Pope Benedict is reinstating four men into the Church. One of them is a Holocaust denier (or, as he calls it, the "quote unquote Holocaust"). See the article here. Relevant dialogue from an interview on Swedish television is below.
The Church is gravely damaging relations with the Jewish world - taking giant steps back from the courageous path carved out during Vatican II.
Q: Bishop Williamson, are these your words: “There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies.”? Are these your words?
A: There you are quoting from Canada I believe, yes, of many years ago. I believe that the historical evidence — the historical evidence — is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolph Hitler.
Q: But you say that not one Jew was killed?
A: In gas chambers. I think…
Q: So there was no gas chambers?
A: I believe there were no gas chambers. Yes. As far as I have studied the evidence. I’m not going by emotion. I’m going by as far as I’ve understood the evidence. I think, for instance, people who are against what is widely believed today about the quote-unquote the Holocaust, I think that people, those people conclude — the revisionists as they’re called — I think the most serious conclude that between two and three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber.
This is horrifying to say the least. There will always be people who have extreme values. To have a large and influential organization support these extremist views is a different matter entirely. In this action, Pope Benedict has made a strong statement and has set a precedence. He is creating an unnecessary chasm between faiths and within his own. Additionally he has shown that he is willing to reverse the decisions (and advancements) of Pope John Paul II. In his less than four years in the papacy, he has taken numerous steps back; this one the largest by far. I am highly saddened by this disturbing decision.
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ReplyDeleteRae
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. The more we learn about Williamson, the more troubling Benedict's decision appears.
As an isolated act, Benedict's reinstitution of the Latin mass calling for the conversion of Jews would have been alarming, but possibly forgiven as a misguided nod to tradition. But seen in the context of repeated blows against the Jewish community, it is impossible to see Benedict's acts as anything other than an assault on Catholic-Jewish relations. Among other things, Williamson believes that a Masonic-Jewish conspiracy has undue influence in world affairs. Deeply, deeply disturbing.
My concern for the world is growing when a Pope would make such a blatant lie about such an important subject.
ReplyDeleteI knew Pope Benedict was an evil man from his words about politics, the world and his performance in his sermons that demonstrated idol worship of the man whom the Roman Catholics base their faith on because he claimed to be God.
From the achieves of the American military about WWII, there will be a fairly accurate number, unless the numbers were doctored, of the number of Jews gassed and killed in Germany.
This idiot Bishop Williamson first says that not one Jew was gassed in the gas chambers of Germany, which if he does not know he is telling a blatant lie, then he is demonstrating his profound ignorance on the subject.
Then Bishop Williamson goes on to say that maybe “only” two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in the concentration camps of Germany. Even if that were true, how would he like to be one of the victims in the concentration camp?