Williamson is told to stop talking about politics and history. A communique from Bishop Fellay:
It has come to our attention that Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of our Society, granted an interview to a Swedish network. In this interview, he also commented on historical issues, especially on the genocide of Jews by the National-Socialist regime. It is obvious that a bishop speaks with religious authority solely on matters of faith and morals. Our Society claims no authority over historical or other secular matters.
The mission of the Society is the offering and restoration of authentic Catholic teaching, as reflected in the traditional dogmas. We are known, accepted and appreciated worldwide for this.
We view this matter with great concern, as this exorbitance has caused severe damage to our religious mission. We apologize to the Holy Father and to all people of good will for the trouble it has caused.
It must remain clear that those comments do not reflect in any way the attitude of our community. That is why I have forbidden Bishop Williamson to issue any public opinion on any political or historical matter until further notice.
Praise God, the Holy Spirit is at work. And how wonderful he apologized directly to ‘the Holy Father’.
Yes, I think things are very serious, now. Bishop Fellay is beginning to clear away obstacles. I, too, liked his apology to “the Holy Father.” It shows a new attitude on the part of the SSPX.
I don’t know. To me Fellay’s statement sounds like a classic good cop/bad cop routine. “Sorry if the fact that Williamson said that stuff out loud upset anyone.”
The carefully worded statement draws a distinction between “historical” questions and “faith and morals” questions that is seemingly irrelevant if the point is to clearly and unequivocally denounce Williamson’s Holocaust denial.
Also, the generality of the reference to Williamson’s remarks (i.e. “those comments”) is significant. Holocaust deniers aren’t like those folks who deny the moon landing every happened. Rather, they argue about the extent to which any Jews were persecuted, and usually attempt to offset that false low number with the number of non-Jewish casualities in WWII. We heard the same thing from Mel Gibson and his parents.
If Fellay has any authority over Williamson he could’ve ordered Williamson to apologize or recant his statements. To my knowledge, this has not happened. Why not? Wouldn’t that have been better than this “we promise he’ll be quiet in the future” second-hand response? Unless this really is just a wink-and-nod routine.
I didn’t think Fellay would do it, but praise the Good Lord, he has!
ajesquire,
Care to cite where we ever heard Mel Gibson, as opposed to Hutton, “argue about the extent to which any Jews were persecuted…” in an attempt to “…offset that false low number with the number of non-Jewish casualities in WWII”?
And when you can’t, I’m curious how we should regard the credibility of your interpretation of Fellay’s statement?
They are all bishops…they have no Vicar of Christ, of course they can’t control one another.
Fellay apologized and to the Holy Father. Again I will praise God with whom all things are possible
“‘YOU’RE GOING to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?” Peggy Noonan asks of Mel Gibson in the Reader’s Digest for March.
Gibson: “I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union.”"
http://volokh.com/posts/1075464194.shtml
In other words, no.
That still leaves us with the credibility issue.
Mel Gibson doesn’t have a Holocaust complex like Hutton or Williamson. Mel’s issues are with his father, about whom he’s always been hyper-defensive in interviews, even long before the anti-semitism issue arose. It probably comes from growing up hearing dad called a crank and a heretic, plus having a major inferiority complex. This Reader’s Digest interview is an example. Peggy Noogan mentions the controversial things Hutton has said, and Mel ignores her question and rattles off a litany of reasons of why dad is great. Peggy then corners him about the Holocaust and it still feels like Mel is trying to defend Hutton.
Fellay’s statement and the silencing of Williamson can only impress those people who have a background on the history of the players in this drama and how uncharacteristic this is.
To me, Fellay’s statement generally lacks humility (“We are known, accepted and appreciated worldwide for this”), plus a mention of the Jewish community in the apology to “all people of good will” is conspicuously absent.
To dissect the dynamics behind the prominence of Bp. Williamson within the SSPX’s subculture is an exercise which, while desperately needing to be done by someone who has experienced his tutelage as long and as deeply as I have, is yet beyond my powers of concentration at the moment. To do that topic justice would run too long in a comment box.
