While appreciate the apology, I believe Bp. Williamson must do more than apologize. He must repudiate his insane views on Jewish issues. Denial of the Holocaust is contrary to historic evidence, testimony at Nuremburg, etc.
Tim Brandenburg | 01.30.09 - 12:49 pm | #

I agree. But it's still a good start. The gracious thing is to accept the apology, not demand that he crawl. That can often have the effect of turning a penitent into a humilated and hard-hearted man, especially if his fave sin is pride.
Mark P. Shea | 01.30.09 - 1:12 pm | #

Mmmm - I am not very impressed by Bishop Williamson's apology. He sounds more like "I was careless in my remarks, but I still think the Jews need watching", rather than acknowledging that he behaved like an idiot.

On the other hand, I won't deny the grace of the Holy Spirit can penetrate even the hardest heart. Let's wait, pray, and see.
Fuinseoig | 01.30.09 - 1:57 pm | #

Well, just SHOUTING HIM DOWN will not convince him that he was more than imprudent, and it would be dishonest for him to apologize for being wrong when all the recent hubbub has done is to prove that he is unpopular.

What needs to happen is for Felay to require him to visit the sites, speak with the survivors, read the documentation, and see that he is wrong. He should be convinced by the weight of the evidence, not by pubic opprobrium. Then he would be able to make an even better apology.

The only major defect in his apology is that it fails to address the insult his comments gave to the testimonies of the survivors, but since the kind of injury he gave to the Church is after all different than the kind he gave to Jewish families, two separate apologies are called for anyway.
Howard | 01.30.09 - 2:28 pm | #

Mark: since when are you about taking your enemies at face value or their words in the most charitable light possible? Why should they?
Meghan Cheshire | 01.30.09 - 3:44 pm | #

The apology is just fine. It's not a sin to have crazy opinions, unless they are rooted in sinful attitudes. In Bishop W's case, we know what he believes, but not why. Nor is it our business to inquire. No one's conscience should be violated by being forced to make a false confession or submit to re-education intended to remove incorrect thought.
Romulus | 01.30.09 - 3:55 pm | #

Mark: since when are you about taking your enemies at face value

Um. Since never. I'm not that stupid. But since Williamson is not my enemy and gives me no particular reason to doubt his sincerity, I think the best thing is to extend mercy.

or their words in the most charitable light possible?

My general rule of thumb is "in the most *reasonably* charitable light possible". I think there's such a thing as being foolishly optimistic. But until Williamson demonstrated his perfidy, I don't think it unreasonable to credit his apology. Do you oppose charity?

Why should they?

Hard to answer that till I know who "they" is and what you are asking they should do.
Mark P. Shea | 01.30.09 - 4:02 pm | #

+J.M.J+

It's good to hear he apologized. May God open his eyes so he abandons his wingnut view of the Holocaust.

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 01.30.09 - 5:04 pm | #

Um. Since never. I'm not that stupid. But since Williamson is not my enemy and gives me no particular reason to doubt his sincerity, I think the best thing is to extend mercy.

That really isn't the point. I'm asking you to step in someone else's shoes, if that's possible. I think you understand that.

My general rule of thumb is "in the most *reasonably* charitable light possible". I think there's such a thing as being foolishly optimistic. But until Williamson demonstrated his perfidy, I don't think it unreasonable to credit his apology. Do you oppose charity?

I don't really believe you are charitable. I think you're an intellectually dishonest guy. I say that respectfully, realizing that even intellectually dishonest people can do good things, which brings us to....

Hard to answer that till I know who "they" is and what you are asking they should do.

Um, Mark--YOU are the one who called them out: "the enemies of the Church who are always banging on about how the Church is all about guilt and shame." I don't think anyone critical of the Church has to take this one at face value. Given your own rhetoric, I don't take your complaint seriously.

You sound stupid when you try to pretend like other people are ignoring the benignity of the Church if THEY don't swallow your a priori assumptions about THEM as well as giving Benedict every benefit of the doubt.

Good faith charitable readings are a two way street.
Meghan Cheshire | 01.30.09 - 5:11 pm | #

I think you're an intellectually dishonest guy. I say that respectfully

Mmmhm.

Bye.
Mark P. Shea | 01.30.09 - 5:14 pm | #

This is a PR issue, nothing more.

