehement denier of God: “I hate you, so I deny your existence!” (I specify “vehement” deniers because those who just don’t care one way or the other are, it seems to me, the only ones who can honestly say they don’t believe in whatever they don’t believe in. The angry or insistent ones begin from a belief they want to escape.) The constant, evil presence of antisemitism accounts for the inhuman wish – only gone underground, never vanished – expressed by the chanting in Amsterdam.
Where it originates is another matter. That I don’t get at all. I mean, sure, I can understand a certain resentment toward those who view themselves as God’s chosen people and who sometimes choose to live apart from their neighbors; resentment of those who seem to look down on you is a pretty human trait. (Let me say that I personally don’t look at the history of Judaism or the reality of Jewish community and culture that way; I just know that some do.) But how that resentment turns into sustained murderous rage, I don’t understand at all.
There is a logic that goes like this:
Jews are so tricky and evil that they have created a false history of progroms and concentration camps. This jusifies pogroms against them now and putting them in camps where they can’t harm anyone.
So it might not be an oxymoron for some people to claim the Holocuast never happened and that jews should be gassed now.
Isn’t it good to know that there is no necessary logical inconsistency between Holocuast deniers and those advocating the murder of Jewsih people today?
Explanation? Jew, who are you to ask for an explanation? Just get into the box car and shut up.
So the underlying logic is that since there was no first Holocaust, it’s okay to have one now?
Denying that the Holocaust happened, implies a tacit acknowledgment that such acts are evil. After all, why else deny it?
That these same people call for just such acts to be committed now, shows that they have no problem with commiting acts which they know in their hearts are evil.
The only question is whether many of them sufficiently self-aware to be able to acknowledge that evil in themselves.
I’m not sure if it’s 1938, 1939 or 1943. All I know is that it’s happening all over again.
It’s strange how quickly we have either denied or forgotten history. There’s some irony too, that at least with this holocaust the Jews saw it coming and actually assisted in enabling it.
Maybe Senators Boxer and Schumer could get good jobs as Kapos shoving their brethren into box cars.
#1,
New government of *what* in Tel Aviv? The only government there is the municipal government as far as I know. Also, Israel doesn’t have a new government yet. What are you talking about?
cccc
Last time, we let Nazi Germany kill six million Jews. Unlike the communists, who were committed to the destruction of civilization in general but Nazi Germany in particular, the Jews were loyal citizens of Germany to the end, even as the neighbors they worked for shipped them off to face execution.
This time, we stopped the new Nazis before they even took the Sudetenland. This time, the latter-day Oxford Club is in high dudgeon, screeching that we had no right and no historical precedent to defend five million Jews from an enemy who repeatedly declares their intent to massacre them. What better way to pretend that the Jews do not face an existential threat today, than to dismiss the threat to their existence they faced yesteryear?
The problem is that it’s impossible to imagine such a thing as an honest, disinterested Holocaust denier– as one can imagine people honestly doubting evolution or the moon landings, say. (Stupidly, but honestly.)
If you’re interested enough to try to spin Holocaust denial in the face of the overwhelming evidence (60 years and we still haven’t found all those Jews! Where CAN they be?), that’s pretty much prima facie proof of anti-semitic fever boiling inside you.
Jews are similiar to the canaries in a coal mine. Everytime someone wants power and control, they start with the Jews. Their horrendous treatment of the Jews conditions the rest for the horrendos treatment of all.
If Isreal falls, if the demonizing of the Jews continue, watch the rest of the civilized world start to colapse.
It’s not really an oxymoron because they are not saying Jews did or did not get gassed before, they are chanting that it should happen now.
Of course perhaps they are wishing Israel would conquer Saudi Arabia, own the gas, and thus restore some peace to the Middle East for a change (c;
Probably not but I’d love to see Borat ask some of the protestors if that’s what they meant and watch their heads explode.
Yeah!
Caught ‘em … with their hands in their pants.
Good on you, mate. Good on you.
Lynn,
The Pope lifted the excommunication of the entire schismatic group. The excommunication took place decades ago. When the group (important word in this context) was given a path back to the Catholic Church, individual schismatics were not called out by name.
Williamson’s nuttiness was not commonly known until after the excommunication was lifted.
But perhaps you think the Vatican should have created a dossier on each and every SSPX adherent, and that the Pope apply policy individually?
Now that Israel’s staunchest traditional ally is led by a Marxist, anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Semitic, Muslim-raised, black separationist, terrorist supporting Obama, we’re all in trouble.
