Richard Owen, Rome
Article from: The Australian
HARD on the heels of a row over Holocaust denial, Pope Benedict XVI has appointed an ultra-conservative bishop in Austria who described Hurricane Katrina as God's punishment for sin and sexual excess in New Orleans.
Father Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, a parish priest at Windischgarsten in Austria since 1988, said in the parish newsletter four years ago that the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina was "divine retribution" for excessive sexual permissiveness, including tolerance of homosexuality, in the city.
He noted that Katrina destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans, but also abortion clinics, saying: "The conditions of immorality in this city are indescribable."
Father Wagner, who has been appointed auxiliary Bishop of Linz in Austria, aroused more controversy when he accused the Harry Potter books and films of "spreading Satanism".
Vatican sources said that despite the row over the pontiff's controversial reinstatement of a bishop who denies that the Holocaust occurred, Pope Benedict remained determined to "bring back into the fold" not only the four bishops from the Society of St Pius X whose excommunications were lifted a week ago but also the 500 priests of the fraternity, founded by the late renegade French bishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The main obstacle remains the Lefebvrists' continuing refusal to accept the modernising reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, including Nostra Aetate, the statement on relations with other faiths that stressed the bond between Christians and Jews ("Abraham's stock"), cleared the Jews of blame for the death of Christ and condemned all forms of anti-Semitism.
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the rehabilitated Lefebvrist bishops, yesterday insisted they would not alter their rejection of the teachings of Vatican II and said he hoped the Vatican would be "converted" to their ultra-traditionalist views.
Asked by the writer Alain Elkann for La Stampa whether the Lefebvrists were thinking of changing their minds on Vatican II reforms, the bishop replied: "No, absolutely not. We are not changing our position, we intend to convert Rome - that is, to bring the Vatican toward our positions."
He said he had "no opinion" about the denial of the Holocaust gas chamber killings expressed by Richard Williamson, another of the rehabilitated Lefebvrist bishops.
Bishop Williamson, who said the Nazis did not use gas chambers and killed "only" 300,000 Jews rather than six million, admitted last week his remarks had been "imprudent" and apologised to the Pope for the "anguish" he had caused. However, he did not withdraw his claim, nor did he apologise to the Jews.
The Holy See says its decision to rehabilitate Bishop Williamson does not mean it approves of all his views.
Gilles Bernheim, who was installed yesterday as Chief Rabbi of France, said he had been assured by "my Christian friends" that the bishop was isolated in his extremist views, but said he remained disturbed by the Pope's move.
The Times
Vatican crisis over bishop who denies the Holocaust
Pope's judgment and ability questioned after decision to lift excommunication
by Oliver Balch in La Reja, John Hooper in Rome and Riazat Butt
The Guardian
Only birdsong and muttered prayers disturb the tranquil cloisters where men dressed in long, black cassocks make their way to daily mass said in Latin; seminary students with hoes tend the vegetable allotments and check the wooden beehives that shelter beneath a copse of pine trees.
Yet the neo-classical seminary of Our Lady of Corredentora, set in open countryside in the peaceful outskirts of Buenos Aires, is at the eye of a storm that stretches all the way to the gates of the Vatican.
For the past five years, Bishop Richard Williamson has presided over this ultra-conservative religious community in La Reja, but the man behind the international uproar is not receiving visitors.
Neighbours note that padlocks have appeared on the seminary gates. The weekday handouts of food to the local community have also been temporarily suspended, "for summer recess" according to a sign on the administrator's door.
Bishop Williamson is busy with "spiritual exercises", a cassocked novice in the seminary compound told the Guardian. "The seminary is closed for a month-long spiritual retreat and no contact is permitted during this time."
The controversial British cleric certainly does not seem about to break his quasi-monastic routine to answer Pope Benedict's request for clarification of his comments on the Holocaust, which surfaced this week shortly after the Vatican's decision to welcome back into the church four excommunicated bishops, including Williamson.
"I believe there were no gas chambers," Williamson said in an interview with Swedish television last month, claiming that no more than 300,000 Jews died in concentration camps.
It is, a source close to the highest levels in the Vatican told the Guardian, "the biggest catastrophe for the Roman Catholic church in modern times". An exaggeration, perhaps, but the passion with which that judgment was spat out hinted at the tensions that have been aroused by Pope Benedict's move.
His judgment and ability have been questioned as never before, both within his administration, the Roman Curia, and the wider church that he leads. It has unleashed a torrent of Jewish indignation, doubtless setting back the chances of a deal on the status of the Roman Catholic church in Israel, and could yet doom his scheduled visit to the Holy Land in May. Some of the fiercest internal criticism came, not from the dwindling numbers of liberal Catholics, but from the very conservatives who delighted in his election four years ago.
Benedict came to the papal throne as the "law and order" candidate. "The aim of his pontificate has been to restore order to the Catholic church after the tumultuous innovations of the previous incumbent," said Luigi Accattoli, Vatican commentator for Corriere della Sera. "Many of those innovations, particularly with regard to interfaith dialogue and ecumenism, were not always well-received."
It was consistent with his objective that Benedict should have set out to end the Catholic church's only modern schism, formalised in 1988 when Pope John Paul II excommunicated four clerics belonging to the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). The four, who included Williamson, had all been ordained as bishops by the rebel SSPX's founder, Marcel Lefebvre.
Reincorporating the diehards was never going to be easy. Williamson is far from being the only member of the SSPX to question the extent of the Nazi Holocaust. Father Floriano Abrahamowicz told the Tribuna di Treviso, a newspaper in north-east Italy, this week: "I know the gas chambers existed - at least, for disinfecting - but not whether they caused deaths or not."
So far as church unity is concerned, however, it is their theological insubordination that is more relevant. The SSPX was created to provide a spiritual home for those Catholics who refused to accept the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. While many of its innovations have since been interpreted in a restrictive fashion, not least by Benedict, they remain fundamental to any definition of modern Catholicism.
But by lifting the excommunications without demanding any undertaking from Williamson and the others, the pope has angered not just liberals, who see it as capitulation to an unpleasantly reactionary splinter group, but also the many conservatives who admired his insistence on obedience and who feel he has blunted the most fearsome disciplinary instrument in the pope's gift.
Few, in Rome at least, were ready to vent their criticism publicly. But according to one well-informed source, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the senior Vatican official who was told to sign the decree lifting the excommunications on behalf of the pope, "roared" his disapproval of the move.
Defenders of the initiative noted that the decree did not, of itself, heal the schism or settle the issue of the SSPX's future status within the Catholic church. The announcement said it was issued out of "paternal pity".
"What Benedict has said is that this is the first step in a dialogue," acknowledged a prominent British liberal speaking on condition of anonymity. "But that could be very bad for the church as a whole. It is one thing if [the Lefebvrists] come nearer to the church universal. But if the church universal comes closer to them, it matters a great deal."
Some German and Austrian clerics, appalled by Williamson's claim that "only" 300,000 Jews had been exterminated by the Nazis, made their objections clear. But there was also said to be seething discontent in the French church, which has borne the brunt of Lefebvre's rebellion.
According to one source in Rome, a delegation of French bishops was expected at the Vatican next week to protest that they were not consulted on the move. Similar complaints were being aired within the Vatican itself.
By the time Williamson's remarks were broadcast, on 21 January, the decree had already been signed. But had the Vatican's media experts been consulted, they might have suggested freezing the announcement until the British bishop withdrew his remarks - or at least until after the United Nations Holocaust memorial day on 27 January. "Benedict's inner circle needs to have someone who is sensitive to public opinion and can see these problems coming," said the pope's biographer, John Allen.
Back in La Reja, Sabina Medina, a resident who wakes up to the seminary bells at 6am every day, shares the shock that many in the local community feel about Williamson's statement about the Holocaust. "You can't call yourself a real Catholic and hold such absurd views. I'm not certain about his place on Judgment Day," the 52-year-old says.
At the seminary's arched entrance gates, the telephone receptionist arrives for work. Liliana, 53, is a faithful attendant at the seminary's Sunday mass and a firm defender of Bishop Williamson, arguing that his comments were taken out of context. Once at her desk, a quiet day lies ahead of her. The very week that the world is watching and waiting, it seems the seminary's telephone line has providentially gone down.
Profile
Converted to Catholicism in 1971. Later joined the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) and ordained a priest by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1976. Consecrated as bishop without the Vatican's permission he was summarily excommunicated in 1988. Continued his work with SSPX in Argentina, becoming a cult figure among far-right seminarians. On Swedish TV last year he said that no Jews had died in gas chambers. He has also claimed that the US government planned 9/11 and that a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination is very real. He says women can be distracted by having their own ideas.
Pope critical of Holocaust denial
February 13, 2009
Article from: The Australian
VATICAN CITY: The Pope last night declared that it was "intolerable" to deny the Holocaust, especially for a priest, as he met Jewish leaders in hopes of ending the rancour over a bishop who denied six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.
The German-born Benedict XVI also confirmed that he planned to visit Israel in May, in what would be the second official visit by a pope.
