Vatican statement on the Lefebvrite bishops
The Vatican Secretariat of State released today a statement about the lifting the excommunications of the four Lefebvrite bishops. A couple of notable elements:
1) While the lifting of the excommunications relieves the four from a very serious canonical punishment, “it has not altered the juridical situation of the Society of St. Pius X which, at the moment enjoys no canonical recognition by the Catholic Church.” In addition, the four bishops “have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise a ministry within it.”
2) Any future recognition of the SSPX has as an “indispensable condition a full recognition of the Second Vatican Council” and of the last five popes.
3) For him to be admitted to episcopal functions in the Church, Bishop Williamson must repudiate absolutely unequivocally and publicly his positions with regard to the Shoah, which, the Note says, were not known to the Pope when he lifted the excommunication.
Do you have the hyperlink?
Thanks!
“…with regard to the Shoah, which, the Note says, were not known to the Pope when he lifted the excommunication.”
This is really something. Outstanding hubris. Also a statement of Catholic attitude and mores prior to the Catholic Enlightenment (Vatican II). “If Father says it it is true.”
It’s in Italian, but this should work:
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/23319.php?index=23319&lang=en
Here are write-ups from, respectively, the NYT, AP, and Reuters:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/world/europe/05pope.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020401221.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020401322.html
Bill: I don’t understand your comment. Where do you see the hubris? In Williamson? in the Vatican statement? in the requirement that he repudiate his views? in the statement that the Pope didn’t know about them before? In all of the above?
Better late than never.
I note that this statement came from the Vatican Secretariat of State, and wonder if it should be interpreted as Cardinal Bertone asserting his authority over and against Castrillon-Hoyas and his ilk.
in english:
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
If, as Fr. Komonchak’s colleague says, the Vatican is an incredibly narrow world, then it is all the more likely that the Pope did know Bishop Williamson’s views. Further, Cardinal Ratzinger was a member of the curia for many years, so he would likely have known what Bishop Williamson — and the others — were spouting.
It saddens me very much to think that Pope Benedict would allow it to be put out that he didn’t know at least what Bishop Williamson has said. So why is the Pope not being criticized explicitly by more bishops? I suspect it is has someething to do with the male biological imperative to follow the leader of the pack. By the way, I read a statement put out yesterday by Cardinal George which severely criticizes the Curia but excepts the Pope from criticism. So at least C. George has not been totally silent. Sorry, I forget where I read it.
Joe,
“in the statement that the Pope didn’t know about them before?”
That is hubris, since he certainly did know. If not he should resign.
German Bishops wasn’t careful with the pope as Card. George:
“Cardinal Karl Lehmann, a former chairman of the Conference of German Bishops, the highest post in the Catholic church in Germany, said the decision to rehabilitate Williamson had been “a disaster for all Holocaust survivors”.
He called on the Pontiff to apologise.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/holocaust-denying-bishop-vatican-recant-pope
Bill Donohue sees “German guilt” at work in the attacks on the Pope:
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1550
“Reeking with guilt over the Holocaust, we now have the spectacle of German Chancellor Angela Merkel telling the pope he needs to clarify his views on the Holocaust. Talk about hubris. This is a man who was forcibly conscripted at a young age into a Nazi group and saw his family suffer economically because he refused to attend the Hitler Youth meetings. This is a man who as Cardinal Ratzinger unequivocally condemned the Holocaust at a Jerusalem conference in 1994 and wrote about a book about it, Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World. And he needs to ‘clarify’ his views to Merkel?
“Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust is obscene, but this doesn’t excuse the grand-standing of the Regensburg D.A. who is investigating whether the bishop broke their illiberal laws when he made his comments in Sweden. Then there is the German press which has exploited this issue beyond belief: one major story says the pope has previously offended ‘Muslims, women, native Indians, Poles, gays and scientists.’ Translated this means that the pope speaks the truth and some don’t like it. Perhaps most embarrassing is the left-wing Catholic theologian Hermann Haering who implored the pope to quit. What a disgrace this man is to Catholics everywhere.