A Catholic isn't obliged to believe in the historicity of the Holocaust; it isn't an article of faith. The fact that Williamson doesn't believe that Nazis gassed Jews doesn't disqualify him from his status as a bishop. Theological issues are much more germane to the issue of the SSPX and Benedict's attempts to reconcile with them. As usual, people get sidetracked by a sideshow...
Andy Nowicki | Homepage | 01.30.09 - 5:57 pm | #

No, Andy, but why he believes this wacky thing might.

As for many of the rest of you, starting with, but not ending with, Tim Brandenburg, you're concerned about our elder brothers in the faith, or the black eye this might give the Church in the perception of some. And those are concerns I share.

But you guys give it away when you concentrate on the fact that he is materially wrong. You aren't concerned about the corrosive effects of anti-semitism and accompanying conspiracy theories on Williamson's soul, just that he is incorrect, and politically so.

In other words, you don't love your neighbor. And as an old bluegrass song put it, so well might I add, "If you don't love your neighbor then you don't love God."

And this is precisely why you don't appreciate the magnitude of Williamson's apology. He is beginning to submit, in deed and word, to the Vicar of Christ. He is entering, slowly, into communion with the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

He is converting, and I'm glad the com-box pharisees don't know some of the damage left in my wake during that process of conversion. And the fact that his soul bears the marks of consecration has no bearing. Mine had the mark of baptism for years before my heart even began to turn.

So quit yapping and pray.
Another Student | 01.30.09 - 6:13 pm | #

I guess what gets my goat about situations like this is that the people crying "Wacko nutjob!" and demanding that Bishop Williamson beg the forgiveness of every living Jew have not even taken the first step in examining his claims.

Now, I've talked to a great number of people skeptical about the numbers of Jews reported to have died in the Holocaust. I think they're wrong, but I don't think they're wicked.

They base their theories on statistical evidence that 6,000,000 people couldn't have been killed the way the standard narrative says they were.

They aren't "Holocaust deniers", they're "Holocaust statistics deniers".

To say that someone hates all Jews because they believe something controversial about history is simply sloppy thinking.

I know a man who is married to a Jewish woman, who has a lovely relationship with his Jewish in-laws, who loves his half-Jewish children, who loves his Jewish Savior and Mary, his Jewish mediatrix of all graces, but thinks the Holocaust numbers are a bit inflated.

Is he a rabid anti-semite?
Mat | 01.30.09 - 10:14 pm | #

If he is truly sorry, let him apologize to the Jewish people. His words pave the way again to Dacau and Auswitcz because he makes Jews liars adding insult to injury. Let him prayer for the souls of those who were tortured in the concentration camps - all 6 million of them. Let him walk do the stations of the cross in Auschwitz. I would believe his sincerity if he does that. Otherwise, I don’t believe a word he says.
How can someone like this be elevated to the office of bishop – the fullness of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ? He is nothing like the Lord; he would make the Lord look like a monster.
He does not need to be thrown into the sea. Just step down from his holy office, confess his wrongdoing & make up the damage that he has inflicted.
Guy Abano | 01.31.09 - 12:49 am | #

Oh, Guy, you're playing out my point right in front of me.

What has Bishop Williamson said that ignites your furor? Have you studied the statistics of the Holocaust? Have you engaged Bishop Williamson's arguments at all? Or have you simply dismissed them out of hand and decided that he's guilty of an unforgivable sin for questioning the numbers of a genocide?

Please, please, at least hear the man out before you decry him as a horrible blight on Christendom. If you've seriously examined his position and still feel he's a demon, then carry one, but give the poor man the time day, please.
Mat | 01.31.09 - 1:07 am | #

Understand, I say this because I get written off on a daily basis as a person who maintains that contraception is an inherent evil.

I get treated no differently than people are treating Bishop Williamson right now. Like a know-nothing wacko who's been sucked into some conspiracy theory.

Now, I believe Bishop Williamson is wrong, but I've at least gone to the courtesy of examining the evidence he cites.

Have any of his other vociferous critics?
Mat | 01.31.09 - 1:10 am | #

Mat:

It's one thing to quibble about whether 6 million or only 5.6 million Jews were murdered. It's another thing entirely to say that not one Jew was gassed and to suggest that the whole thing is a malicious lie.

