Papal damage control (plus Wiesel’s reax)
At today’s weekly general (public) audience, Pope Benedict XVI weighed in with remarks aimed at distancing himself from the Holocaust denials of one of the recently un-excommunicated ultra-right “Tradical” bishops. Here’s the AP account:
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he feels “full and indisputable solidarity” with Jews and warned against any denial of the full horror of the Holocaust.
Benedict spoke days he revoked the excommunication of a bishop who says no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust. The decision provoked an outcry among Jews.
“As I renew my full and indisputable solidarity with our brothers,” Benedict said, “I wish that the memory of the Shoah prompt humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the hearts of men.” Shoah is a Hebrew word for the Holocaust.
“May the Shoah be a warning to everyone against oblivion, denials or reduction,” the pope told thousands of pilgrims at a weekly audience at the Vatican.
The Vatican had already distanced itself from comments by bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II. The Holy See said that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson’s views.
But these were the first comments on the issue by the pope since the controversy erupted.
I’m not sure that goes far enough for the Jewish community–or many others–in light of the many other sore points out there. What is interesting is the clear pattern that has developed: Benedict says or does something that upsets a community, there is an outcry, then the generic statements of reassurance from the Vatican. There are better ways to do this, if one cares to.
UPDATE: Reuters just moved an interview with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in which he has some tough things to say about the pope’s actions:
VATICAN CITY, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict has given credence to “the most vulgar aspect of anti-Semitism” by rehabilitating a Holocaust-denying bishop, said Elie Wiesel, the death camp survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Wiesel also said there was no way the Vatican could have not known about the bishop’s past and it may have been done “intentionally”.
“What does the pope think we feel when he did that? That a man who is a bishop and Holocaust denier — and today of course the most vulgar aspect of anti-Semitism is Holocaust denial — and for the pope to go that far and do what he did, knowing what he knows, is disturbing,” Wiesel said by telephone from New York.
“The result of this move is very simple: to give credence to a man who is a Holocaust denier, which means that the sensitivity to us as Jews is not what it should be,” he said late on Tuesday.
Read rest of the Reuters piece after the jump…
Speaking at his general audience on Wednesday, the pope reaffirmed his “full and unquestionable solidarity with Jews”, condemned the “pitiless killing of millions of Jews” and said the Holocaust should remain a warning against “denial”.
British-born Richard Williamson, one of four traditionalist bishops whose excommunications were lifted on Saturday, has made several statements denying the full extent of the Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians. Williamson told Swedish television in an interview broadcast a week ago: “I believe there were no gas chambers” and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of 6 million.
His interview, taped in November, caused an uproar among Jewish leaders and progressive Catholics, many of whom said it had cast a dark shadow over 50 years of Christian-Jewish dialogue.
“It’s a pity because Jewish-Catholic relations, thanks to John XXIII and John Paul II, had never been as good, never in history,” Wiesel said, referring to the popes who revolutionised relations with Jews after 2,000 years of mistrust.
Asked if he believed it was possible that the Vatican did not know that Williamson was a Holocaust denier, Wiesel, who won the Nobel in 1986 and survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, said:
“Oh no! The Church knows what it does, especially on that level for the pope to readmit this man, they know what they are doing. They know what they are doing and they did it intentionally. What the intention was, I don’t know.”
Since the furore over the pope’s decision to lift the excommunication, the has condemned Williamson’s comments as “grave, upsetting (and) unacceptable”, restating the Church’s — and Benedict’s — teachings against anti-Semitism.
Wiesel said he could not offer the Vatican any advice on how to put things right with Jews but something had to be done.
“The Vatican created the situation. It’s up to them to resolve it. As it is, it is a very sad situation. So unexpected because we had high hopes for the relations between Jews and Catholics because they had been so good under those two popes … and now it’s the opposite,” said the 80-year-old.
Wiesel recounted his experiences in death camps in the book “Night”. Asked what the controversy meant to him personally as a survivor, he said: “Puzzlement, shock, and immense sadness.”
On Tuesday, Williamson’s superior in the traditionalist movement publicly apologised to the pope and said William had been disciplined and ordered to remain silent on political or historical issues.
But Wiesel agreed with other Jewish leaders who have said the episode would have long-lasting ramifications in the fight against anti-Semitism.
“One thing is clear. This move by the pope surely will not help us fight anti-Semitism. Quite the opposite,” he said.
David, you say: “What is interesting is the clear pattern that has developed: Benedict says or does something that upsets a community, there is an outcry, then the generic statements of reassurance from the Vatican. There are better ways to do this, if one cares to.”
The questions comes: Is this intentional or not? Wiesel himself raises it.
“Oh no! The Church knows what it does, especially on that level for the pope to readmit this man, they know what they are doing. They know what they are doing and they did it intentionally. What the intention was, I don’t know.”