The Vatican scheduled the Pope's audience with about 60 American Jewish leaders late yesterday after he lifted the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who denied the Holocaust, sparking outrage among Jews and Catholics alike.
Issuing his strongest condemnation of Holocaust denial yet, the Pope affirmed the Catholic Church was "profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism".
"The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity," the Pope said, using the Hebrew term for the Holocaust. "This should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures.
"It is beyond question that any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable," he said during the meeting in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
Jewish leaders applauded his comments, saying the crisis with the church that had been sparked by Bishop Richard Williamson's comments was over. In an interview with Swedish state television broadcast on January 21, Williamson denied that any Jews were gassed during World War II. He said only about 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed, but none of them were gassed.
The Vatican said the Pope did not know of Bishop Williamson's views when he agreed to lift the excommunication, and stressed that it did not in any way share those views. But confronted with mounting Jewish outrage, the Vatican demanded he recant before he would be fully admitted as a bishop into the church.
He has apologised for causing distress to the Pope, but has not recanted. He said he would correct himself if he is satisfied by the evidence.
Pope admits errors and takes frank look at controversy over Holocaust-denying bishop
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Benedict XVI has made an unusual public acknowledgment of Vatican mistakes and turmoil in his church over an outreach to ultraconservatives that led to his lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop.
In an attempt to end one of the most serious crises of his papacy, he said in a letter released Thursday that the Vatican must make greater use of the Internet to prevent other controversies.
The Vatican took the rare step of releasing the German-born pope's personal account of the incident addressed to Catholic bishops around the world.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the letter released in six languages was "really unusual and deserving of maximum attention."
It recalled his apology in 2006 after his remarks linking Islam to violence caused a storm in the Islamic world. He said then he was "deeply sorry."
Popes are traditionally protective of their office and their aides but the last time a pope explicitly proclaimed infallibility on matters of faith and morals was in 1950.
The Vatican has said that Benedict did not now know that British-born Bishop Richard Williamson was a Holocaust denier when he lifted his excommunication on Jan. 24.
Benedict, in an implicit criticism of aides, said that not searching the Internet for information before lifting the excommunications Jan. 24 was an "unforeseen mishap" that caused tensions between Christians and Jews.
Williamson had denied in an interview with Swedish TV broadcast earlier in January that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He said about 200,000 or 300,000 were murdered and none were gassed. His excommunication was lifted along with three other ultraconservative bishops' in an attempt to bring dissidents back into the mainstream church.
Instead, the move outraged many Jews and Catholics, including bishops in Benedict's native Germany, when Williamson's views became widely known and the interview was widely viewed on the Internet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Protestant, demanded clarification from Benedict.
The pope said the controversy resulted from an "unforeseen mishap" that made his efforts of "mercy" toward the excommunicated bishops seem like a repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews.
"That this overlapping of two opposing processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the church, is something which I can only deeply deplore," he wrote.
Benedict wrote that he was saddened that even who should know better "thought they had to attack me with open hostility."
The pope thanked "all the more our Jewish friends" for understanding his commitment to friendship.
Benedict also held a meeting Thursday with a delegation of Israel's chief rabbinate as part of regularly planned consultations to discuss aspects of Catholic and Jewish religious teachings.
The pope said he hopes his visit to the Holy Land in May can foster understanding among religions. He said he remains committed to a landmark document issued by the Second Vatican Council that states the church deplores all forms of anti-Semitism.
"My intention is to pray especially for the precious gift of unity and peace both within the region and for the worldwide human family," Benedict said of his May 8-15 visit to the Holy Land.
"May my visit also help to deepen the dialogue of the Church with the Jewish people so that Jews and Christians and also Muslims may live in peace and harmony in this Holy Land," he said.
Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen of Haifa called the audience "a special experience ... because it marks an end of a crisis."
In the letter, Benedict defended his attempts to bring ultraconservative faithful loyal to the anti-modernization movement of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into the church's fold.
But he acknowledged that "another mistake, which I deeply regret" was made in not properly explaining his intentions and the limits of the procedure and that some groups had accused him of seeking to "turn back the clock."
"That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and this became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept," Benedict said.
But he said the church cannot be indifferent to a movement that counts 491 priests, 215 seminarians and six seminaries.
"Should we casually let them drift farther from the church?" he asked.
The Vatican and Rome's Jewish Community also announced Thursday that Benedict would visit the city's main synagogue in the fall. In 1986 the late Pope John Paul II made his historic, first-ever papal visit to a synagogue there.
Lombardi said no exact date has been set for Benedict's visit.