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Holocaust comments "stupid", "unacceptable": Kasper

Published: January 27, 2009

As criticism mounted of Pope Benedict's decision to lift the excommunication on four SSPX bishops, Vatican Cardinal Walter Kasper slammed Holocaust denying comments by rehabilitated Bishop Richard Williamson as "stupid" and "unacceptable".

AKI reports that in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, Kasper, who is also the liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations said of Williamson's statements: "These are unacceptable words. To deny the Holocaust is stupid and is a position that has nothing to do with the Catholic Church."

La Repubblica quoted Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, as saying it was the Lefebvre movement, not just Williamson that is problematic.

British born Williamson has made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Holocaust. In a recent television interview he said the "historical evidence" was against six million Jews having died in the Nazi gas chambers.

In an apparent defence of his rehabilitation of the four schismatic bishops, the Pope in his televised Angelus address on Sunday, said "courageous gestures of reconciliation are needed between us Christians."

Cardinal Kasper also praised the Pope's move describing it as "a gesture to favour the reconstruction of a united Church."

"I understand that Williamson's comments may cast a shadow over relations with the Jewish community, but I am sure that dialogue will continue.

"We have good relations," he said. "Events in Gaza have complicated things," he added, referring to Israel's recent military offensive in the coastal strip, which killed 1,300 Palestinians and injured over 5,000.

But The New York Times noted that Cardinal Walter Kasper, the director of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations, said that he had not been consulted over the lifting of the excommunications.

"It was a decision of the pope," the cardinal said in a telephone interview.

Breaking News:  "Gesture of Mercy"

In an editorial this Sunday, the L'Osservatore Romano underscored that the decision by Pope Benedict to life the excommunications of four bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is a "gesture of mercy" that should encourage the members of the Society of St Pius X to embrace the Second Vatican Council, which "half a century after its announcement is sill alive in the Church."

"A gesture," the article explains, "that would have pleased John XXIII and his successors, in a pure offer that Benedict XVI, the Pope of peace, has wished to make public coinciding with the anniversary of the announcement of Vatican II, with the clear intention of seeing the painful fracture soon healed, an intention that will not be clouded by the unacceptable negative opinions and attitudes towards Judaism of some members of the community to which the Bishop of Rome has extended a hand."

SOURCE

Vatican: Cardinal slams bishop for Holocaust denial (ADN Kronos)

Healing Schism, Pope Risks Another (New York Times)

Jews outraged by Holocaust-denying bishop (Associated Press)

Bishop Fellay salutes 'benevolent and courageous' Pope Benedict (UK Telegraph)

Vatican daily explains link between lifting of excommunications and anniversary of Vatican II  (Catholic News Agency)

ANALYSIS

Lefebvre movement: Long, troubledhistory with Judaism (National Catholic Reporter)

 

 

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Recent Comments

  1. Bishop Williamson's views on Jews are all part of that northern French industrialist fascist mindset. These people are not representative of the majority of tolerant people who love traditional liturgy and wish to see explicit organic subordination of Vatican II to the other Church Councils.

  2. Cardinal Kasper should apologise for a sin against accusing others falsely as the statement in context did NOT deny the Holocaust, simply that its extent and the fact that 6 million Jews dying may be an overestimate.

    As I believe this is actually quite a sensible stament.

    Not like lefties to get the truth in front of accusing others in their little goody too shoes world.

    Thank God the SSPX Bishops are back. The Pope might consider replacing one of them with Kasper as it is not as if he has achieved anything of any significance.

  3. One has to really wonder at the level of intelligence of a Bishop who is a holocaust denier, with the plethora of evidence around. . Pope Benedict and Cardinal Kasper were right to slam such attitudes in public.

    Holocaust deniers subscribe to a vile, false view of the Third Reich. They tend to admit the existence of some concentration camps, but just say they were 'work' camps, underplaying their horror and they totally deny the existence of the extermination camps such as Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelm and Belzec. Franz Stangl who was commandant of Treblinka , himself told Austrlian-born journalist Gitta Sereny, that trainloads of people arrived in Treblinka, [in southen Poland]under his command and within a few hours were dead. From train to death, was the pattern for hundred of thousands at his camp and he recounted it all in a book entitled 'Into That Darkness' written by Gitta Sereny, who interviewed commandant Stangl, over a period of several weeks, shortly before his death.

    Antisemitic and anti-Holocaust remarks and beliefs have no place in the Catholic church. Whether they come from the Islamic world or intellectually challenged bishops - they should be exposed for their vileness and falseness.

  4. As an old man now, I still have clear memories of 2 contemporary German Jewish boys who were taken from Germany in 1939 and cared for by my parents and 2 other families in England. The last time they had contact with their parents in Berlin was by telephone the afternoon of the day before Neville Chamberlain declared war. After the war ended these 2 refugees, Helmutt and Gunther learnt that their parents, like many thousand others, were put to death in a gas chamber. This is an indisputable fact which should never be forgotten and the Church, if only to have credibility, should unequivocally condemn those like Bishop Williamson who attempt to deny the holocaust.