Is that right? What possibly COULD have been the intention? What do you think he wanted to do? You wrote the book on him!
Yes, and the problem with writing the book is trying to winnow it down–even for a supreme generalist like me!
Couple of thoughts: At the risk of offending theologians and scholars (like you, Cathy!), Benedict is both, always has been, with very little of the pastoral side to leaven his often clinical, disembodied declarations. He dislikes personal conflict, so he seems to transfer his desire to engage and battle over important topics to the realm of the lecture hall and the pulpit.
He is also a German–and at the risk of offending Germans, while he had no truck with Nazism (claims about his wartime record are canards) Joseph Ratzinger has also been very defensive about imputing guilt or responsibility for WWII or the Holocaust to his nation or his faith. He was, and remains, a Bavarian Catholic, and his upbringing dictates many of his decisions, even as they are couched in the language of universality or tradition. Look at his address at Aushchwitz in 2006–a theological discussion of evil and the claim that the German people were victims of a kind of Nazi incubus that stole over them in the night. Many find the topics he raised there interesting, but they tend to be people who did not face extermination. Again, Jews (and otrhers) were stunned that he did not mention anti-Semitism, and so he did so at his general audience when he got back to Rome. Too little, too late, too little emotion.
Ratzinger wants to keep his personality out of his papacy, and that can be a good thing. But the truth his, he is who he is–and his life story could also be a wonderful platform for exploring issues of the church’s culpability or past failings. John Paul did it to great effect. Benedict will be the last of this generation on the Throne of St. Peter, so it is an opportunity lost.
Finaly, a straightforward explanation: Benedict XVI is, has Joseph Raztinger always was, a religious conservative, in the sense that he believes that a faith’s immutable truths must be proclaimed clearly, first and foremost. If some take offense, so be it. “Peace is not the first civic duty,” he once told an interviewer, “and a bishop whose only concern is not to have any problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible is an image I find repulsive.” Ratzinger was always true to that principle, and his sharp comments on homosexuality, Buddhism and Protestantism, for example, earned him headlines as a cardinal while his critique of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad at a lecture in Regensberg in 2006 led to a violent reaction and the biggest crisis of his papacy.
Oh, and another aspect of his ivory tower personality: He likes to keep his own counsel, mulling decisions privately and then promulgating them over the objections of his advisors or without their input. That is what happened with the Regensberg speech on Islam, the restoration of the Latin Mass and Good Friday prayer, and this latest episode with the Traditionalists.
Basta! Take a whack at all that!
“I’m not sure that goes far enough for the Jewish community–or many others–in light of the many other sore points out there. What is interesting is the clear pattern that has developed: Benedict says or does something that upsets a community, there is an outcry, then the generic statements of reassurance from the Vatican. There are better ways to do this, if one cares to.”
Did Vatican 2 eliminate the auto-da-fe?
How should the Vatican handle this? Remove the excommunication for all of the bishops but one? Punish the one bishop? Back off from SSPX altogether until they…. do what?
Good questions: What should they do? It is too late to undo the damage, but there should be a much greater outreach to the Jewish community and more forceful denunciations of the views of Wliiamson and the broader Trad movement re Judaism. The controversry has understandably centered on Williamson’s remarks and views, but he’s not the point, nor is Holocaust-denying the point–it is about church teachings on anti-Semitism and on Judaism and on religious freedom. These are problems within the wider Lefebvrist sect. And they relate directly to Vatican II.
I think it’s important to remember that the spur to schism was the ordination in 1988 of the bishops. So it’s a juridical issue, chiefly. The other problem for the Vatican is the unique status of bishops (which I believe was also underscored at Vatican II, though experts can correct me) in that they cannot be “laicized” like a priest. They have a kind of double-ordination: Once a bishop, always a bishop. Really. That’s what made the pope’s decision to “un-bishop” Fernando Lugo in Paraguay a stunner: No one could recall it being done befor, or if it even could be done. That fact that the Pope had dispensed Lugo for being elected president of a country also struck some as a rich irony in that bishops who facilitated child abusers were allowed to retain their ordination–and jobs–even as priests were defrocked.
So what to do with the Trad bishops? It’s tough. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. And I suspect they may bolt if they’re pushed to accept V2 fully. But the Vatican should have anticipated these problems and done far better front-end prep than it did, if indeed it had to take this action at all. I don’t think there’s been a convincing case that this was a priority for the Church. The Old Mass was restored and available. Why go SSPX?
How should the Vatican handle this? Remove the excommunication for all of the bishops but one? Punish the one bishop? Back off from SSPX altogether until they…. do what?
