[RC] Holocaust-denying British bishop makes apology

To the Vatican’s great credit, it knows an Episcopal Church apology when it sees one.

I don’t get it.  The guy is not a Roman Catholic bishop.  He is a schismatic.  Yet the article calls him a Roman Catholic bishop.  Are Reuters reporters ignorant, lazy, stupid or malicious?

That would be an Episcopology!!!
Didn’t B16 reject it???

Let’s assume he makes an acceptable apology.  Will anyone actually believe him?  Or will they think he is just parroting what he is expected to say?  Especially now that the Vatican has rejected his first attempt.  The circumstances make it impossible to judge his credibility. 

This is not just any historical issue.  It takes a certain level of animus - willful historical blindness - to deny what happened in Germany, and that just doesn’t go away.  Something fundamental would have to change; something more than a desire to return to the Roman Catholic fold.  For me to believe this was real, he would have to admit to that animus.  He would have to explain the source of his previous assertions, and explain why he has left them behind.  “I read new historical records” just won’t make the cut.  I suspect I won’t be alone in this assessment.

carl

He is, among other things a wacko. The Pope should not have given a hall pass to a group that contained this wacko. Big mistake.

Carl (#5),
You wrote:  “I suspect I won’t be alone in this assessment.”
You are not alone.  You said it quite well.  Thanks!

#2 Andrew:  I’m no insider or expert on Vatican stuff, but reading the article I can surmise that the Pope lifted the excommunication ban, meaning he is now a priest.  In order to be recognized as a bishop he was expected to make an acceptable apology, which he did not do. 
#5 Going Home:  I agree he is a wacko, but I disagree that this was a mistake.  The Pope is trying to heal a schism which includes many people (we have one of these breakaway churches in my town).  The stakes are high.  My guess is that the man will not be recognized as a bishop anytime soon.  After a year or two of study, if he is willing to say he has seen the data and recants his views, well, maybe they will recognize his episcopacy and bury him in a very large archdiocese.

John Leibler, This is from a thread on Theology Web regarding the lifting of the SSPX excommunication I think it correctly answers your question about the priesthood of Williamson.
“Because Lefebvre himself was a validly consecrated bishop, the 4 bishops he consecrated are also perfectly valid, but illicit. Therefore, all priests ordained by the SSPX are also valid Catholic priests, but they exist outside the Church proper.”
...Pope Benedict XVI merely rescinded henceforth the legal effect of the 1988 ex-communication of the four bishops consecrated at that time by Cardinal Lefebvre and another bishop with him (both deceased). This leaves unchanged that the Pope does not regard any of the four bishops as licitly bishops nor that any of their priests are licit. They can say Mass, but they have no faculties from a licit RC bishop to absolve penitents nor even to marry any man and woman who come to them for the sacrament.
...SSPX sacraments are valid, but not licit. They are valid because they have received the sacrament of holy orders, but illicit because they are not exercising that sacramental authority in line with the structures of the Church as a whole.

The Vatican said Friday that an apology by a bishop who has denied the scope of the Holocaust was not sufficient to restore him to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

In addition to the comments above, please note this error from the NYT article. The excommunication of Williamson is not related to his holocaust denial. They are separate issues, though connected by a public relations effect.

I saw the good bishop on T.V. this week, discussing his Holocaust views, and he is truly an angry, scary wacko.  I understand that film and T.V. footage of the bishop, expressing his opinions about the Holocaust have been widely circulated for at least 10 years.  The fact that Pope Benedict rescinded the man’s ex-communication and reinstated him as a Bishop, without first checking up on his views, shows that His Holiness is a doddering old man, surrounded by other doddering old men and incompetents.

JenniferK, the Pope did not reinstate him as a bishop.  He is not considered a bishop of the Roman Catholic church, he is not a part of the hierachy of the Roman Catholic Church, and he has no authority in the Roman Catholic Church.  All this means is that he can now take communion in a Roman Catholic Church.  Does fact that you spout of stuff like this without check the facts make you doddering and incompetent?

Furthermore, the scandal, in my mind, regarding excommunication, is not that some guy with bogus views on history, who got excommunicated for defying the church on completely unrelated issues, got his excommunication lifted, but that at least half the Roman Catholic politicians in the Western world, who actively defy the Roman Catholic church on issues like abortion, do not get excommunicated.  Clearly the Roman Catholic hierarchy has greater patience and is more forgiving than I am.  I don’t know yet whether or not that is a good thing.

RE: ” The fact that Pope Benedict rescinded the man’s ex-communication and reinstated him as a Bishop . . . “

No, JenniferK, the Pope did not “reinstate him as a Bishop.”  The pope allows him now to take Communion.