  5. What a great comment of Walter Kasper. A really 'catholic' response. Hear hear.

  6. Why do people wish to split hairs over the numbers of Jews murdered during the 1930s and also especially during the WWII years of 1939 to 1945?
    What are the revisionists trying to prove?

    One murder-whether it be a Jew, a Slav or conscientious prisoners of conscience from Holland or Grmany- all is tragedy.
    Historical revisionism is the worst dead end and is a contemptible occupation of the minimisers and outright deniers.
    The Holocaust, in some estimates, resulted in MORE than six million deaths of Jewish people; as well as Gypsies, Slavs from many nations and so on.
    Why are some people keen on presenting tyrants in a good light?

  7. "explicit organic subordination" - what a wonderful euphemism! Given that it was the most recent and presumably the one that is most relevant today, I wonder just how and why Vatical II ought to suffer this "explicit organic subordination" to other Church Councils that Michael Webb writes of.

    However, even more offensive are the comments by Uncle Chop Chop, as are indeed the original comments by Richard Williamson.

    As for Skye noting the wisdom of Pope Benedict and Cardinal Kasper to slam such attitudes, I would say that if Richard Williamson is fully rehabilitated into the Catholic Church, perhaps outsiders might conclude that actions speak louder than words.

    I totally agree with the rest of your comments Skye, which unfortunately makes us part of the "lefties" Uncle Chop Chop refers to.

    I suppose the "lefties" will have to bide their time and hope that either the next Pope or the one after that will be able to make "courageous gestures of reconciliation" towards the Anglican and other more moderate Christian congregations.

    In the meantime, we had better all brush up on our Latin... and for those of us too old or otherwise disinclined to do so - just babble the words anyway...

  8. Thanks for nothing, Williamson. You've made us trads. look like a bunch of nerds. Keep your private opinions to yourself.

  9. While I disagree on academic grounds with Williamson's statements he has the right of freedom of speech to state them. We can evaluate them as invalid on objective empirical grounds. However, his accuser here has also made some very stupid and unacceptable statements in public about The Roman Catholic Faith especially those that reduce The Church to the same level as all other religions. Many of these have been a total embarrassment to Catholics.

  10. Six million Jews (and others) murdered, give or take a million. How totally and completely despicable and crass. No words can be found to express my complete disgust at even thinking this way for a second. What a total and complete second murder of anyone who may have been left out of the count.

    Oh God, what is happening to your people?
    Lord have mercy.

  11. Andreas, perhaps what Michael means is that the Magisterium needs to spell out even more clearly, that Vatican II did not, as claimed my so many mythmakers, add anything to the doctrines which Catholics are required to believe, and certainly did not subtract anything from any previously infallibly proclaimed doctrine, which of course would be impossible.

    The Anglicans "more moderate" than the SSPX? I guess you didn't notice the women "priests", the total doctrinal chaos, and the officially blessed sodomising of the "bishop". And I'd love to see Peter Jensen make the same humble profession of obedience to the Holy Father which Bp Fellay has just made! Thanks for the laugh.

    "we had better all brush up on our Latin... and for those of us too old or otherwise disinclined to do so - just babble the words anyway"

    I doubt very much that Masses in Latin will ever again comprise more than 1% of Masses offered. Much less that Latin will be made compulsory as you claim. And I understand that in the Extraordinary Form the congregation is not actually required to say anything (except "Amen" when you receive Communion). So what the devil are you going on about? And anyway how old is "too old" to learn a language? I knew someone who learnt a totally new language in her 90s. And apart from converts, all the old people have gone to Mass in Latin all their early lives up until 1969. No language learning is required of anyone.

    I've never been to an Extraordinary Form Mass, and have no particular desire ever to do so. But I'm puzzled by the furious Latinophobic intolerance which spews forth whenever any suggestion is made re the use of Latin (we are the Latin rite church after all). And usually coming from people who are otherwise constantly lecturing others that they must be "tolerant" of anything and everything else. Why does it make you so furious just to think that somebody somewhere is allowed to attend Mass in Latin, without any affect at all on you?

    "nerds", Rosa? Nothing wrong with nerds. Perhaps you mean "bigots" or "crazy conspiracy theorists".

  12. HMack - Don't dilute the issue by sayng something else is wrong. The issue is holocaust denial and it is FALSE and a total insult to the Jews and non Jews whose families suffered in this horror. A Bishop who is so far removed from reality must have grave deficiences of insight and hence ability to deal with people. Should he have any role as bishop at all?

    As to my earlier figures given about ONE extermination camp , Treblinka - on further research I have to revise them - it was not hundreds of thousands who were killed in the one camp alone - it was over a million - as a guard counted the 'train transports' which arrived each day, counting the number of poor people in each 'carriage', who arrived hungry, thirsty, afraid of where they were sent. At Treblinka, they were hounded off the trains by guards with whips, made to undress and then walk five abreast, up a path with high walls either side, called 'Road to Heaven' and then gassed as the next group of people waited for 'their turn' . Their belongings were shared out among guards, the Reich chancellery in Berlin and soldiers . Ponder for a moment what these people suffered.

