German court fines SSPX Bishop Williamson for denying Holocaust
Ultra-traditionalist Catholic bishop Richard Williamson was fined 6,500 euros Monday by a German court for publicly denying the Holocaust in 2009, a court spokesman said. British-born Williamson, 71, who belongs to a controversial Catholic splinter group, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), was appealing a 2010 fine of 10,000 euros for telling Swedish TV that no more than 300,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust.
He also denied in the interview the existence of gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps. Holocaust denial is a hate crime in Germany. Consensus among historians is that the Nazis killed six million Jews in the Holocaust.
Williamson’s statements became an embarrassment for the Vatican which readmitted him after a 22-year excommunication only days following the interview. In his 2010 book, Light of the World, Pope Benedict XVI said he would not have lifted the ban on Williamson if he had known of his far-right views, adding that the Vatican’s poor communications in the matter was a “total meltdown.”
German prosecutors demanded increasing the fine to 12,000 euros during the appeals process.
Read the full story by Kalina Oroschakoff here.
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Vatican boosts pressure on bishops to widen use of traditional Latin mass
The Vatican told Catholic bishops around the world on Friday they had to obey a papal order allowing priests to say the old-style Latin mass for traditionalist Catholics, whether they liked it or not. The Vatican issued an “instruction” to bishops as a follow-up to a 2007 papal decree authorizing the wider adoption of the Latin Mass, which was in universal use before the 1962-1965 Vatican Council introduced masses in local languages.
The re-instatement of the Latin mass was one of the demands of ultra-traditionalists whose leaders were excommunicated in 1988, prompting the first schism in modern times. The pope, in a nod the traditionalists, satisfied many of them in 2007 when he allowed a wider use of the Latin mass, in which the priest faced east with his back to the faithful for most of the service.
But some bishops around the world said privately it was a headache because of the scarcity of priests trained in Latin, and logistical problems inserting Latin mass in their schedule. The five-page instruction from the Vatican’s doctrinal department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made it clear that the pope wants bishops to follow his orders.
“It is the task of the Diocesan bishop to undertake all necessary measures to ensure respect for the ‘forma extraordinaria’,” the instruction said, using a Latin term for the old liturgy. The return of the mass met with resistance in many places and has been privately opposed by some bishops, who either have dragged their feet in implementing the decree or put it on the back burner, saying they had more pressing issues to deal with.
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Catholic ultra-traditionalist splinter group sees no Vatican accord
Vatican talks with a controversial Catholic splinter group are nearing an end without any accord on reintegrating the ultra-traditionalists, including a bishop whose denial of the Holocaust has embarrassed Pope Benedict. Bishop Bernard Fellay has said his Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) has not succeeded in convincing Vatican officials to turn Church teaching back half a century to where it stood before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
Benedict sparked off a wave of protest in 2009 by lifting excommunications imposed on the four bishops in 1988 without first requiring them to accept his authority on Church doctrine. His decision also prompted widespread protests, from Roman Catholics and Jews, because one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, had publicly denied the Holocaust. He has since been convicted and fined for hate speech in Germany.
“We are coming to the conclusion (of the talks), because we have made the tour of the major questions raised by the Council,” Fellay told the United States district of the SSPX in an interview posted on its website.
Asked if Vatican officials had changed their minds during the talks, which began in late 2009, he said: “I don’t think that you can say that.” He said the pope “has a certain sympathy for us, but within limits.”
He also said the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II, scheduled for May 1, presented “a serious problem, the problem of a pontificate that caused things to proceed by leaps and bounds in the wrong direction, along “progressive” lines, toward everything that they call “the spirit of Vatican II.”
Read the full story here. Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld
UK envoy feared anti-Catholic violence after Vatican offer to Anglicans
London’s Vatican ambassador feared anti-Catholic violence in Britain after Pope Benedict offered to accept traditionalist Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks. Catholic-Anglican relations faced their worst crisis in 150 years because of the offer, which undercut the authority of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the cable quoted Ambassador Francis Campbell as saying after the offer last year.
The cable, dated November 30, 2009 and published by The Guardian newspaper in London on Saturday, reflected concerns that have since eased. Tensions that it predicted for the pope’s visit to Britain in September this year did not materialise.
The confidential cable, signed by U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Diaz, said Campbell noted that England’s Catholics were a minority and mostly of Irish origin. “There is still latent anti-Catholicism in some parts of England and it may not take much to set it off,” it said, paraphrasing his words. “The outcome could be discrimination or in isolated cases even violence against this minority.”
Another cable dated November 9, 2009 said Campbell told Diaz that the Catholic Church would face “unforeseen obstacles” if many traditionalist Anglicans took up Benedict’s offer.
