I’m sure the fact that the Pope is German is purely a coincidence.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict Saturday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust, despite warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm Catholic-Jewish relations and foment anti-Semitism. […]
In healing a 20-year-old schism that had wounded the Catholic Church, the decree looks set to spark one of the most serious crises in Catholic-Jewish relations in 50 years.
One of the four bishops, the British-born Richard Williamson, has made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.
In comments to Swedish television broadcast Wednesday, he said “I believe there were no gas chambers” and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of 6 million.
Before the excommunication was lifted Rome’s chief rabbi said Williamson’s rehabilitation would open “a deep wound.” CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, called him “a despicable liar whose only goal is to revive the centuries-old hate against Jews.”
Williamson said: “I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”
The Holocaust is not some manufactured fantasy. It was real. I don’t know what Pope Benedict was thinking, but giving any credibility at all to a figure who denies that the Nazis (and their willing helpers) deliberately murdered 6 million Jews in Europe only fuels antisemitic sentiments around the world at a time when Israel’s assault on Gaza has brought it international scorn for its slaughter of Palestinian civilians. I can’t believe that the Pope is so stupid that he doesn’t realize the political implications of this action, particularly at this moment in history when prejudice and ethnic animus against and among Jews, Muslims and Christians is so high.
Frankly it is the action of either an idiot or a fiend.
