Bishop Will Recant Holocaust Denial--After He Reviews The Evidence

It started off simple enough:

The Vatican, bowing to the growing furor over Pope Benedict XVI's decision to accept a return to the church of a prelate who denied the Holocaust, made a dramatic turnaround Wednesday and demanded the bishop recant.

The Vatican sought to distance the pope from the controversy by saying he did not know about British Bishop Richard Williamson's views when he agreed to lift his excommunication last month.

But that was on Wednesday. Come Saturday:

A bishop who faces a Vatican demand to recant his denial of the Holocaust said he would correct himself if he is satisfied by the evidence, but insisted that examining it "will take time," a German magazine reported Saturday.

Richard Williamson is one of four bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican last month. The decision sparked outrage because Williamson had said in a television interview he did not believe any Jews were gassed during the Holocaust.

I was not aware that a bishop could so easily rebuff the Pope:

Williamson made clear he does not plan to comply immediately, and rejected a suggestion that he might visit the Auschwitz death camp, the weekly Der Spiegel reported.

"Since I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must look again at the historical evidence," the British bishop was quoted as saying.

"It is about historical evidence, not about emotions," he added, according to the report. "And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time."

If Williamson is so interested in reviewing the evidence, why would he refuse to visit Auschwitz? Then again, just what research has he done?

"I was convinced that my comments were right on the basis of my research in the '80s," Der Spiegel quoted Williamson as saying. "I must now examine everything again and look at the evidence."

I wonder if he took notes.

Meanwhile, Williamson has brought the spotlight onto the Society of St. Pius X. The Wikipedia entry on the society includes a section on Anti-Semitism:

There have been clear anti-semitic statements by some members of the society, particularly regarding Holocaust denial which is rampant within the society.[84] The society itself denies the claim that anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism exists in important circles of the Society[85] The Society stated that it has lay supporters and even a priest with a Jewish background.[86] However, the priest, Fr. Floriano Abrahamowicz, has also questioned the existance of Holocaust.[87] and has been expelled by the Italian chapter of of St. Pius X[88].[Note: Abrahamowicz claimed the gas chambers were used for disinfecting]

The views of Bishop Richard Williamson have been a particular source of controversy, as have those of another British SSPX cleric, the late Fr. Michael Crowdy^{*[see below]}.[89] For example, Bishop Williamson has written:

"However, until they re-discover their true Messianic vocation, they may be expected to continue fanatically agitating, in accordance with their false messianic vocation of Jewish world-dominion, to prepare the Anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem. So we may fear their continuing to play their major part in the agitation of the East and in the corruption of the West. Here the wise Catholic will remember that, again, the ex-Christian nations have only their own Liberalism to blame for allowing free circulation within Christendom to the enemies of Christ."[90]

In an interview with Swedish Sveriges Television in November 2008, whose broadcast on 21 January 2009, the date on which the Holy See lifted the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops, gained wide publicity, Williamson repeated his opinion that the generally accepted history of the Holocaust is wrong. He accepted an estimate of only 200,000-300,000 Jews killed in Nazi custody, and denied that gas chambers were used for the purpose of killing jews.[91]. The Vatican has repudiated Williamson's views as "unacceptable" [92]

Williamson's views on this and other subjects are controversial (though commonly held) even within traditionalist Catholicism: see the main article on him for more details. After his interview, broadcast by Swedish Television on 21 January 2009, both the Superior General of the SSPX, Bishop Fellay, and the District Superior of the SSPX in Germany, Fr. Franz Schmidberger, stated that Williamson's views represented his own personal opinions;[93] and Bishop Fellay, as superior general of the Society, "prohibited him, pending any new orders, from taking any public positions on political or historical questions".[94]

Although the SSPX authorities have thus disowned Williamson's speaking publicly on the question the of the existance of the Holocaust. They have not condemned the underlying statements. The Anti-Defamation League has accused the Society of St. Pius X of being "mired in anti-Semitism",[95] and journalist John L. Allen, Jr. has said it would be misleading to consider Williamson an isolated case: the Society's superior in Italy, Father Florian (or Floriano) Abrahamowicz also said he was not sure the Nazis had used gas chambers for anything other than disinfection, seemed to cast doubt on the number of six million Jews killed, complained that the Jews had exalted the Holocaust above other genocides, and called the Jews a "people of deicide".[96]

The SSPX was also accused of anti-Semitism in a 2006 report on Traditionalist Catholicism published by the American Southern Poverty Law Center. Defenders of the SSPX have strongly criticised the report and accused the SPLC of using accusations of anti-Semitism as a means of "silencing opponents of liberalism."[97] They have drawn parallels to similar accusations against Jewish scholars like Norman Finkelstein.

In 1989, Paul Touvier, a fugitive wanted for war crimes, was arrested in the SSPX priory in Nice. The SSPX stated at the time that Touvier had been granted asylum there as "an act of charity to a homeless man".[98] In 1994, Touvier was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the execution of seven Jews at Rillieux-la-Pape in 1944, allegedly in reprisal for the French Resistance's killing of the Vichy minister Philippe Henriot.[99] On his death in 1996, a Requiem Mass for Touvier's soul was offered for him by Father Philippe Laguérie,[100] the priest then in charge of the SSPX church of St Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris.[101] Touvier allegedly had expressed remorse for his actions and had asked for forgiveness.[citation needed]
[emphasis added]

^*Crowdy is the author of an article "The Mystery of the Jews in History":

Beyond its financial influence, Judaic thinking comes to dominate the cultural and educational fields. The pattern repeats: Jews get into posts of influence, and submit society to a high degree of corruption in ways of thinking and acting, which leads to a reaction of public opinion against them.

The article originally appeared on the Society of St. Pious X website, but has been removed. A cached copy is still available, and I noticed an anti-Semitic site that had it--I assume there are others.

Maybe the Pope should take a second look at the Society of St. Pious X as a whole.

Technorati Tag: Bishop Richard Williamson and The Society of St. Pious X and Anti-Semitism and Holocaust.