www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Excommunication of SSPX Bishops are lifted

Thank you. I asked that question too a page and a half ago. Why are the SSPX so important to this pope?

-- John

Yuhannon,

I don't think Bishop Williamson is a Holocaust denier; he has said that he believes 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust and that he doesn't think the gas chambers existed.

Now, is this crazy? Yes. Bordering on anti-Semitic. It probably has roots in something like that. But that does not equal denial of the Holocaust as a whole; in fact his comments about the two- to three-hundred thousand seem to confirm that he thinks it probably did happen.

Not that I'm trying to defend a man who basically said that The Sound of Music had all the crucial elements of pornography or some such thing.

Alexis

Bishop Richard Williamson's views on the Holocaust are completely repulsive and must be rejected by all Catholics and all people of good will. That said, he was excommunicated for receiving episcopal consecration without a papal mandate, not for his views on the Holocaust, so the Pope had no objective reason for "skipping over him." Also, the fact that the excommunication has been lifted does not (as has already been pointed out) mean that Williamson and the other SSPX bishops are yet in full communion with the Catholic Church.

Furthermore, even if the excommunication is lifted, the SSPX bishops are still suspended from exercising the episcopal and priestly ministry, and they have no faculties or jurisdiction. Only if they adhere completely to the teaching of the Church and to the Gospel can they be received back into full communion with the Catholic Church, and only then can it be decided whether some or all of them will be allowed to function as Catholic Bishops.

Finally, I must admit that I am worried that the airing of this documentary on Swedish public television and the lifting of the excommunication almost at the same time may do some damage to the standing of the Catholic Church in Sweden and the Scandinavian countries. Catholicism is little known and poorly understood here, and there is a danger that people will be unable to understand the difference between the views held by some in the SSPX and the teaching of the Catholic Church. In effect, some people may believe that because there are some right-wing extremists in the SSPX, the whole Catholic Church is some kind of extreme right-wing organization.

Let us pray this doesn't happen!

The Catholic Church in Sweden and the SSPX have distanced themselves from Williamsons comments. I suspect he is going to be a long term problems for the Catholic Church and the SSPX. I did not realise he was the one who provided priests for the breakaway groups in Ukraine when he did the ordinations in Poland in 2006. I wonder if he will in fact come back to the Church, as he is seems to be more Catholic than the Pope from some of his reported sayings. His being reported to have links with such people as Ernst Zundel are worrying.

Yes, Bishop Anders Arborelius OCD of Stockholm was interviewed on the programme and stated the Catholic Church's position very clearly, both on the Holocaust and on the SSPX. Hopefully the viewers were paying attention.

I am very happy to hear about the lifting of the excommunications.

As far as Bishop Williamson goes, here is the link to the interview causing the stir, judge for yourself.

I'm not a member of the Bishop Williamson fan club, but it seems to me that he is not denying the holocaust, only the numbers killed and whether gas chambers were used to kill those who he admits were killed. It would seem that he questions how a deadly gas could be used without killing everybody in the vacinity from leakage through chamber doors and through stacks into the surounding environment. He also says he would be willing to change his mind if evidence to the contrary could be produced. That is what I gather from what he said.

Well that explains the link I mention with the neo nazi. Williamson seems to ignore the evidence of those people who were in the camps and survived the war and had been both guards and inmates and were involved in removing the naked bodies from the freshly ventilated chambers. He also ignores that the Germans were very good at keeping records of all the things they undertook, from plundering the art of Europe to the scientific experiments they undertook on prisoners, to the careful systematic rounding up of Jews and others. This man is very dangerous in my view. I did not miss him and his fringe group leaving the Church and am not overjoyed at the thought of a man who holds such views being taken back in. I hope the Vatican Officials have go this one right.

I am happy that the excommunications were lifted (if they were ever legitimate).

Bishop Williamson might not be right in some things (his rebel attitude and distrust toward Rome, etc) but he's really brave. He doesn't believe all what has been imposed as "truth" to us for 65 years and he's not afraid to admit it in public.

Pope Benedict had to do this, because he knows that he will unfortunately not be Pope for many more years because of his age and health and he's aware that his Papacy is the last chance for Traditionalists to be reconciled with Rome.

