The Vatican's Response to Holocaust Denial Must Be Holocaust Education

Richard Williamson, one of the four excommunicated bishops whom Pope Benedict XVI wants to bring back into the Roman Catholic fold, is not the only Holocaust denier in the Society of St. Pius X, an ultra-right wing splinter group of the Roman Catholic Church. The Italian branch of the Society announced that it has expelled the Rev. Floriano Abrahamowicz for telling the northern Italian newspaper La Tribuna di Treviso that "I know that gas chambers existed at least for disinfection, but I don't know if they were used to kill people or not." Abrahamowicz, who called Jews "the people of deicide," has also described the reforms instituted by the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly referred to as Vatican II, which absolved contemporary Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ, as "worse than heresy."

Abrahamowicz's expulsion came in the wake of the firestorm over Williamson's declaration on Swedish television that "I believe that the historical evidence is largely against, is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler . . . . I believe there were no gas chambers." Williamson went on to say that he thought that "between two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers."

Williamson is also openly anti-Semitic. He has endorsed the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious Russian Czarist forgery that purports to depict a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, and has written publicly of "the false messianic vocation of Jewish world-dominion, to prepare the Anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem."

Faced with open revolt by leading Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops, especially in Germany and Austria, the Vatican last week conditioned Williamson's rehabilitation on his "absolutely, unequivocally and publicly" recanting his position on the Holocaust, something Williamson has refused to do, at least for the time being. He first wants to review the historical evidence. "If I find proof I would rectify (earlier statements) . . . But all that will take time," Williamson told the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

It is outrageous that Pope Benedict did not immediately respond to Williamson's stalling tactics by reinstating the renegade bishop's excommunication. When members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations leaders meet with the Pope today, they must demand that he categorically and permanently revoke Williamson's rehabilitation.

Pope Benedict hopes that the memory of the Holocaust "will prompt humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the hearts of men." But statements condemning Holocaust denial and reaffirming ecumenical sentiments toward the Jewish people are not enough. Pope Benedict should affirmatively declare holocaust denial to be heresy, and the Vatican should undertake a comprehensive program of Holocaust education.

Students at Roman Catholic schools, universities and seminaries throughout the world must be taught not only that the Holocaust occurred, but that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism helped make it possible. They must be taught that while Bishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, helped rescue Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War, and while Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège of Toulouse, France, spoke out publicly on their behalf, Pope Pius XII remained silent, as did most Catholic cardinals, bishops and priests.

They must be taught that thousands upon thousands of baptized Christians actively participated in the mass murder of European Jewry, and that hundreds of thousands looked on or looked away. They must be taught that many of the French policemen of the collaborationist Vichy regime who rounded up French Jews and helped send them to their death at Auschwitz regularly attended mass on Sundays. They must be taught that the Vatican never excommunicated Adolf Hitler or other baptized Nazi leaders, and that after World War II, Bishop Alois Hudal was instrumental in spiriting Nazi war criminals to safety in Latin America.

They must be taught that the Franciscan priest Miroslav Filipović, known as "Fra Sotona" ("Brother Satan"), was a brutal commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia, run by the collaborationist Ustasha regime, and that the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Šarić, enthusiastically supported and advocated the persecution and murder of Jews.

While the Vatican's relations with the Society of St. Pius X is an internal matter, its attitude, and Pope Benedict XVI's attitude, toward Holocaust denial and Holocaust deniers affects us all. My five-and-a-half year old brother, my mother's son, was murdered in a gas chamber at Auschwitz. For the sake of continued Jewish-Catholic relations, all Catholics, indeed all Christians, must be taught that my brother's brutal death and the deaths of more than one million Jewish children who perished in the Holocaust is at least as real as the death of a Jew named Jesus in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago.

Menachem Rosensaft, a lawyer in New York City, is the Founding Chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and Vice President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants

(This article was previously published by JTA, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Comments

[arvay]

We'd all be more interested if israel wasn't distracting us with its ethnic cleansing. BTW, just for your education, having stupid opinions isn't grounds for excommunication by the Catholic Church.

"Pope Benedict should affirmatively declare holocaust denial to be heresy"

more ignorance. Committing murder is forbidden, excusing murder is also, but denying that murder happened isn't . Again, stupidity isn't a sin. . .

The arrogance here is in trying to tell the Catholic Church what to believe and do.

Tell you what, if the Jews will remove all derogatory references to goyim from the Talmud, the Catholics should think about it.

[MagisterLudi]

This is from a poster who offered this historically rigorous opinion: " I's laughable that this Wall, part of a temple built by the Roman puppet Herod, would be sacred to Jews."
Form that ,anything else is a much lauded improvement.

[arvay]

It IS laughable that the Wall I mentioned (the Western Wall in Jerusalem), erected by a non-Jewish Roman puppet and murderous megalomanic, would be sacred to anyone, much less Jews.

But I don't see what my quote from another posting has to do with this.

[AbuBD]

This is a great idea.

[mulegino]

That is, the universal respect for human life, worth and dignity, which is the only foundation for a just international order.

[mulegino]

What, precisely is "holocaust education"? No serious historian would deny that the Nazi regime (particularly the SS Death's Head Units) engaged in savage, murderous crimes on a massive scale, against Jews, particularly in Poland and Russia.
The actual number of victims, however, is not a settled matter. The 6,000,000 figure may or may not be accurate (which does not lessen the evil of mass murder), but has acquired almost a mythological or mystical significance.
There seem to be, very broadly speaking, two types of what are called Holocaust deniers- one justly, the other unjustly.
The first group consists of historical revisionists and outright admirers of who seek to whitewash the Hitler regime and the criminal nature of National Socialism, many (but not all) of whom probably buy into the whole racist and anti-semitic philosophy of the "master race".
The other group is characterized by those who, while acknowledging the Nazis crimes, would point out that there were (confining ourselves merely to the 20th century) many "holocausts', each and every one with its own victims and perpetrators, and that to elevate one such event over all the others diminishes the very foundation of the universal respect

[Robert Davis]

The issues which led to the excommunications, now lifted, of the four bishops, were closely linked to the conservative reaction to Vatican II, and subsequent efforts of Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope) to bring theological conservatives back into the fold.

Bishop Williamson's preposterous views on the Holocaust, issued after the lifting of his excommunication, were quite unrelated to Vatican II, and disavowed by the Society of St Pius X as well as the Vatican.

The fact that Williamson is a public embarrassment to the Vatican and even to the Society of St Pius X does not alter the logic for the lifting of the four excommunications. That was and is an internal matter for the Catholic Church. In the event that he fails to renounce his statements on the Holocaust, he should not be excommunicated, but relieved of all episcopal and pastoral responsibilties. The punishment should fit the crime.

I quite agree that the study of atrocities should form part of school and other curricula. However, having witnessed the genocide in Rwanda and the ongoing slaughter in Somalia, I might propose a rather broader view of genocide than that set forth by Mr Rosensaft.

[gotborked]

Agreed.--The punishment should fit the crime. Being an idiot and/or saying idiotic things on a matter of historical fact are not grounds for excommunication or re-excommunication. The Church will deal with Williamson's punishment appropriately and deal with its PR appropriately.

The Church should not forgo its teachings and procedures just because an hamfisted media cannot or will not consider the nuance in the context of the excommunications and in the Church's teachings and procedures. The Church should work on its PR management, but not by sacrificing important teachings and beliefs.

[rbenjamin]

You have raised some excellent issues. The Pope's latest remarks were a good preliminary statement of intent, but he would be well advised to acknowledge the validity of each and every one of your points. Post it on every church bulletin board and on every church website. If the Shepard leads hard enough, the flock will mostly follow. Including the people who write the textbooks used in Catholic education, and the students who read them. Catholicism is a hierarchy, they know how to get people to tow the Papal line. Examples are well known and need not be cited here.

I also applaud you for not falling into the trap of attaching a title to Williamson's name. Usurping a title was why he got excommunicated in the first place. Things have gone a bit far for a simple recanting of position, the Pope should excommunicate him (again) specifically for Holocaust Denial. Williamson is a repeat offender, and no doubt he'll be sticking his thumb in the Vatican's eye again - whatever action the church takes.

[chaos4700]

Ugh. You know, I find it the height of irony that you would rally against anti-Semitism in one breath, only to mischaracterize the Church with anti-Catholic imagery. Jews have the Holocaust... German Catholics have the Kulturkampf. I recommend you read up on it sometime.