Catholic Church launches ordinariate for Anglicans in January
The Roman Catholic Church will launch its first ordinariate for disaffected Anglicans in England and Wales in January and take in bishops, priests and laity over the following months, the Church announced on Friday.
Five traditionalist Church of England bishops have applied to join the ordinariate, a Church subdivision retaining some Anglican traditions, and about 30 groups of parishioners are due to cross over, Church leaders told journalists.
It was not clear how many priests would convert in the move, prompted by traditionalist opposition to Church of England plans to ordain women bishops. Married Anglican priests will be accepted but married bishops cannot retain their higher status.
“Decisions are with those who at present are in the Anglican Communion, or on its edge, and they have to make up their minds,” said Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. “But we are open to whichever way this develops, whether it develops into something significant or whether over time the groups … naturally absorb themselves into Catholic dioceses.”
Pope Benedict offered last year to create ordinariates for traditionalist Anglicans, mostly “Anglo-Catholics” whose liturgy is close to Catholic practice. Other groups of Anglicans in Australia and North America have also expressed interest. The offer caused tension between Rome and the Church of England, where many felt the announcement was handled badly and sidelined Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Williams received the pope warmly during his visit to Britain in September and met him at the Vatican on Thursday. “I don’t see it as an aggressive act, meant to destabilise the relations of the Churches and it remains to be seen just how large a movement we’re talking about,” he told Vatican Radio.
Tom, I’ve searched “photos” to try to purchase this photo for our article on the ordinariate. Can you help? Thanks, Carol Barnwell, comm dir, Episcopal Diocese of Texas (cbarnwell@epicenter.org)
“Return to past” is SSPX motto for doctrinal talks with Vatican
As planned negotiations between the Vatican and the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) near, the group’s Swiss leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, has spelled out his view of what the Roman Catholic Church must do to resolve the crisis he believes it is in. “The solution to the crisis is a return to the past,” he has told a magazine published by the SSPX in South Africa.
Fellay said Pope Benedict agrees with the SSPX on the need to maintain the Church’s links to the past, but still wants to keep some reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). “This is one of the most sensitive problems,” he said. “We hope the discussions will allow us to dispel the grave ambiguities that have spread through the Catholic Church since (the Council), as John Paul II himself recognised.”
Benedict has, in fact, listed SSPX acceptance of Vatican II reforms was a Vatican conditions in the talks.
In the same interview with the magazine Tradition, he also indicated the SSPX was ready to add several new issues to the agenda of the talks that could drag on the sessions for years. The talks are due to start later this month.
Fellay, who was readmitted into the Roman Catholic Church in January with three other bishops after two decades of excommunication, said the Church was in such a crisis that it would take more than one generation of “constant efforts in the right direction” and possibly as long as a century to overcome it.
He said he had no idea how long the SSPX’s doctrinal discussions with the Vatican would take. “This will certainly also depend on what Rome expects. They could take quite a long time.”
Bishop Fellay is only reiterated what has already been taught by Blessed Pius IX in his encyclical letter Quanta Cura & The Syllabus of Errors dated December 8, 1864 which is a list of 80 errors of modern times infallibly condemned. Two articles,which are relevant to to the discussion here, are cited. N.B. the statements or propositions have been condemned:#ll The Church not only ought never to pass judgment on philosophy, but ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself. (condemned)#80 The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms wtih progress, liberalism and modern civilization. (condemned)
UPDATE: SSPX to ordain new priests despite Vatican warning
The Vatican warning to the ultra-traditionalist SSPX not to ordain new priests this month without Roman approval had no discernible effect on the rebel Catholic group. Soon after the Vatican declared the ordinations would be illegitimate, Father Yves Le Roux, rector of the SSPX’s St Thomas Aquinas seminary in Winona, Minnesota, said the ordination of 13 new priests there would go ahead on Friday.
“Absolutely. We are doing it,” he told our Vatican correspondent Philip Pullella by telephone. “This is something the Vatican feels it has to say. It’s a political statement but the reality is totally different.”
The SSPX seminary at Zaitzkofen, in the German state of Bavaria, declared its intention to go ahead with its June 27 ordinations in a statement posted on its website on Monday (here in German original and in English). It argued that Pope Benedict’s decision in January to lift the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops was a “confidence-building measure for the coming theological discussions with representatives of the Holy See” meant to thrash out an official position in the Church for the SSPX.” Further ordinations are due at the SSPX headquarters in Écône, Switzerland on June 29.
