NRC HANDELSBLAD: The controversial rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop by pope Benedict XVI is arousing strong reactions in the Netherlands. A theologist is leaving the church and the minister of foreign affairs is getting involved.
Roman Catholic bishop Ad van Luyn of Rotterdam has said that the pope's decision to rehabilitate renegade British bishop Richard Williamson is "disastrous". Speaking on public television, Van Luyn said that Williamson's denial of the Holocaust and its gas chambers are "shocking, totally a-historic, and at odds with the second Vatican Council [the 1962-65 church reform - see below*]". Williamson has claimed that the Nazis did not kill six million Jews, but 300,000 at most.
Following his opposition to modernising the Roman Catholic church, bishop Williamson was excommunicated in 1988, together with three other traditionalist bishops who had turned against reforms. The pope reinstated the four conservatives last week, as part of his stated ambition to reunite all forms of Christian worship under the umbrella of Rome.
A professor of theology and ethics at the Roman Catholic Radboud University in Nijmegen is leaving the church over the issue. Professor Jean-Pierre Wils told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, "For many years it has been known that Williamson and the other three traditionalists are anti-Semites. The pope must have known about this. Only now are people beginning to see what is really happening in the Vatican. People were idolising the pope over the past few years without asking themselves what his political ambitions were. These are political actions, it's not just a theological problem. It is important that political consequences are drawn from this." >>> By Rob Kievit for Radio Netherlands Worldwide | Monday, February 2, 2009
*Traditionalists and the Roman Catholic church
The four bishops whose excommunications were remitted by pope Benedict XVI are Richard Williamson, Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, and Alfonso del Gallareta. They are the leaders of a schismatic society, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) inspired by the late archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of Switzerland. Lefebvre, who died in 1991, founded the SSPX in 1970. It is named after pope Pius X, who firmly opposed modernism in the church.
The society rejects the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965 which decided, among other things, that neither today's Jews nor the Jews of the time of Christ were all responsible for the death of Christ. The council also revised the liturgy, lifting some of the restrictions of the traditional Latin mass. Finally, the council aimed for pan-Christian unity (ecumenism) without requiring the conversion of non-Catholic Christians.
Traditionalists view the changes ordained by the Second Vatican Council as contrary to the interests of the church, and want to roll them back.
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback – The Netherlands) >>>
