By Selwyn Duke

Pope Benedict XVI has found
himself in a maelstrom of controversy over his lifting of the excommunication
of Richard Williamson, an illegally-consecrated prelate who has downplayed the magnitude
of the Holocaust.  The Pope has been
scored by the media, certain Jewish groups and even some fellow Catholics, yet few
truly understand what they’re criticizing. 
Let’s examine the matter.

There is no question that
Williamson has made some outrageous statements. 
For instance, first we have the Holocaust comment that put him on the
radar screen:

“I think the most serious
conclude that between 200,000 to 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps,
but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber.  I believe that the historical evidence is
strongly against, 6 million Jews having been gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate
policy of Adolf Hitler.”

And this is not the only time
Williamson raised eyebrows.  He also
believes the U.S. government perpetrated 9/11 to provide a pretext for invading
Afghanistan and Iraq and once said that “the Vatican has sold its soul to
liberalism.”  Thus, it’s understandable
that he would grab headlines.  Yet, in
the media’s rush to disseminate what they fancy to be the Vatican’s sins, they
render themselves guilty of a mortal one of journalistic omission.

First, while the reportage can
leave one with the impression that Williamson is a Catholic bishop, this is not the case.  Rather, he is a bishop in the Society of
Saint Pius X (SSPX), a schismatic organization that is not in union with the
Church.  But to understand the situation
adequately, some background is necessary.

The SSPX is a group of
ultra-traditionalist Catholics created by the late French Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre in 1970.  The organization
objected to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), some of
which it perceived to be heretical in nature. 
As time wore on, Lefebvre’s bucking of the establishment caused
increasing friction between the society, and its philosophical opponents and
the Vatican.

As Lefebvre aged, he became
concerned that his society might not be under the stewardship of like-minded
traditionalists upon his death; thus, he consecrated four SSPX priests – one of
whom was Richard Williamson – as bishops, in defiance of Pope John Paul
II.  The Pope then enforced Church law
and announced that Lefebvre and the four priests had incurred excommunication.

In other words, Williamson was
never actually a bishop because he was invalidly consecrated by a renegade
archbishop. 

This is important to understand
when reading articles in which ignorant if not anti-Catholic reporters write
about the “rehabilitation” of the four “bishops.”  At this juncture, the rehabilitation of the
men doesn’t involve making them officers of the Church with official functions;
it simply refers to the lifting of their excommunications.  Moreover, the Vatican has made
clear that Williamson will never be able to assume ecclesiastical duties
unless he completely renounces his claims regarding the Holocaust.    

Yet critics are still incensed.  “Why would the Pope lift the excommunication
of a man holding such outrageous views?” they ask.  And others, such as Einar Koch writing
at Bild.com, are befuddled.  He wonders,
“. . . does the Vatican really know the extent of Williamson's outrageous
beliefs (note: It has now been revealed
that the Pope did not know)?”  While that
is a fair question, this is nevertheless where I lose a bit of patience.  I would have to ask Koch and the rest of the
media, “Do you really know to any extent what you’re caterwauling about?”  For while the secular world talks sanctimoniously
about how the Church has to work toward “understanding,” it seems to forget
that understanding must go both ways. 

I can sum up the Church’s
critics’ position very simply: A bad man said some bad things, and lifting an excommunication
is a good thing to do for someone.  And
only a bad man would do a good thing for a bad man.  This little Dick-and-Jane explanation seems
simplistic, but it’s accurate, as most of the critics are long on didacticism
but short on depth.

In reality, they’re acting like
a lynch mob angry that the authorities aren’t meting out its version of
justice.  This isn’t surprising coming
from people who seem to believe that, oh, for instance, a legislative body can
ignore constitutional dictates and do whatever its majority decides, but the
Church is governed by laws, not whims. 
I’ll illustrate the point with an analogy.