Apparently, denial of the Holocaust is the unforgiveable sin for you—nobody should be allowed to partake of the Eucharist if they do so.

Is that the gist of it for you?

And if so, are there any other sins at all for which you would completely and permanently deny Eucharist?  Please name them.

There was no need to reinstate hims as a bishop, the ordination as a bishop was valid (though not licit), like the Utretch Catholics.

Perhaps the offending priest (bishop) should stand in the snow in his bare feet for three days at Canossa?  Would that make everybody happy?

Just a suggestion.

If you read the article linked above, you will see that the Vatican is separating Bihop Williamson from the other traditionalist bishops and says that he cannot be restored to full communion with the RC Church until he recants his non-historical views about the Holocaust. Anti-Semiticism is not something that has been a hallmak of the traditionalist movement.  I had not heard about it until the present controversy started.

[15] The Little Myrmidon

Perhaps the offending priest (bishop) should stand in the snow in his bare feet for three days at Canossa?  Would that make everybody happy?

No, actually, it wouldn’t.  I want him to stand in public and admit that he was not just wrong about history, but also that he wanted history to be wrong.  And then I want him to explain why.  That exercise would be considerably more painful then standing in snow.

carl

Under the Nuremberg laws, I would have been classified as a mischlinge first degree (one Jewish parent, two Jewish grandparents).

Let me tell you what I find horrifying about all of this.

In reference to the Swedish television program in which Bishop Williamson expressed some of his less than popular opinions on the subject of the Holocaust back in January, the Telegraph reports:

On Friday, Germany’s justice minister, Brigitte Zypries, said Germany could issue a European-wide arrest warrant on hate crimes charges for Williamson, because the Swedish TV interview was conducted in Germany.

State prosecutors in Regensburg, Germany, have already opened a preliminary investigation into whether Williamson broke German laws against Holocaust denial.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4864578/Vatican-says-Bishop-Williamsons-apology-not-good-enough.html

Sorry, but I’m more afraid of a government that would be willing to prosecute and imprison an eccentric bishop for Holocaust denial than I am of all the Holocaust deniers in the world combined.

Bishop Williamson’s views are certainly reprehensible and he has proven to be a source of profound embarrassment to the SSPX.  That’s as it should be.  He has been exposed to the light of day and intelligent Christians will know what to make of his brand of nonsense.  But I think that’s quite enough.

Here in the United States, we are fortunate to live in a country where it is not yet against the law to go crazy or become stupid, provided that no one is harmed.  Our Constitution still protects the rights of wing nuts, moonbats, whack jobs and, yes, Holocaust deniers. 

Unpopular ideas are just that—unpopular, and usually with good reason.  But no matter how woefully misguided they may be, they cannot be considered criminal unless and until they give rise to criminal acts.  As far as I know, Bishop Williamson hasn’t harmed anyone.

For obvious reasons, the Vatican is not happy with this maverick bishop.  They may wish to leave him alone and he may decide to return the favor.  But I am left to wonder what Rome’s response will be if he finds himself in the dock for nothing more than embracing an historically revisionist position that most people find abhorrent.

I agree with you entirely, episcopalienated.

carl, I was making a reference to Henry IV’s public penance before Pope Gregory.

Yeah, if we are going to start arresting people that express absurd and patently wrong views about the facts of history, I want to start with the “9/11 was an inside job” and “JFK was an inside job” crowd and end with people that keep saying silly things about Columbus proving the world was round.

However, thankfully I live in a country that still respect the freedom to express incorrect and wingnut views.

Sort of an aside, but I wonder if the same people excoriating Williamson were, just weeks ago, excoriating Israel for defending itself from rockets fired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

BTW, I know his ordination is sacramentally valid, but Williamson is not a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, so I am not using the title proper even to a wicked bishop, thank you very much! The SSPX is a schismatic group still.

Commenter #16 has made the only remark that reflects reality, so far. 
Here, this should bring you lot up to date:
http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2009/02/bishop-fellay-will-exclude-bishop.html
This addresses #18’s last paragraph.

Commenters could ‘do their homework’ better to make their posts more worthwhile.

Thank you TACit.  It would be best to let the RC Church tell us what Bishop Williamson’s status with them is.  Putting words in their mouth is rather silly.

You’re welcome, GB.  In fact it was a little snippy of me to say yours was the only reflection of reality, though it seems the only one on the posted topic. 
I did think that Words Matter back in #9 helpfully pointed out the erroneous nature of the quote from the NYT given in that comment. Just helps perpetrate confusion about an already poorly reported matter…..