[rbenjamin]

I don't see how it's anti-Catholic to point out that the Church is a well-organized hierarchy....that the Pope had tremendous power to set policy...and that the Pope routinely exercises that power. That's the system. The hierarchy seems to served the Catholic community well, and in the past it's served the Jewish people well too. There are numerous instances in history when timely intervention by the Pope has saved a Jewish community from an angry local mob. In any case, how Catholics structure themselves is their own affair, as is Jewish proclivity for decentralization a matter for Jews to decide. Whatever the power structure, use it in a way that avoids decisions with unintentional downsides. Outsiders often spot things insiders don't. Exercise empathy, it's a useful survival skill. My tribe is catching a lot of criticism, well reasoned and not so well reasoned, about how our Israeli branch is handling the Gaza situation. We hear it, and there is a natural tendency to take the easy position that something we don't like is merely antisemitism (and there is a lot of it out there) when the better option is to listen and think harder.

[rbenjamin]

Sorry that if I implied that Catholics are monolithic or that dissent doesn't occur. Still, as your reference to the culture wars suggest, the centralized power structure can exert a lot of pressure to adhere to doctrine, with painful results in cases were it's applied to large segments of the population. Still, the power exists, and the appearance of not using it in a selective manner against a fringe element bigot like Williamson sends a troubling message.

[MagisterLudi]

I agree rbenjamin,
Lifting original excommunication was a serious error in judgment. This ex-bishop is widely known for incoherent statements. Why the rehabilitation? Thewy were hoping that exiling him to far-away Argentina will do the trick. Didn't work out that way.

[chaos4700]

I take it by your post that you don't understand what excommunication is, why it is done or why it was done specifically in the case of Williamson. I suggest you do a little bit of research.

[papapj]

How can anybody beny the Jewish holocaust?

If the same standard were applied to any other holocaust, we'd near incessantly about the Herrero in Namibia, the Armenian genocide, the French massacring the Libyans, the genocide inflicted upon Native Americans, the extermination of Vietnamese by Europeans, the rape of the Congo by king Leopold etc, etc.

The Jewish holocaust is real, and a tragedy, but no more or no less of a tragedy encountered by many ethnicities whose plight is relegated to silence and ignominy. That ONE person had to suffer at the hands of the Nazis is tragedy enough, but to spawn a whole industry based on milking pity and influencing foreign policy is reprehensible, and in no way should be used to excuse and hide the current holocaust being inflicted upon the Palestinians....

[DissedBeliever]

"While the Vatican's relations with the Society of St. Pius X is an internal matter, its attitude, and Pope Benedict XVI's attitude, toward Holocaust denial and Holocaust deniers affects us all."

You're right. Benedictt XVIs rehabilitation of conservatives who had broken with Rome over the liturgical reforms of Vatican II is an internal church matter—one that aims to heal a 40 year old rift within the Church that threatened to become a schism. Like the proposed beatification of Pius XII, the lifting of excommunication from the Society of St. Pius X has everything to do with how the Pope and the Curia lead the Roman Catholic Church and nothing at all to do with different faiths, even the Jews. I find it amazing that Jewish leaders routinely issue edicts to the Pope about how he should govern the Church, but these same leaders would howl with outrage should the Pope presume to tell them how to teach their faith.

OK haters--you're turn.

[ramsar]

Why is it that ppl can deny the Bible , but not the Holocaust?

[rbenjamin]

This is an incredibly simple thing to answer. The Bible is a matter of faith. The Holocaust is a matter of historical fact.

[Leatherhelmet]

I'm sure there are no anti-catholics in the Jewish faith.

C'mon, the pope made it clear that the church does not deny the holocaust.

[pdr]

What is your point? That because there are Jews who don't like Catholics, it is ok for Williamson to deny the Holocaust. The Pope reinstated Williamson with the bizarre claim that he did not know Williamson's views, even though those views were public knowledge. Only after a public outcry did he then state that the Catholic Church did not countenance Holocaust deniers: this certainly raises questions about his own views. The public should not have to remind the leader of the Catholic Church that a cleric like Williamson is a disgusting bigot.

[chaos4700]

Excommunication is not an appropriate punishment for Holocaust denial. More to the point, it would do nothing to change Williamson's position and it would sabotage the efforts of the Pope to heal rifts within the Catholic Church. You want to deal appropriately with Williamson? Ridicule his absurd positions in public, he deserves it and it will make him a pariah wherever he goes. But nobody has the right to dictate to Catholics who can participate in Mass and receive Sacrament and who cannot.