Sorry, but that's a malicious, agenda-driven lie. And it is a further, vicious, agenda-driven lie to then characterize the denial that millions were murdered as claiming "the numbers are bit inflated". And, no, I am not obligated to give vicious, agenda-driven liars a hearing on this any more than I am obligated to listen to "honest" questioning about whether Bush destroyed the Twin Towers.

Take it somewhere else.
Mark P. Shea | 01.31.09 - 11:51 am | #

"How can someone like this be elevated to the office of bishop – the fullness of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ?"

There's a guy named Borgia I'd like to introduce you to....

Seriously, are you shocked to find human beings, in all their naked fallen nature, among the bishops?
JonathanR. | 01.31.09 - 11:57 am | #

Whatever the full extent of Mr. Williamson's remarks about the scope of the Holocaust, most Catholics don't need to split hairs about whether Hitler massacred 5 million or 7 million men, women, and children, (in addition to the millions of Russians, Poles, Gypsies, and Catholics, including priests and religious he murdered.)

Anyone who spends even a few hours watching Hitler's speeches on the History Channel, can see for themselves that the man was obsessed with domination and with hatred for the Jewish people. It is obvious Hitler would have stopped at nothing to do what the Jews claim that he ultimately did. I once heard it said, "If Hitler had won the war, and if, after exterminating all the Jews in the world, Hitler had learned that a Jewish meteorologist was holed up in a weather station somewhere in Antarctica, he would have dispatched a detachment of the SS to go down to Antarctica and find that Jew and murder him."

Absolutely true.

So . . . Five million . . . six million. Given the opportunity, it is obvious the man wouldn't have rested until every Jew on the planet was dead.

Members of Hitler's own administration were on board:

From an address by Hans Frank, Governor-General of the General Government, Poland, to senior members of his administration, December 16, 1941.

"Let me tell you quite frankly: in one way or another we will have to finish with the Jews. . .

But what is to become of the Jews? Do you think that they will be settled in villages in the conquered eastern territories? In Berlin we have been told not to complicate matters: since neither these territories [nor our own] have any use for them, we should liquidate them ourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to remain unmoved by pleas for pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we encounter them and wherever possible, in order to maintain the overall mastery of the Reich here….

For us the Jews are also exceptionally damaging because they are being such gluttons. There are an estimated 2.5 million Jews in the General Government, perhaps…. 3.5 million. These 3.5 million Jews, we cannot shoot them, nor can we poison them. Even so, we can take steps which in some way or other will pave the way for [their] destruction, notably in connection with the grand measures to be discussed in the Reich. The General Government must become just as judenfrie [free of Jews] as the Reich." (quoted in A J Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken: The "Final Solution" in History. London: Verso, 1990, pp. 302-03)
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocid.../ statements.htm

Bottom line: If indeed the Nazis succeeded in murdering only five million instead of six million Jews, it wasn't for lack of trying; it was only because the Allies stopped them.

Intending to exterminate an entire people from the face of the Earth is as bad as doing it.
Marion (Mael Muire) | 01.31.09 - 1:57 pm | #

A question just occured to me... What was the reason the Vatican gave for refusing to grant permission for Bp. William's consecration?
Tim Brandenburg | 01.31.09 - 6:05 pm | #

Tim:

Because he's a nut!

And, I hope Rome finally tells this chucklehead to stop praying for the conversion of the Jews!
What part of: "Their Covenant is not Revoked" does he have trouble with???
Bill Boshears | Homepage | 01.31.09 - 8:37 pm | #

I think you can believe that God will save the Jewish people through the covenant He established with Israel, and at the same time desire and pray that the Jewish people - and all people - will come to Christ as soon as possible.

For Jesus is "The Way, the Truth, and the Life" not just in the hereafter, but in this life, as well. Why should we be content to see anyone - Jew, Greek, slave, or free, male or female - miss that even for another moment?

It's like asking, as long as you can get verbal instructions in the voting booth on Election Day, who cares if a person ever learns how to read? So they miss Shakespeare, the Bible, the entire Internet . . . big deal! As long as they can still vote; that's all that matters.

Yes, they can vote without reading, but life is much poorer without reading.