AndrewA said:
“JenniferK, the Pope did not reinstate him as a bishop.  He is not considered a bishop of the Roman Catholic church, he is not a part of the hierachy of the Roman Catholic Church, and he has no authority in the Roman Catholic Church.  All this means is that he can now take communion in a Roman Catholic Church.  Does fact that you spout of stuff like this without check the facts make you doddering and incompetent?”

No AndrewA, I am not doddering and incompetent.  The factual chronology shows that LeFebvre was still a Roman Catholic bishop at the time he consecrated Williamson as a bishop.  That would be a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, since at that point LeFebvre was a bishop of no other church.  All of them were excommunicated after that consecration.  See the following:
“In June 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate Williamson and three other priests as bishops. Lefebvre did not have a pontifical mandate for these consecrations (i.e. permission from the pope), normally required by Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law. On June 17, 1988 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops sent Williamson a formal canonical warning that he would automatically incur the penalty of excommunication if he were ordained by Lefebvre without papal permission.
On June 30, 1988 Williamson and the three other priests were consecrated bishop by Archbishop Lefebvre. On July 1, 1988 Cardinal Gantin issued a declaration stating that Lefebvre, Williamson, and the three other newly-ordained bishops “have incurred ipso facto the excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See”.

In the hocus pocus of the Roman Catholic Church, it may have been an attempt to undo the consecration retrospectively, but whether “that works” is subject to debate.

Then the following occurred:  “By a decree of 21 January 2009 (Protocol Number 126/2009), which was issued in response to a renewed request that Bishop Fellay made on behalf of all four bishops whom Lefebvre had consecrated on 30 June 1988, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, by the power granted to him by Pope Benedict XVI, remitted the excommunication that they had thereby incurred, and expressed the hope “that this step will be followed by the prompt attainment of full communion with the Church by the entire Fraternity of St. Pius X, thus demonstrating true faithfulness and true recognition of the magisterium and authority of Pope with the sign of visible unity”.[14] The decree was made public on 24 January 2009. Williamson welcomed his entry back into the church as a “great step forward”, although he continues to denounce the Vatican as liberal.|”

My point is that the Pope and his advisors should have done their due diligence before acting by: (1) figuring out what the Lefebvre consecrated bishops where up to prior to 2009 (e.g. checking to make sure none of them had been child molesters in the interim) and (2) realizing that they were in an apostolic succession and canon law quandry, because the Lefebvre bishops were consecrated before the excommunication, leading to a logical conclusion that a lifting of the excommunication would return the parties to the status quo, absent careful, bluntly worded drafting of the Protocol to make it clear that the 4 were, in the eyes of the church, mere priests not bishops.  I repeat my opinion that the Pope is doddering and incompetent, since it is clear he did not do any due diligence, as set forth above.  It is also my opinion that his closest advisors, many of whom are younger than him, should have been sharp enough to do the due diligence stated above, as a means of protecting the Pope.  They obviously didn’t.

If the ECA leader had made these same errors in due diligence, you would be jumping all over her with criticism.  I don’t like her and I don’t like Benedict.  Two arrogant peas out of the same sort of pod.

Well, I feel sorry for you Jennijerk.  Your above analysis reflects the same misunderstanding of RCs that others in your school of thought have about Anglicans.  In the first place, there is no such thing as “undoing” a consecration or an ordination. (You need to get that fact fixed firmly in your mind, and don’t forget it.)  There may be a refusal by Church authorities to allow a person to exercise their ministry, but that is not the same as saying the person is not a minister.  For example, your Canadian driver’s license may not be recognized in Alaska, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have a Canadian driver’s license even if you are in Alaska at the moment. Get it?  Bishop Williamson is now a bishop in Apostolic Succession even if no one in the world will allow him exercise his ministry in their territory. (That is why it is so important that he voluntarily recants his Holocaust statements, and the Pope is right to insist on it, even if some people call it arrogance.)

JenniferK, I don’t you are doddering and incompetent for a minute.  I think you are a bit ill-informed and malicious, but those are different.

You don’t seem to have grasped that ordination imparts an eternal character, or just what the difference between valid and licit is.  You also think that excommunication is for “really big jerks”, or at least should be; and its not.  These guys were excommunicated for accepting consecration without proper authority.  Not for denying the holocaust, being flat-earthers, or believing the phlogiston theory of heat.

Last, for those who say that nothing should have been extended to a group with a whacko like that in it, could I remind you that the Catholic Church can be well described as “here comes everybody”?  With over a billion, if we want to exclude groups with whackos, we’d need to refuse to admit ourselves.

I understand principled disagreement with the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church, or any other group, for that matter. But malicious prejudice eludes me.

How JenniferK could compare Benedict XVI to Schori beggars belief.  Benedict is perhaps the greates living Christian leader and Schori isn’t even a Christian.

And I agree with #18 completely.