Defying a papal warning against ordaining new priests before its official status was clarified seems to be the opposite of a confidence-building measure on the SSPX’s part. As the BBC’s David Willey put it in his report from Rome tonight, Pope Benedict “gave them an inch and they took a mile.”
So the SSPX has thrown the ball back into the Vatican’s court. The Vatican statement said “the ordinations should still be considered illegitimate” and “doctrinal and, consequently, also disciplinary questions still remain open.” That leaves open the option of a further reaction from Rome, or possibly from Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Or there might be no reaction, just that curious Vatican silence that caused it such trouble after the Regensburg speech and the readmission of the Holocaust-denying SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. That would leave the narrow issue unresolved and pose wider questions about Pope Benedict’s leadership.
This article is so wrong. The SSPX is NOT outside the church. I am of the Society, and we are under the Holy Father, despite what anyone might say. One day you’ll all see that the SSPX has the only true Catholic Churches after all… God bless everyone. xx
Vatican throws down gauntlet to ultra-traditionalist SSPX
The Vatican has thrown down the gauntlet to the ultra- traditionalist Society of Saint Piux X (SSPX), which planned to ordain 27 new priests this month without approval from Rome. A statement by the Vatican press office today declared that the ordinations would be illegitimate. The four SSPX bishops were only readmitted into the Roman Catholic Church in January after 20 years of excommunication. If they go ahead and ordain the priests anyway, they could risk being disciplined — possibly even excommunicated — again.
The SSPX claims its fidelity to the old Latin Mass and rejection of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) reforms represent authentic Catholicism as opposed to the “modernism” practiced in the world’s largest church since then. It has also claimed to be loyal to the pope, although this was always hedged with reservations about his authority because of the doctrinal dispute over Vatican II. Having won its bishops’ readmission without making any concessions, it looked set to test the limits again by ordaining priests without Vatican permission.
The Vatican statement quoted a March 10 letter by Pope Benedict to Catholic bishops saying the SSPX did not have any official status within the Church and would have to negotiate it in discussions with Rome. “Until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church,” he wrote.
After quoting that, the Vatican statement said: “So the ordinations should still be considered illegitimate.” It added that there were “reasons to think that the definition of that new status is near” and that “doctrinal and, consequently, also disciplinary questions still remain open.”
The statement comes at the last minute — 13 of the 21 were due to be ordained at an SSPX seminariy in Winona, Minnesota on Friday. The rest were planned in Ecône, Switzerland and Zaitzkofen, Germany on June 27. The ball is now in the SSPX’s court, to go ahead with them after all, or not.
Is Benedict listening more to his critics? His decision to readmit the SSPX bishops in January amid an uproar over Holocaust denial by one of them was a public relations disaster that reaped critical comments from several bishops’ conferences in Europe. In recent weeks, three German bishops — including Robert Zollitsch, president of their conference — openly criticised the planned SSPX ordinations and urged the Vatican to intervene. And now it has.
Several readers objected to the headline on our last post on this issue — “SSPX set to push the envelope against the Vatican again” and suggested that calling the ordinations a challenge was only my personal opinion. One quoted the great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas at length to try to show the SSPX was not actually being disobedient by ignoring the pope’s warning that it could not “legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.” As a reporter covering the Catholic Church, I have to assume the pope’s words carry weight. Measured against that warning, the ordination plan did indeed amount to a bid to “push the envelope against the Vatican again.” With this statement, the Vatican has identified the plan as a challenge and declared it illegitimate in advance.
I just pray and hope that those in the vatican has not lost their beliefs on the “dogma”. Bishops and priests except those from SSPX seems to have weakened their faith. It can never never and never be wronged. It will be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow…just as Christ is the same yester, today and tomorrow… Satan must have been in the catholic church now… but don’t be afraid, hold on to the the ROSARY and we all will be saved… God bless us all…
SSPX set to push the envelope against the Vatican again
The ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), recently in the headlines for having a Holocaust denier as one of its four bishops recently readmitted to the Roman Catholic Church, looks set to push the envelope with Rome again by ordaining 21 new priests in three different countries on June 27.* Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, the German diocese where the SSPX seminary at Zaitzkofen plans to ordain three of those men, has declared the planned ordinations a violation of Church law and has urged the Vatican to warn the SSPX not to go through with them. He told Bavarian Radio on Sunday that he hadn’t heard back from Rome yet and would bring up the issue with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) personally on his next monthly trip there.
*CORRECTION: Not all will be ordained that day — 13 priests will be ordained in Minnesota on June 19.
In the subtle ways of the Vatican, a non-response from Rome to a bishop’s query is like the yellow signal on a traffic light. It’s neither yes nor no, in that vague way that says if it’s not openly forbidden, one might be able to live with it, but, uh, we don’t want to put that in writing, so over to you. The question now is whether the Vatican will opt to live with this latest challenge to its authority.