Imagine that the death penalty
is administered for the murder of a child. 
Now let’s say a man commits this crime and is thus sentenced.  Subsequently, however, exculpatory evidence
is presented and the man is pardoned. 
All right, now imagine it comes to light that the man made some vile
anti-Catholic statements, and outraged Catholics demand that the sentence be carried
out anyway.  Would this be
reasonable?  Besides the fact that such a
punishment would be disproportionate, I think the secular world’s reply would
be that its law isn’t there to do the Church’s bidding.

While this analogy isn’t
perfect, it does roughly illustrate the situation.  And if this seems a stretch, consider that
excommunication has been called a spiritual
death sentence.  It is the harshest
penalty the Church imposes and, like capital punishment, is only applied for specific transgressions.  It is not imposed simply for making
outrageous or offensive comments; if it were, it’s staggering to think how many
Catholics might suffer this fate.  Thus,
excommunication exists for a particular reason, one that has nothing to do with
augmenting the wider society’s scorn and ostracism.  And besides the fact that it would be
disproportionate to that purpose, Church law isn’t there to do the secular
world’s bidding.

It might also be pointed out
that the secular world could lead by example. 
If it really believes that something beyond scorn is warranted as a
consequence for Williamson, it could advocate criminal penalties.  This is what they do in Austria, after all, where British writer David Irving did a stretch in prison for Holocaust revisionism.  Oh, but we don’t want to stifle freedom of
speech by imposing our harsher punishments on those with errant tongues?  Well, perhaps it’s now easier to understand
why the Church may not impose its harshest penalty for such a thing.      

At the end of the day, however,
this issue boils down to one simple fact: Williamson’s excommunication had
nothing to do with his views on the Holocaust, and the remission of it had
nothing to do with them.  It is
ridiculous to conflate the two.

It’s also important to
understand that the rehabilitation of the four bishops is part of a much larger
process, an attempt to heal divisions in the Church and bring the SSPX back
into the fold.  Insofar as this goes,
it’s much like when a government offers to pardon a rebel group if its members
will lay down their arms.  Under such an
agreement, it certainly isn’t customary to say that you will exclude this or
that member because he made a highly outrageous statement.  No, he comes with the organization – it’s a
package deal.            

Really, though, one has to
wonder why this story still has legs. 
The Vatican has repudiated Williamson’s comments, and the Pope has
stated on numerous occasions that denial of the Holocaust’s horrors is gravely
wrong.  Moreover, as Rabbi David Dalin has
said
and contrary to leftist spin, the Church has long been a friend of the Jews – since
at least the 13^th century.  So
what is really going on?  Why would a left-wing
and somewhat anti-Semitic media suddenly have such concern for a Jewish cause?  Well, there is of course the media’s infamous,
ideologically-driven anti-Catholic bias. 
Yet, to fully understand the current attack, one must understand that
this Pope is the embodiment of everything the left despises.

Although the terminology
doesn’t really apply in Catholic circles, Pope Benedict XVI is seen as being a
rightist (the relevant terms in Catholicism are not right and left but orthodox
and heterodox).  He has done much to
restore tradition to the Church, and this has won him many enemies within her
and without.  Why do you think the one
man who has called for the Pope’s resignation is an obscure liberal German
“theologian” named Hermann Haring?  Despite
liberals’ talk of tolerance and inclusiveness, they aren’t exactly big-tent
people (except when election time comes; then their tent expands to include
even cemeteries and mausoleums).  For
instance, consider how the Democrats once refused to let fellow party member
and then Pennsylvania governor Robert Casey speak at the Democrat National
Convention because he was pro-life or how conservative professors and actors
may be denied, respectively, tenure or roles. 
In this case, these scheming leftists simply don’t want an orthodox Pope
at the helm of the Church, especially one who might invite traditionalists like
the SSPX into their midst.  Thus, they would
like to be rid of him just as they would like to eliminate talk radio and the
Boy Scouts.

At the end of the day, the
media don’t understand the Williamson issue, and they don’t really care.  This is because this prolonged attack on the
Pope has about as much to do with Holocaust denial as the Fairness Doctrine has
to do with fairness.

                        © 2008 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved