Vatican tells bishop to recant views on Holocaust

By Michael Paulson
Globe Staff / February 5, 2009

The Vatican, facing the biggest controversy to confront the papacy of Benedict XVI, yesterday called on a bishop who has denied the extent of the Holocaust to recant his views.

The statement follows an extraordinary global firestorm over Benedict’s recent decision to lift the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, who has said he believes only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed in concentration camps, none of them in gas chambers, during World War II. Williamson is among four traditionalist bishops, leaders of a right-wing, anti-modernist, schismatic Catholic movement called the Society of St. Pius X, who had been excommunicated in 1988 because they were ordained without papal sanction, and whose excommunications were lifted by Benedict last month.

(Bishop Richard Williamson)

The lifting of the excommunications has provoked unprecedented criticism of the pope. On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on the pope to clarify his views, and last week, nearly 50 Catholic Democratic members of Congress, including US Representatives William D. Delahunt, Stephen F. Lynch, James McGovern, and Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, signed a letter asking the pope to repudiate the remarks by Williamson.

“These comments were so outrageous and so egregious it really demanded a response,” Delahunt said in an interview yesterday. “The moral authority of the church is important to retain, and having those statements out there was unacceptable.”

The controversy has damaged the reputation of Benedict, for whom the Holocaust is a particularly sensitive issue because he is a native of Germany who served a compulsory stint in the Hitler Youth. The controversy has also threatened to damage Jewish-Catholic relations, which had improved dramatically since the Second Vatican Council.

“The world of Jewish-Christian relations is pretty much aflame over this,” said Ruth Langer, an associate professor of Jewish studies at Boston College. And John L. Allen Jr., who follows the Vatican for the National Catholic Reporter, said, “They are facing massive global backlash to this decision.”

The Vatican’s action yesterday came in the form of a statement from its secretary of state’s office. The statement said that Benedict was unaware of Williamson’s comments - some of which were made recently on Swedish television, but some of which date back much further - when he decided to lift the excommunication. The statement also said that in order for the Society of St. Pius X to be fully reconciled with the Vatican, it must accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which include the church’s renunciation of anti-Semitism.

“Bishop Williamson, in order to claim admission to episcopal functions in the church, must distance himself in absolutely unequivocal and public fashion from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were not known by the Holy Father when the excommunication was lifted,” the Vatican said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.

Yesterday’s action won immediate praise from many of the pope’s Jewish and Catholic critics, although many are still expressing dismay at the Vatican’s handling of the situation.

“Pope Benedict is certainly aware of the anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism that endures among so many of those traditionalist groups, and if there is one spiritual good that may emerge from this affair of the lifted excommunications is the realization that most Catholics have embraced the teaching of Vatican II and repent for the church’s treatment of Judaism and Jews through the centuries,” said the Rev. James Bernauer, director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.

Bernauer and others said that one reason for the intensity of the controversy is that it reinforces pre-existing concerns many people had about the pope because of his role as the doctrinal enforcer during the tenure of John Paul II, and because of a 2006 speech he made that referred to forced conversions to Islam in the 14th century and caused a rift in Catholic-Muslim relations.

“There has been a loss of confidence in the Holy Father’s judgment at the highest levels in the church, as well as in the pews,” said Kevin Madigan, a professor of the history of Christianity at Harvard Divinity School.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, who called Williamson’s remarks “outrageous” but defended the pope in his blog, has agreed to meet with Jewish community leaders on Feb. 23.

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News Source: Boston.com