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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/36923/full/36923/bishop-flap-is-just-the-latest-papal-insult/ <br /><br /> <b>Bishop flap is just the latest papal insult</b> <br /> Thursday, January 29, 2009 | by <br /><br /><p>How many times does Pope Benedict XVI have to insult us before we question whether this pontiff is fully committed to improved Catholic-Jewish relations?</p> <p>With the news this week that the pope lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, he has yet again caused offense to our community through his insensitivity.</p> <p>British-born Bishop Richard Williamson was excommunicated 20 years ago –– not for anti-Semitic views, but for aligning with a conservative sect that rejected church modernization.</p> <p>This same bishop is on record as repeatedly denying that the Nazis ever built or used gas chambers to commit mass murder, and claiming that only a few hundred thousand Jews died in the Holocaust.</p> <p>Williamson said just last week that the evidence “is hugely against 6 million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler … I believe there were no gas chambers.”</p> <p>The pope has rejected these views, and this week reaffirmed his “solidarity” with the Jewish people.</p> <p>Coming during International Holocaust Remembrance Week, reinstating Williamson is an odd way of showing solidarity.</p> <p>Israel’s Chief Rabbinate felt the same way, and this week severed ties with the Vatican.</p> <p>Benedict’s move is the latest in a string of pronouncements that, collectively, call into question the status of Catholic-Jewish relations.</p> <p>This is the same pope that reinstated a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of the Jews.</p> <p><img alt="vhunau.0130" class="left" height="277" src="/images/uploads/vhunau.0130.jpg" title="vhunau.0130" width="360" /> This is the same pope that pushes beatification of Pope Pius XII, the World War II–era pontiff whose tepid efforts to condemn Hitler contributed to the Holocaust to come.</p> <p>There are a billion Catholics in the world. Most desire good relations with Jews. Most reject Holocaust denial. Our problem is not with Catholics.</p> <p>Our problem concerns a Vatican that fails to consider Jewish pain when a hater like Williamson is welcomed back like a long-lost brother.</p> <p>Some may argue that excommunication is an internal church matter, and that the church alone has the right to determine who is a Catholic in good standing.</p> <p>That is normally true. But with Williamson such a high-profile figure, and with the pope personally intervening, this affair has leeched beyond the borders of the church.</p> <p>Now that Benedict has reinstated Williamson, the least he can do is publicly rebuke him, extract a recantation and press harder to bolster Catholic-Jewish relations.</p> <p>It is a vitally important, yet fragile relationship. A few more shocks like this could cause irreparable harm. We hope the Vatican is listening.</p>

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