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Pope Says Holocaust Denying Bishop Must Recant

By Howard M. Friedman

The Washington Post yesterday reported that Pope Benedict XVI's lifting of the excommunication of Lefebvrite bishop Richard Williamson (see prior posting) has generated a storm of protest from Benedict's home country, Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Pope's action welcoming Williamson back into the Church gives "the impression that Holocaust denial might be tolerated." Meanwhile, Zenit.org yesterday reported that the Pope did not know of Williamson's views when he acted. The Vatican released the full text of a note from Vatican Secretariat of State clarifying the Vatican's position. It says in part:

The viewpoints of Bishop Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself noted last Jan. 28, when, referring to that savage genocide, he reaffirmed his full and indisputable solidarity with our brother recipients of the First Covenant, and affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide should induce "humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the human heart," adding that the Shoah remains "for everyone a warning against forgetting, against negating or reductionism, because violence committed against even one human being is violence against all."

Bishop Williamson, to be admitted to episcopal functions in the Church, must also distance himself in an absolutely unmistakable and public way from his position on the Shoah, which was unknown to the Holy Father in the moment of the lifting of the excommunication.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).