“Today, the Vatican announced that Williamson must ‘unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah’ if he is to be reinstated (he is still not in full communion with the Church, and may never be). The pope, the Vatican statement said, was unaware of this bishop’s views when he lifted his excommunication.
“There will be those who won’t believe the pope didn’t know about Williamson. Yet these same people no doubt believe that President Obama didn’t know about the thieves he’s been appointing. Moreover, there are approximately 3,500 bishops spread throughout the world. The pope is smart, but he’s not a seer.”
They are all obviously in damage control mode. This is very welcome news, but thanks only to the uproar, IMHO.
The bungling from the outset points to fundamental, serious problems with Benedict’s leadership. Der Spiegel has a long article well worth reading about his insularity and intellectual preoccupations that so remove him from reality. And he does not seem to care.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,605542-5,00.html
So, yes, good, Williamson must recant, but what about the deep-seated beliefs of all in SSPX, not just Williamson?
There was much favorable comment about the statement by Fr. Franz Schmidberger, an SSPX district superior in Germany, rebutting Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust. Fair enough.
But look at what Schmidberger and his co-religionists told German bishops just before Christmas ”to remind them of the supposed Jewish original sin: “With the crucifixion of Christ, the curtain of the temple was torn and the old alliance destroyed. But this does not just mean that the Jews of today are not our older brothers in faith. Rather, they are complicit in deicide, as long as they do not distance themselves from the culpability of their forefathers by acknowledging the divinity of Christ and the baptism.”
Der Spiegel , p 5 of article, A German Pope Disgraces the Catholic Church
There is no way the fabric of SSPX is not now unrepentantly tied to grievous sin in rejecting Nostra Aetate, V II’s document on the Jews. Is Benedict blind to the depth of their animosity to Jews, or doesn’t it matter as long as they rejoin the RCC and, well, he can fix that later?
I posted before the rants about the Jews from the SSPX website, still displayed.
Let them go — to more likely die of their own inner contradictions, as the Jesuit wrote in the WSJ. “Surveying the Damage Schismatics Do”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123328432417932139.html
See Mickens’ insightful and prescient reflection on the hermeneutics of V-II as parsed into a probable figleaf agreement that brings in SSPX but without substance behind it.
http://americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=27F08DDE-1438-5036-4F8792220B462A90
Benedict’s idea being, get them in at all cost. At what cost, I ask, dear God, at what cost? This is just too painful.
Day late.
Dollar (or Euro) short.
So, Ann, why did you write the second paragraph in your post today? I suspect it has something to do with the female biological imperative to [you name it!]. Talk about reductionism! And this, sigh, from a philosopher…
“Cardinal Karl Lehmann, a former chairman of the Conference of German Bishops, the highest post in the Catholic church in Germany, said the decision to rehabilitate Williamson had been “a disaster for all Holocaust survivors”.
He called on the Pontiff to apologise.”
Deo gratias. A bishop after my own heart. Uplifting to see courage and spirit in a bishop.
JAK,
I didn’t say that the male imperative to follow his leader is the whole explanation of why so many bishops so conspicouously have stopped short at criticising the Pope. I just said it has “something g to do with Conservatives hate to criticize their leaders too, I think, and bishops these days certainly have the reputTion of being consrvatves. (just look at how long it took Republicans to start criticize W.)
Why did I write the second paragraph? Well, it’s what I think. Could some Iological imperative have been behind it? Possibly. But that wouldn’t necessarily falsify what I said
Should have been ” biological imperative”. Sorry.
(i bought a MacBook today. I hope when I get it set up the garbling of my messages will stop!)
Cardinal Ratzinger was not only a member of the Curia, he was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith–why wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that he was aware of the theological views of SSPX?
Seriously. I can believe that the pope, and maybe most of the folks in the Vatican, hadn’t seen the most recent Williamson interview. But it’s not as though that was a one-time aberration.