If reconciliation does not come now and an extreme-left wing cardinal is elected Pope (which is very possible) in the future, Traditionalists would be demonized. That Pope would think they're excommunicated and he would not have any reason to be moderate in his liberalism. So Traditionalists might be forced to break competely with Rome and refuse to recognize that Pope. The sedevacantist faction would have won the battle. A paralel Church would be formed.

On the other side, if Traditionalists become regularized, then a future Pope would have to be careful and moderate (even if he's a liberal), trying to keep the Roman Church together in spite of his distate toward Traditionalists.

These are good news. It would be very positive for the Roman Church to reject false ecumenism and liberalism, and the replacement of truths with politically correct language meant to please the enemies of Christianity.

Then serious dialogue could take place, with the Orthodox Churches (after all, all Orthodox are Traditionalists in many ways).

To say that 300,000 Jews "perished" (without specifying how or why) is in my opinion tantamount to denying the Holocaust. The historical evidence shows clearly that 6 million Jews were deliberately and systematically murdered because they were Jews.

If you want evidence of the Holocaust, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [ushmm.org] is a good place to start:

Evidence from the Holocaust [ushmm.org]
Evidence of the Holocaust presented at Nuremberg [ushmm.org]

I see the bringing of the Society Of St Pius X back into the fold as an extremely positive move.

Viva Il Papa "Let The Counter Reformation begin"

The excommunications were legitimate. Pope John Paul II makes this completely clear in his motu proprio "Ecclesia Dei adflicta." [vatican.va] I don't see how there can be any doubt in this matter.

Are you referring to Williamson's shameful denial of the Holocaust?

The Holocaust is a matter of historical fact. It was perpetrated against the Jews by the Nazis, who were the enemies of God and the Catholic Church. Remember that Pope Pius XI of blessed memory denounced the errors of the Nazis in his encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge." [vatican.va] Catholics who deny the Holocaust do not help the Catholic Church, but rather help anyone who would falsely blame the Church for the anti-semitism of the apostate Hitler and his henchmen.

I agree that bringing the Society of St. Pius X into the Catholic fold would be a very good thing, and I pray that the Holy Father will achieve this. Indeed, by lifting the excommunications he has shown extreme generosity, great mercy and an abundance of good will.

For the Society to be reconciled with the Catholic Church, however, Bishop Fellay and his followers must now repent their flagrant disobedience to the Successor of St. Peter and accept the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him.

I will ask this question a third time, and I humbly request a response from someone.

Why is the SSPX so important to this pope? The SSPX is clearly controversial, and the vioews of some of their members are clearly offensive to many in the Orthodox Church, to many Jews, and to many others who value civil liberties. Why does this pope, Benedict XVI, want to risk damaging good relations with those large other groups, in order to gain reunion with the tiny SSPX?

the sinner,

-- John

John

I'd say the reason is that Pope Benedict is the most Traditionally minded Pope we've had since Pius XII, and since the SSPX are such strong defenders of Tradition, the excommunication was lifted.

When Pope Benedict made the Latin mass more widely available he faced some rather serious opposition from French bishops. Now he has brought 193 Latin mass parishes in France, back into the church as a counterweight.

Regarding the Orthodox. Without trying to offend anyone, and I'm sure the vast majority of Orthodox would agree. We're much closer doctrinally to the SSPX then we are to them. Some Catholics may believe reunion is just around the corner, but most Orthodox publications and forums I've checked, say quite the opposite.

John,

I don't think the Pope is thinking primarily about numbers. Rather, since most of the members of the SSPX appear to be good but misguided Catholics who have broken away from full communion with the Catholic Church in recent decades (sometimes because of genuine and serious abuses in the liturgical life of their local parishes), I believe that the Pope feels that he personally has an urgent pastoral responsibility for bringing them back into the fold if at all possible.

Remember also that it was the present Pope who as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith conducted the (unsuccessful) negotiations with Archbishop Lefebvre back in the spring of 1988. This may be another reason why the Pope feels this is unfinished business which he should do his very best to try to resolve.

However, I don't believe we need to be worried. Pope Benedict is a courageous and honest man who is not going to paper over real doctrinal and theological differences. I don't think he will allow the SSPX to be received back into the Church unless they promise devotion and obedience to the Magisterium of the Church.