The Vatican has made several concessions to the SSPX, the biggest being the lifting in January of the 1988 excommunications of its four bishops. This meant they were back in good standing as Catholics, but they had no official function as bishops and therefore (presumably) should not use their episcopal privileges without permission from their ecclesiastical superiors. But once the uproar over the Holocaust denials by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson died down, the SSPX announced it would go ahead with the planned ordinations — three in Zaitzkofen, 13 at the St Thomas Aquinas Seminary at Winona, Minnesota and the rest at the SSPX headquarters at Ecône, Switzerland. “The benevolent act of the Holy See cannot be interpreted as a desire to asphyxiate the Society of St. Pius X,” it said in a statement.
Pope Benedict, in an extraordinary mea culpa letter after the uproar over Williamson, called the lifting of the excommunications a “discreet gesture of mercy” and “a gesture of reconciliation.” He then asked: “Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole?” He said that welcoming back other rebel communities had “changed their interior attitudes” and “enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole.” So Benedict seems to see the lifting of the excommunications as a magnanimous gesture that would be matched by more flexibility from the steadfast SSPX.
In an June 1 interview with Vatican Radio, Bishop Müller said he contacted the Zaitzkofen seminary after learning of the planned ordinations. “I told them the ordinations violated canon law and that, in such a precarious situation, one must let Rome say how to proceed … One must simply suspend everything until this society’s position in canon law is cleared up. In the letter the society wrote to the pope in January, it said it fully accepted the pope’s primacy … they are not prepared to accept the consequences.”
On Bavarian Radio, he said the CDF “should say, in a theologically clear way, that both those seeking and those performing the ordinations are not acting legally and the ordinations are therefore not allowed, even if they are formally valid.” He said he wanted to ask the prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada, about this.
Thank you to the SSPX to have started the Restauration of the Holy Church,to have saved the Tridentine Mass of all time.Yes, the SSPX is a truly Catholic Society that is obedient to the Pope,that PRAYS for the Pope at every Tridentine mass,that has a picture of the Pope in all sacrities,that says the 3 Hail Marys at the end of all low masses,that prays for the Pope in all Benedictions.These ordinations(this month) have been planned months ago,they are an annual event world-wide.I have no doubt that the new priests are seen by the modernists as a threat…what else can it be ? The SSPX is helping the Holy Church to stay afloat,after having saved the Tridentine mass from extinction. My money is on the SSPX and its wise,patient, gentle, firm, and learned Superior-General,H.E.Bishop B.Fellay.
Tens of thousands sign petitions backing or criticising pope
Tens of thousands of people have signed petitions either backing or criticising Pope Benedict for readmitting ultra-traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson into the Roman Catholic Church. The supporters are ahead in statistical terms, but this isn’t really a representative sample so it’s hard to draw any firm conclusions. It does give some idea, though, of how much interest the issue has created.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich reports today that about 30,000 people, including many theologians, have signed a petition criticising the readmission of ultra-traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson and urging Pope Benedict to defend the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The petition (here in English translation) was launched by the lay reform movement Wir sind Kirche (We are Church), which the SZ says will present it to German bishops holding an assembly in Hamburg next week.
Searching on the support side, I found a French-based petition claiming 47,222 signatures so far. It praises Benedict for lifting the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops and adds: “By this brave gesture, You acted (as) the Good Shepherd of the flock entrusted to You by God.” The site includes a “letter of encouragement” by Rev. Régis de Cacqueray, head of the large French chapter of the SSPX, and sports a selection of logos from traditionalist websites — mostly not SSPX — supporting the petition.
One other petition that popped up on a google search was on the website of the French Catholic weekly La Vie, this one critical of the move as its title signals: “No negationists in the Church.” It doesn’t tally its figures but it has 90 intellectuals as initial signatories and over 6,000 comments from readers.
Any other petitions like this out there?
What a horrible example to set. Welcoming back a person who denies mass killings! No wonder pedophiles had such free rein in the church. It seems these nut cases have more compassion for abusers and bigots than honest, good people.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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I wonder if hitler would have readmitted the ghosts of 6 million Jews to life?
Yes sure, ugh
Benedict was born in 1928 and grew up in the nazi era. He learned his lessons well in their hitler youth core, even if he was drafted.
Just note that now that this issue has been exposed, we have all these complicated lies appearing.
The church will do anything to preserve its money and power. Its been reported that Williamson has about 600,000 neo nazi followers.
The church needs the money to pay off the victims of the endless hidden molestation of children.