Change is here, but it’s all for the worst.
When you elect a Caesar, a Czar, or a Fuhrer…and one “party” is dominant over the freedom to decide for the public good between and among ideas and ideology, scapegoats abound and rules apply with a certain …um…fluidity.
It is interesting to note how leftists have triangulated hatred, oppression and bias neatly into a package that at once denigrates faith-based Christians (the relentlessness of which ensnared no small contingent of left leaning Jews in the mocking, stereotyping, ridiculing and slandering)….and…
Also managed to have sewn the seeds of the regeneration of hatred, oppression and bias targeting “Israel”, “Zionists”…all code words for Jews in general…in which no small contingent of faith-based Christians and right leaning evangelicals have participated overtly and covertly in the Mel Gibson tirade…only quite often in whispers and in off stage catcalls.
The leftist is loudest in Europe, where the anti-Semitism has a safer haven and a more open forum via the BBC. None of the alphabet arab apologist networks here…dare to cross over into complete anti-semitism. (although bashing southern Christian faith-based males is open season, all year round)
Leftism is the disease, the cure is pure, unadulterated facts…of which we get…precisely zero from our entrenched media.
Well, that is sort of like the contradiction years ago when Irving sued one of his critics for defamation in England. The critic had merely called him a holocaust denier. His suit complained loudly that the holocaust didn’t actually happen.
But, um, lets say for purely the sake of argument that the holocaust didn’t happen—that literally millions of jews, including classmates I grew up with back when they were children, all lied in a massive conspiracy—if that was true that the holocaust didn’t happen, how does that make what she said defamatory? He is still a holocaust denier, just in my scenario it turns out he is right to deny it.
But the courts didn’t see it that way, so they had a full blown trial about whether the holocaust happened. Which seems like a colossal waste of time. Personally i would have taken judicial notice of the occurence of the holocaust and been done with it.
I expected better of you, Simon. No, the Pope emphatically did not “embrace” anyone. He lifted a ban of excommunication on a group, not on individual members. That one of the bishops of that group is a Holocaust denier is a wholly separate issue that has absolutely nothing to do with the excommunication ban or why it was lifted, or the Pope.
Sorry, but the facts get in the way.
But Catholic bashing is popular on the left, so why not here?
California Dreamer: You’re welcome. Thanks for the compliment.
—-
Lynn: SCSIwuzzy beat me to it. While I’m only trusting the Vatican’s word on Benedict’s knowledge of Williamson, it makes sense that he wouldn’t have known. Warning: Long post follows. If you don’t care about the details of the excommunication and how Williamson was given a path back into the Catholic church, skip the rest. It’s detailed.
Pope Benedict was trying to heal a rift caused when the society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) was dissolved as a church group, but that sect’s leader – Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre – continued the work of the group as if it still had official church sanction. Without going into detail, Lefebvre continued defying church orders, including his consecration of four priests, including Williamson, as Bishops in his order. Since he did not have Papal permission, his act was schismatic and the priests were declared as being in a state of excommunication. The state was mandatory and automatic once Levebvre committed the act.
Background: Contrary to popular belief, excommunication isn’t a “punishment”. Rather, it’s a condition that the Pope declares a church member has placed him or her self into by doing something that violates church canon. The Pope declares the state in order to show other Catholics what not to do. In short, excommunication is a state where someone’s not acting according to church doctrine to the point that the Pope notices and uses that person as an object lesson. Therefore, the path to readmittance into the church is to disavow whatever act put you in that state to begin with, or for that act itself to be reconsidered as not being heretical or anathema to doctrine.
Lefebvre died in ’91. And the Vatican, in spite of being exasperated by his deeds, wanted to end the rift; nobody wanted another schism. So the Vatican worked to rehabilitate the sect and provide them a path towards rejoining the church. The normalization of the group – something still in progress, by the way – is what’s lifting the excommunication. And this is why it’s easy to believe that Williamson’s personal views could have been overlooked: At no point in any of the drama of SSPX did any of the individual member’s worldviews – save for Levebvre’s – come into account. The act of keeping SSPX from turning into another church was foremost on everyone’s mind, so that’s what everyone involved concentrated on.
Problem is, Williamson decided to open his mouth. And in doing so, he created a new controversy (from Rome’s point of view) that previously hadn’t even entered their minds. And that’s where everybody is now: Dealing with the aftermath of discovering one of their members potentially heretical views. They’re not related to the previous excommunication, but they’re problematic nonetheless. And that’s where everybody is today.
Has Williamson’s excommunication been lifted? In regards to his consecration as a bishop, yes. It’s technically still in progress, but as a practical matter, he’s no longer “anathema to dogma”, so to speak, vis-a-vis Lefevbre’s acts. But, is he back in the church yet? Believe it or not, that’s actually a separate issue, and the answer to it is “No, not yet”. Since the schismatic issue of SSPX is being resolved, he’s no longer in the excommunicated state. However, he’s managing to put himself back into trouble anyway by defying another, different Church teaching: Namely, the truth of the Holocaust. Since that’s not necessarily dogmatic, it may not warrant a new state of excommunication; who knows? Then again, you can argue that Benedict has discussed Logos and Veritas – logic and truth – in detail and used them as a base of his proclamations, and if you accept that Logos and Veritas is the basis of church teachings, then you can easily argue that Williamson’s beliefs are heretical to that. So therefore he’d be skirting a new state of excommunication based on his denial of established history. But all that is still up in the air at this point. What will determine his state is whether he does indeed renounce Holocaust denial, or whether he continues to profess a belief in it. If he does the former, he dodges the question of whether denial is a heretical act. But if he doesn’t, then he forces the question, and news from the Vatican will become interesting in the next few years.
That’s that. Hope that helps. Apologies for the length.
According to WikiAnswers 11 millions of people were murdered in camps, most were Jewish (6 million) the remainder were Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and communists (not you all’s favorite folks). Let us not forget ANY who died at the hands of vile murders even the ones who were murdered at other times and places (i.e. Sudan, Cambodia, and Rwanda). Not all the civilians were killed by Germans or in the death camps. Some of those civilians died in fire storms in places like Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo or just murdered like in Nanjing and Berlin.
So let us not forget the Sho’ah or any of the hundreds and hundreds of other genocides and mass murders that our own ancestors committed on each other and we continue to commit today (Sudan).
Go out and save one life and so redeem the human race even if it is a worthless life like a Palestinian’s.
“Maus:
I grant that I haven’t been following the Williamson story closely. But has he actually made any Anti-Semitic statements? Or just he have a differing opinion on a single aspect of the Nazi atrocities?”
No, he’s not restricted himself to questions of numbers killed, and yes, he has actually made Anti-Semitic statements. For one, he’s openly professed that “The Jews” are working towards world domination in order “… to prepare the Anti-Christ’s throne in Jerusalem”. Also, he claims that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is truthful.
“rjschwarz:
I’d love to see Borat ask some of the protestors if that’s what they meant and watch their heads explode.”
Funny you should say that. Williamson’s been called “the Borat of the schismatic Catholic far-Right” before.
Certainly he can explain it. The myth created presumably by Jews has so deeply embedded consciousness that even those who hate Jews may believe it happened, certainly wish it had happened, even if it did not. The plans for Auschwitz, found recently in Berlin, are on display currently, including a gas chamber. No matter. More to the point, hate is back with its warpaint in place. Do not doubt it. In my lifetime, I have met three eyewitnesses to the murder of family members, people I met by accident, believe it or not. Only one of those three died by gas, my grandmother, one was machine-gunned, while holding two grandchildren in his arms — my 95 year old grandfather; and the third froze to death in Dachau after being forced through a sheepdip bath vs. typhus in mid=winter. I am getting really pissed off and am wondering what game the Pope is playing?
Thank you, El Mondo, for that detailed explanation. When Pope Benedict decided to bring the sect back into the church, was it just the four priests originally consecrated as Bishops by Lefebvre who had been excommunicated and Benedict’s decision lifted that? Or were there other clergy who are part of the sect who also had been excommunicated and are now being invited back? In other words, just four or how many?
” 37. Joseph:
According to WikiAnswers 11 millions of people were murdered in camps, most were Jewish (6 million) the remainder were Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and communists (not you all’s favorite folks). Let us not forget ANY who died at the hands of vile murders even the ones who were murdered at other times and places (i.e. Sudan, Cambodia, and Rwanda). Not all the civilians were killed by Germans or in the death camps. Some of those civilians died in fire storms in places like Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo or just murdered like in Nanjing and Berlin.
So let us not forget the Sho’ah or any of the hundreds and hundreds of other genocides and mass murders that our own ancestors committed on each other and we continue to commit today (Sudan).
Go out and save one life and so redeem the human race even if it is a worthless life like a Palestinian’s.”
Better still, let us first start by saving worthwhile lives first; such as victims of Arab terrorism before we get to the less worthwhile.
As for innocent Germans, there really weren’t any. All German’s swore (the military and civil servants) an oath to Hitler personally instead of to the German State. They brought the death and destruction down on their own heads. They should have hung Hitler the moment the loyalty oath was changed to him instead of the state was implemented. Schism aside, what was the Pope or more accurately his advisers thinking? Is ‘healing a rift with schismatics’ that important that it merits overlooking such monstrous thinking in a clergyman? Indeed if Williamson had made analogous comments about slavery just how many would be defending Williamson or the Pope?
cubanbob:
“Indeed if Williamson had made analogous comments about slavery just how many would be defending Williamson or the Pope?”
I’m not sure anyone is defending Williamson’s beliefs not even Williamson. I for one am not going to defend either because the religion shtick is a scam. So who cares what a couple of con men think or believe?
As for judging the relative worthwhileness of the innocent and the not so innocent there I am at a loss. What I do know is that I hate to hear about the good guys doing horrible unnecessary things in wartime (My Lai) and then have some superpatriot defend those actions and call me a traitor for questioning the tactics. So saying there were NO innocent Germans makes me ask about the children or those righteous gentiles. How about the forced laborers killed in the bombing of German industry. The strange thing is we didn’t bomb the camps which to some extent were industrial centers and so legitimate targets. I know some of you have heard of the Morgenthau Plan which would have converted Germany to a preindustrial nation and how FDR joked about castrating all German males. I guess the Germans have redeemed themselves and are more worthwhile now. So cubanbob how many Palestinians do we need to fire bomb to bring their status up enough not to have to castrate the lot?
“40. Lynn:
Thank you, El Mondo, for that detailed explanation. When Pope Benedict decided to bring the sect back into the church, was it just the four priests originally consecrated as Bishops by Lefebvre who had been excommunicated and Benedict’s decision lifted that? Or were there other clergy who are part of the sect who also had been excommunicated and are now being invited back? In other words, just four or how many?”
I have to confess, your question goes straight through the point where I get confused. The statements from the Vatican itself clearly singles out the 4 bishops and no one else. However, they do so in the context of normalizing relations with SSPX. Since SSPX was declared to be a schismatic sect, you’re presume that all of the membership is excommunicated, so therefore you’d conclude that the current process of rehabilitating the sect would lift that state on every member of it. But I’m not finding anything that’s saying that. The only releases I’m seeing limits discussion to re-communion of the four bishops, and no one else. This article from Catholic News talks as if other members of the sect are not reaccepted into the church yet:
“It said some questions remain unresolved with the society, including its future status and that of its priests (my bolding), and that these issues would be the subject of further talks.”
… but that doesn’t come out and state whether those priests are considered to be excommunicated to begin with or not, let alone whether any excommunication is being lifted for them. I know that the sect is being rehabilitiated, and I know that this fact brings the sect back into communion. What I don’t understand are the details of why the four bishops are already back in when the process of normalization of SSPX is still underway. I’m just not a Catholic scholar, and I don’t have the knowledge to understand the finer points of how these things happen.
So to answer your question directly: I can only state with certainty that the four bishops are no longer excommunicated. I simply don’t know what the state is for other SSPX priests. I just wish I knew who to ask about this; getting this far already pushed my knowledge to its limits.
I really appreciate your knowledge about this, El Mondo! It’s far more complicated than I had ever imagined, but I guess that’s just my naivete about the Catholic church showing itself.
You’re welcome, Lynn.
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Folks, for the record: I don’t seek to defend SSPX’s rehabilitation with the Catholic church. In fact, if things were up to me, I’d wave them goodbye and let them stagger off. The more I’ve learned about the group, the more I think reconciliation is a bad idea, even if it results in yet another schism. Levebvre himself has spoken approvingly of regimes like Fascist Spain and Vichy France, and while I don’t know if he’s ever been on the record saying anything openly antisemetic, he has objected to John Paul’s work at creating closer relations with people of Jewish faith. I don’t approve of Benedict’s attempts to normalize the group, but I understand both why he’s doing so and how certain facts about Williamson could have been overlooked.
I really wish Benedict would reverse course. But that would be contrary to the doctrine of forgiveness, and that’s what he’s trying to live up to.