Yes, the Jewish people can be saved according to the Old Covenant, but life with Christ is much richer.
Marion (Mael Muire) | 01.31.09 - 9:24 pm | #

Tim asked: "What was the reason the Vatican gave for refusing to grant permission for Bp. William's consecration?"

The permission was granted for Archbishop Lefebvre to consecrate one bishop when the Vatican gave the green light. The archbishop said he would wait, then went ahead and consecrated four priests as bishops anyway. This act incurred automatic excommunication for the archbishop, which was formally put in writing by His Holiness John Paul II of blessed memory. Williamson was not singled out as being inappropriate for promotion to the office of bishop at that time.

As for the Jews being saved, it is not possible for anyone to be saved outside the Catholic Church. This is de fide, meaning an infallibly defined dogma. Their covenant having not been revoked does not mean that that it is sufficient for their salvation; it tends toward it. If the Old Covenant had been sufficient unto itself, the Jews would have been able to enter Heaven before the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Christ, and they were not. For a good overview of this idea, here is an article from Karl Keating:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock...2002/ 0210fr.asp

From the CCC:

The Old Testament

"121 The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value,92 for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.

122 Indeed, "the economy of the Old Testament was deliberately so oriented that it should prepare for and declare in prophecy the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men."93 "Even though they contain matters imperfect and provisional,"94 the books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God's saving love: these writings "are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way."95

123 Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. The Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism)."

There is a cross-reference for 121 with 1093, which states:

"The Holy Spirit prepares for the reception of Christ

1093 In the sacramental economy the Holy Spirit fulfills what was prefigured in the Old Covenant. Since Christ's Church was "prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and in the Old Covenant,"14 the Church's liturgy has retained certain elements of the worship of the Old Covenant as integral and irreplaceable, adopting them as her own:

-notably, reading the Old Testament;

-praying the Psalms;

-above all, recalling the saving events and significant realities which have found their fulfillment in the mystery of Christ (promise and covenant, Exodus and Passover, kingdom and temple, exile and return)."

The purpose of the Old Testament and the Old Covenant is to prepare the Jewish people for their identification and acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Messiah. As Section 1093 shows, the purpose of the Old is to assist the Holy Spirit in His work of conversion so that the New may be accepted and embraced.

The idea that the Jews do not need conversion was put forth in the unfortunate document entitled: "Reflections on Covenant and Mission", in which a committee headed by Walter Cardinal Kasper concluded that the Church taught that the Jews' Old Covenant was salvific unto itself and they need not convert to Christianity. This was repudiated sternly by the Vatican and that claim rejected. The pope recently restored the prayer for the conversion of the Jews to the Good Friday liturgy; it was Pope Pius XII who had instituted kneeling for that prayer in humility in the wake of World War II. Pope Benedict XVI also wants kneeling during that part of the intercessions.

Jewish convert to Catholicism Rosalind Moss wrote a letter to Cardinal Kasper which eloquently expresses her dismay with the idea that the Jews need no conversion efforts on the part of the Church. Near the end, she wrote:

"I have no doubt, your Eminence, that the Jewish people would be very pleased with this document, relieved perhaps to feel that they are no longer the target of the Christian agenda. But one day they will know (Zech. 12:10). One day they will see him (Rev. 1:7). One day they will bow before him (Phil. 2:9-11). And in that day, we will hang our heads in shame, before them and before the God who gave his Son for them.

"You knew?" they will say to us. "You knew that we did not know the Messiah, that we did not recognize him at his first coming? And you did nothing? Were you afraid of our rejection of you? Did you not care more for our souls? Should we not have known the new birth and the graces that flow from the Messiah who came through our loins? Should we not have tasted of his body and blood?"

Cardinal Keeler, I have spent the last week reading hundreds of pages spanning 37 years of documents since Nostra Aetate was published in 1965. I am grateful for the Church's confirmation of God's eternal covenant with Israel as a people. However, I am troubled with the apparent conclusions of those involved in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue. To say that we can work together in a common cause with the Jewish people is not to say that we should not speak to the Jews about their own Messiah (cf. Rom. 10:1-17)."