Correct me if I am wrong, but if Williamson was validly but illicitly made a bishop by Lefebvre, by lifting the excommunication, Benedict XVI is accepting him as a bishop in the Catholic Church. It seems to me if Williamson is now a bishop in the Catholic Church, the minimum acceptable approach is to treat him the same way as any Holocaust denying, anti-Semite, anti-woman, 9/11-conspiracy-theorist bishop. I am no expert here, but I think it would have been better not to lift the excommunication from him, and better still not to lift it from any of them. If the Church wants the “traditionalists” back in the fold, it should woo the little guys, not the leaders.
I don’t think that these bishops are being allowed to perform their typical duties nor have they been assigned dioceses. So in effect they don’t seem to have been inserted into the general apparatus as bishops but they are no longer excommunicated as Catholics.
It seems that the bishop is being treated as a crank, which he may simply be. If he is, this is a reflection of Lefebvre’s judgment and not the pope’s.
But it may be that the bishop is expressing ideas that proceed logically from the world view the SSPX holds as a sect oriented to a vision of pre-Vatican 2 Catholicism. As I said in another post, they may have become inbred like these breakaway groups often do. This would be more of a worry, I think. But the solution is, I think, not to continue their segregation but to bring them back in.
If some people outside think that it was SSPX that lifted an excommunication from the pope and that Benedict is now surrendering to them (with this bishop and his nonsense being the main spokesman for the group), they are simply wrong. The brighter ones know it or will soon know it. The others are doing their own thing anyway.
I’m sure I leave out all the subtleties but it seems to me the root of the problem is the monarchical centralization of the Roman Catholic church. During and since Vatican 11 the Vatican Curia has done everything it could to erode the collegiality sought at Vatican11 and it has had considerable success; when we hear the inevitable shout: ‘the church is not a democracy’ the answer might be we just want the church to be the church not a monarchy preoccupied with its own survival.
When we ask the other churches to return to Rome we have to wonder if Rome is Rome.
You raise an interesting point, Dr. Harrison, in that many of these steps re the Trads and the Latin Mass and such were taken despite quite strong resistance from bishops who Benedict said he wanted to collaborate with and listen to.
I wonder if this opening to the SSPX would not have been better approached more openly, thru a synod or some such.
Rome finds itself with goofball bishops on its hands from time to time (wasn’t there a fellow within the last few years who got married and joined the Unification Church?), and seemingly knows how to deal with them. Let’s hope they take corrective action on this guy expeditiously. I don’t care if his boneheaded opinions aren’t theological in nature – bishops are more than exponents of theology. They are pastors of the church, which among many other things means that they are public figures who represent the church to the wider world. They need to speak, write and act appropriately.
Jim, good reminder about the Milingo example. Different in some regards, as to his behavior and transgressions, and he didn’t have a real following. (Except in the Moonies…)
But they never got rid of him completely, I think.
And now Israel’s chief rabbinate has broken ties with the Vatican:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/eu_vatican_jews
Not the same as the State of Israel breaking ties, but still another negative response to the Pope’s lifting of the SSPX excommunications. Will the Popes’ planned visit to Israel later this year also be a victim of the Williamson debacle?
Mr. Gibson and Jim – your thoughtful analysis brought a number of things to mind:
a) Mr. Gibson’s summation of B16: “Benedict XVI is, has Joseph Raztinger always was, a religious conservative, in the sense that he believes that a faith’s immutable truths must be proclaimed clearly, first and foremost. If some take offense, so be it. “Peace is not the first civic duty,” he once told an interviewer, “and a bishop whose only concern is not to have any problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible is an image I find repulsive.” Ratzinger was always true to that principle, and his sharp comments on homosexuality, Buddhism and Protestantism, for example, earned him headlines as a cardinal while his critique of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad at a lecture in Regensberg in 2006 led to a violent reaction and the biggest crisis of his papacy.
Oh, and another aspect of his ivory tower personality: He likes to keep his own counsel, mulling decisions privately and then promulgating them over the objections of his advisors or without their input.”
b) Jim – you added: “They are pastors of the church, which among many other things means that they are public figures who represent the church to the wider world. They need to speak, write and act appropriately.”
Brings to mind the significant number of US bishops that are retiring now; and their replacements. As you look at Sambi and B16′s candidates, some appear to share the same approach, personality traits, and actions as B16. Think about our recent electoral period – statements from Chaput, Martino, Egan, Kansas bishops. The new bishops seem to share somethings in common – conservative bent; pass the litmus test on conception, abortion, bio-ethical issues; all trained in Rome; most have spent the majority of their years in administration. So, what does that say about our future?
Wouldn’t mind you expanding on your ideas about his “internal” focus vs. external? What about folks such as Lugo, Chinese bishops?. Why did he not propose a SSPX rite paralleling rites such as Armenian, Syro, etc? If his goal is unity – what about the “left” side of the church – Dignity, We are Church – I know, they are not officially in schism but in the eyes of many, they are excommunicated.