I was connected with that milieu for over 20 years, three of them as a seminarian. Now that I am two years removed, certainly I am no longer much inclined to cheerlead or defend Bp. W or the Society in this uncanny and sudden convergence of two major news issues concerning it, the combination of which is certainly more potent than the sum of both parts.
Yet I will say: beware the inclination to one-dimensionalize either Bp. W or the Society as a whole. Both the man and the priestly fraternity make some exceptionally incisive points regarding the contemporary situation in the Church … points which it will serve the entire Church well to consider in all honesty, especially since there are hardly any voices besides theirs making those points. One example: why should Catholics disavow Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas, asserting the rights of Christ the King in general society, including the political sphere? One need not be a Holocaust-denier nor believe that women best serve God, society, and themselves by marrying young, staying home, birthing a bunch of babies (and never wearing slacks!) to confront modernity’s cry that “we have no king but Caesar.”
But the Society will not be truly able to engage the greater Church with those critical points so long as it clings to its sense of “being right about everything” in dispute. The job of the Holy See — and it will not be easy — is to find a way to convince the better-willed in the Society’s milieu (and the rest of the Church besides) of ways in which the past can be harmonized with the present … without compromise of authentic doctrine. That will require a serious sifting: (1) What of that which the Society calls “Tradition” (capitalized) does legitimately belong to the Divine patrimony, and what of it is the “tradition of men”? (2) Wherein really lies the “hermeneutic of continuity” in the postconciliar Church?
Speaking selfishly here, I am greatly relieved. Why?
In a couple of weeks I will be the Catholic member of a Catholic/Jewish/Muslim panel in a community-wide interfaith forum. I was dreading the experience of having this repulsive incident throw up at me and the Catholic Faith with a background of the traditional diplomatic silence of the Vatican. Now, thank the Lord, we at least have a first foothold toward isolating this malicious stupidity. But it is only a foothold, because we need a clear, specific, direct, unqualified, and forceful rejection of accommodation of anti-semitic expressions and attitudes within the Church.
In my experience in the U.S. I have encountered a subset, probably a minority, of true anti-jewish members of SSPX who feel a sense of mutual support for having a forum to gather through its structures. I realize that the situation may be different in Europe, and I certainly hope so. It is the most (literally) repulsive feature of this group, because it strongly inclines me toward a policy of just making the terms of reconciliation with the Church clear, with the idea that the attitudes of SSPX will probably keep them away. And I attend the Gregorian Mass and support tradition in the Church.
I know, we need to remember “go the extra mile”, the parable of the lost sheep, etc. But if the terms of reconciliation include the expectation that the Church will make a cozy spot for a cabal that wishes to organize around the principle that the Catholic Church has a duty to be anti-semitic, to teach anti-semitism, and to promote contempt for Jews and Judaism, I truly believe we need to decline – forcefully.
In at least one respect the SSPX criticism of the modern Church is correct, because she did reject a (human) habit of mind that was antagonistic toward Jews and Judaism. History did change to that extent. It was right for the Church to do so. And none of that requires that we back off for a moment on the proposition that the Church must offer to all mankind, that Jesus the Messiah is the source of salvation for all – Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female. In that, we are all all one.
But Christ does not judge us on a numerical scorecard of how many Jews or any others we have forced or coerced, but rather on OUR fidelity to what he taught us. Our prime responsibility is to proclaim and live out the Truth in Christian serenity and fidelity. God set this Church in motion, and our fidelity will simply unblock His plan from unfolding. And what do you think is the likely outcome if you were to stand before Christ the Messiah King, clinging to your actions in a life filled with anti-Jewish provocation?
I know that God wills the salvation of all mankind, that all men have free will and can embrace or reject Truth so far as they recognize it and respond, and that the Catholic Church is the sure and ordinary means of grace toward salvation. But I have no idea about exactly how His plan will unfold toward the Jews.
In the meantime I simply embrace Jews as ancestors in the Faith, put up with the unfair taunts and antagonisms any toss my way as a Catholic, defend Jews when they are attacked, object and correct the record when any defame the Church, and enjoy human fellowship and the fruits of the considerable talents of the Jewish people.