For the full letter, here is a link:

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock...02/ 0210fea1.asp

Yours in Christ's Love,
Dominicanis | 02.01.09 - 12:48 pm | #

Re: the Jews and Salvation - It is true that there is no salvation outside the Church, yet our human understanding of the relation of any given person to the Church can be quite different from God's own. God in His merciful providence may view a person who does not meet our defintion of being "in the Church" as nevertheless benefitting from the salvation won for her by Christ in ways that are mysterious to us.

SOURCE:
Holy Office, Aug 9, 1949, (condemning doctrine of L. Feeney) (DS 870): "It is not always required that one be actually incorporated as a member of the Church, but this at least is required: that one adhere to it in wish and desire. It is not always necessary that this be explicit. . . but when a man labors under invincible ignorance, God accepts even an implicit will, called by that name because it is contained in the good disposition of soul in which a man wills to conform his will to the will of God."

Vatican II, Lumen gentium #16 (1964 AD) "For they who without their own fault do not know of the Gospel of Christ and His Church,
but yet seek God with sincere heart, and try, under the influence of grace, to carry out His will in practice, known to them through the dictate of conscience, can attain eternal salvation."

John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, #10 (Dec. 7, 1990): "The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the Gospel revelation or to enter the Church. . . . For such people, salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the church, does not make them formally a part of the church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation."

Taken from http://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRI...TUR/ MEMBCHR.TXT

~~~~~
Marion | 02.01.09 - 1:37 pm | #

I agree with you, Marion. I do not take "No salvation outside the Church" in the Feeneyite sense, which is condemned as a heresy. The only reason for the post was to clarify that the Church does indeed want us to pray for the Jews to convert, but we do not get to say who is saved and who is not; only God can do that.

It is true that salvation is from the Jews, but it can only come through Jesus Christ, Who is the only Way, Truth and Life, and through His one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which He gave us to bring Him to men that they may live in Him. It is this Church that balances so delicately God's truth so that it cannot be corrupted by men's errors, whether they be errors of indifferentism or the rigorous failure of Leonard Feeney to balance God's mercy and justice.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Yours in Christ's Love,
Dominicanis | 02.01.09 - 3:12 pm | #

Dominicanis,

Sic. Et Deo gratias!

Benedicite!

Marion
Marion | 02.01.09 - 4:11 pm | #

Bp. Williamson's apology seems sincere enough, but as other posters have noted, there is much more to the matter than one man's apology. In this day and age to deny the reality of the Holocaust is to be willfully stupid. Fussing about the exact number of Jews (and others) exterminated may not qualify as willful stupidity but it is certainly functional stupidity. Go here http://www.sspx.org/ against_the_...of_the_jews.htm
on the SSPX website. This is the same old "the Jews killed Jesus" drivel that the present Church leadership has done so much to eradicate. I don't know if believing this equine by-product (I wanted to use the original Army term from the cavalry days but I respect your living room) merits excommunication (probably not), but it certainly merits immediate, stern and public condemnation by the Church. I don't know if the article linked to above is "official" SSPX material (whatever that means), but I do know that I do not want people who think like this to have any kind of authority or standing in the Catholic Church. I don't even want them in the Church, but that is not my call.
Mike | 02.01.09 - 5:11 pm | #

"I don't even want them in the Church, but that is not my call."

Well, we'll all be praying for you then.
Another Student | 02.01.09 - 5:49 pm | #

Mike wrote, "I don't even want them in the Church, but that is not my call."

Mike, I believe that the hope of the Holy Father the Pope is that by returning to the true sheepfold, these lost sheep may be recovered, healed, and returned to the the light of the true faith. The light of true faith that does not pronounce generalizations about "the Jews", "the Blacks", "the Irish", "the Native Americans", (such as the ones you have cited and to which you rightly object) but looks upon all men, women, and children as brothers and sisters to be loved in Christ.

Mike, we need warriors in the Church today. We need men such as yourself who know what is right and who are willing to stay very close to Christ and to the Sacraments, who are willing to practice prayer and mortification, so as to be strong and courageous when the day comes that they encounter fellow members of the Church who are straying, who are saying and doing what isn't Catholic, and what isn't right.

A man well fortified with prayer, Sacraments, and mortification won't be likely to reject a suffering fellow traveller. He'll be in a position to help him.

If you are not such a man now, could you become one?

We sure need them!

