The Pope has brought shame on the Roman Catholic Church, it is reported, by letting back in to the Catholic church a Bishop who denies the existence of gas chambers and believes only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews actually perished at the hands of Nazi Germany.
In other words, the Pope is giving his blessing to a holocaust denier.
On the back of comments he made just a few weeks ago which most would describe as homophobic, you have to wonder what damage his words are doing to the Roman Catholic church as a whole.
What a skewed list of priorities the Pope has.
7 comments:
Speaking as someone brought up as RC, this defies belief. Not only is Richard Williamson a rabid Jew-baiter , he is also a 9/11 'truther'.
What is becoming clear is that the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) seems full to the rafters with malcontents and deluded psychotics. If people thought Opus Dei was dodgy then SSPX is downright worrying.
Williamson is no more representative of the Roman Catholic Church than Harold Shipman is representative of the medical profession.
But having excommunicated this rancid piece of work and his three fellow Bishops, it shows appalling judgment to let them return to the communion.
First we had Pope John Paul II make Opus Dei a personal prelature in 1982. Now we have his protege Pope Benedict XVI reversing the decision to excommunicate the four Bishops in SSPX. It is a disgrace.
Even my very devout parents find things like this hard to swallow. I doubt the next pontiff will be much better, whoever he is
To deny that the Germans gassed lots of people, or ti have a revisionist view that they only gassed a few hundred thousand (as if that would be OK, is certainly a rather foolish view of history to have, given the evidence to the contrary.
However, what would you have him do? Are you advocating his exclusion from his job because he has a view of history that you regard as distasteful?
And if the son of such a man, of a child themselves, turns up in your school, are you going to refuse to teach him?
How far do you go? Some people have bloody stupid beliefs, you have to accept that. Calling for them to be barred from jobs or organisations is even more stupid, however.
Harry, I know your views differ but essentially religion is a club where people share beliefs and values. If someone in your club hold abhorrent views and values at odds with your main purpose then you would exclude them from your club.
It does make you wonder what Tony Blair is thinking right now.
The odd thing for me is the almost total silence on other blogs about this. Where is the level of condemnation from Catholics that we hear when anyone talks about stem cell research ?
The bishops were not excommunicated, they excommunicated themselves latae sententiae by being made bishops illicitly.
The Pope has done nothing wrong here: holding unorthodox views about modern history is not a sin of any kind, however stupid it may be.
The media love nothing more than to misrepresent the Church - please read Damian Thompson's blog if you wish to know the truth!
Ahh, so we are wrong. the Pope is simply saying to people with detestable and horrible opinions "you are welcome in our church". Sorry to get it so very wrong.
This is the same Catholic church that expels priests who support birth control, throws out priests who admit to being gay and similarly reacts to people within the church who support stem cell research or abortion in the case of rape. But then hides and supports priest who have been paedophiles and welcomes back a holocaust denier.
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