  13. I don't see how my comments are offensive Andreas,

    You can go on about your brusing up on your Latin all you want but the hard truth is that the pro-Vatican II, Here I am Lord, dissenting, nothing wrong with St Mary's, Brisbane crowd have had the last forty years to make an impact and what are the fruits of their labours - empty churches, empty Seminaries, old people, confusion and a Catholic Church that bears little resemblance to anything.

    Yet the Latin Mass community and those faithful to the Church that go against the grain of society have churches full of young people, good and active communties, plentiful vocations, etc etc.

    Maybe this is a case of Jesus Christ pointing us to the 'signs of the time' and pointing the Church in the direction He wants.

    The hard truth is that lefties' true fruits are only apostasy - they are like the tree that bears no fruit - cut them off and throw them in the fire I say.

    Yet the faithful and true mob are growing like the early Church.

    Yes by their fruit you will know them

  14. Some people exaggerate the numbers of those tortured and executed by the inquisition or the number of people who were burned at the stake by Queen Mary; others deny them. Some people exaggerate the number of years it took for the species of the earth to be formed; others deny them. But some people who say they are Catholics have no difficulty treating as myth Christ's resurrection from the dead, His divinity or deny outright that He founded the Catholic Church. And some Catholics, while thinking that they are above Bishop Williamson are happy to deny the holocaust of abortion which has claimed the lives of countless millions of innocent children in the developed world.

  15. So THAT is what Michael Webb meant!?! Thanks for helping him out Ronk. Strange though, as I do not think that that is at all how most people or the "media" portray it, but I will let that one rest.

    Excuse me Ronk, but just a few years ago I too would have though it unthinkable for the Catholic Church to have women priests. However, what the lifting of the excommunication of the SSPX bishops illustrates is that nothing is forever. All it takes is for a different Pope to take a slightly different view...

    As for your invoking the devil (a la "What the devil are you going on about?" in the context of my comments on use of Latin), which I thought perhaps a little inappropriate, the reason for my disdain for the Latin mass is due to the mindset it reflects in those who promote it. I would have no problem if some people chose to say Mass in Latin or Swahili, just that many of those barracking for the Latin mass often see it as "the way things should be" - for EVERYONE. I also do dislike the use of what to many is a foreign language, as this leads to the liturgy becoming a ritual which they or their children or children's children will not follow earnestly simply because they do not understand it any more.

    As for Uncle Chop, Chop, I am worried that he might join Islam, which is also gaining a huge following of young people and has lots of vocations, etc, etc.

    No, I do not interpret the growth of certain traditional sections within the Catholic Church as a sign of them being "true" to their faith as in the parable of the vine in the Bible.

    For example: I personally had a bad experience with Opus Dei - which might be growing and might have the Pope's endorsement, but that does not mean that how it operates is what I would describe as "Christ's way".

    I never thought I would see and experience brain washing (within the Catholic Church!) until I got in contact with this organisation.

    Before Ronk tries to assert that my view is just a result of distortion by the media, I would like to say that unfortunately it is not. Literally and earnestly telling people of other faiths that they will go to hell (thereby denying God to make this judgement), pressuring young people to participate in religious activities they do not really want to engage in, and isolating and "love bombing" impressionable persons are all things I have observed with Opus Dei - one of the most "traditional" and "successful" parts of the Catholic Church.

    It might be wealthy, it might be growing in influence, and might not like Vatican II, but to me the way it operates demeans Christ's teachings.

  16. Andreas, as Michael has not corrected me, it appears my clarification of his comment was accurate.

    You don't seem to understand that excommunication is merely a discipline, and hence reversible. A pope may excommunicate and recommunicate anyone at any time.

    The fact that women so-called "priests are impossible is NOT a discipline, but a doctrine. In fact even more than a normal doctrine, it is a dogma. It is universal, unchangeable, and eternal. Yes a dogma is forever, regardless of the "view" of any future pope.

    Btw in these days of a sea of profanity and obscenity almost everywhere one looks, you must be an amazingly cocooned individual to take offence at my using the comparatively rather quaint expression "what the devil".

    "the reason for my disdain for the Latin mass is due to the mindset it reflects in those who promote it."
    I see, it's not the language itself, it's that you somehow know that those using it are also committing what you consider to be "thought crimes". And this hideous offence disqualifies them, in your view, from being allowed to bring up their own children in the way they see fit re their religious education. And yet you object to me calling you intolerant! And you then have the nerve to accuse OTHERS of brainwashing and isolating people.

    I don't know a whole lot about Opus Dei, but this is the first time I've heard the accusation that it "might not like Vatican II". Please explain? It's usually described as having anticipated Vatican II with its emphasis on the laity as vitally important in the Church, especially though their daily secular life and work.

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