~~~
Marion | 02.01.09 - 6:02 pm | #

Another Student,

Thanks for that post. I needed that perspective.
Sue Murphy | Homepage | 02.01.09 - 8:37 pm | #

Williamson's apology is an outrageous fraud. He hasn't even expressed any sympathy at those most hurt by such comments, the Jews.

He is an insensitive simpleton, a disgrace, and his continued presence in The Church sullies us all.

I am of Polish extraction. Before world war II Poland had a population of over 33 million, of whom some 3.5 million were Jews.

At the end of the war the country's population had shrunk to only 22 million, with only a few 1000 Jews remaining.

To trivialise the scope of such an atrocity the way Williamson does is a sin of such gravity that his carcass deserves no forgiveness.

Is Williams also going to claim that millions of Catholics didn't die in those camps as well?
John P. | 02.02.09 - 12:35 pm | #

John P. wrote that Bp. Williamson's trivialization of the Holocaust is " a sin of such gravity that his carcass deserves no forgiveness.
Marion (Mael Muire) | 02.02.09 - 8:14 pm | #

"...his continued presence in The Church sullies us all."

So does yours, John P, and mine as well.
Another Student | 02.02.09 - 11:53 pm | #

Another Student, more than a million Catholics died in those camps, and Williamson's insistence that they didn't is an insult to all Catholics.

For him to claim that only 2 or 3 hundred thousand in total died is an outrageous and obscene lie.
John P. | 02.03.09 - 8:49 am | #

John P.,
Are you telling the Lord He whom he can't forgive? You're right that Williamson hasn't apologized for the right thing, to the right people. AS's original point was that we don't know that the Holy Spirit isn't bringing him to the point where he may do so. Pray for this man to be saved from this particular sin.
Sue Murphy | Homepage | 02.03.09 - 10:10 am | #

Are you telling the Lord He whom he can't forgive?

Well, before we invoke the Lord's prerogatives, I think it imperative that Williamson seek the forgiveness of those ( Christians and Jews) that his injurious denials have pained.

The man has a job to do in that respect and to judge from his non-apology, he seems to show no willingness to do so.

Forgiveness has to be earned, it requires concrete, reconciliatory actions and gestures on the part of those who've erred.

Sorry, but Williamson hasn't done that.
John P. | 02.03.09 - 10:51 am | #

The survivors of the holocaust have not died off and already their tragedy is being dismissed or minimized by a bishop. If this continues, it is quite possible for that horror to reoccur.
I stand by my Jewish brothers and call on everyone who supports them to withhold their donations to their Churches this Sunday and the next to send a message to the Vatican. They can channel those to some other charity instead. I sure it will be done unto the Lord as well.
Guy Abano | 02.04.09 - 8:35 am | #

Guy,
I think you're missing the point about Bp. Williamson and the Vatican. The Pope removed the excommunications to reconcile the SSPX, not to support the wacko beliefs of one of the SSPX's bishops. Withholding money from the Church is not the solution, because the Vatican does not support anti-Semitism (a cursory read of Nostra Aetate shows this).

You are connecting the lifting of the excommunications with Bp. Williamson's beliefs (as the MSM is doing), and there is no connection. However, once the SSPX is regularized, the Vatican can discipline Bp. Williamson if he continues spouting such nonsense. Right now, the Vatican is limited in the disciplinary actions it can take and the welfare of thousands of SSPX members is more important than the nutty beliefs of one jackass bishop that was ordained without the Vatican's approval (just goes to show you what happens when humans, i.e. the SSPX, try to fix a problem on their own).
Tim Brandenburg | 02.04.09 - 10:02 am | #

Also, it is important to remember that even with the excommunication lifted, the bishops of the SSPX are not members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. To refuse contributions to the Church is not going to hurt Bishop Williamson or his organization. Another thing to recall is that the lifting of the ban in no way shows acceptance of the man's ludicrous ahistorical claims by Rome. As Tim noted above, it was done to help reconcile the wayward so that in time he may be disciplined for his outrageous nonsense. The media has distorted this ridiculously; Newsweek even had atheist Christopher Hitchens write about it, which is about as irresponsible and irrational as having Bishop Williamson write accurately about the Holocaust.

Yours in Christ's Love,
Dominicanis | 02.06.09 - 9:17 pm | #