SSPX Bp. Williamson

It is hard to believe that the institution that created modern bureaucracy in all its lovely guises could manage to be so ham-fisted in handling such a sensitive matter. Who ever in the Curia was responsible for vetting the SSPX and its leadership needs to be exiled to a tiny parish in a very remote spot. This whole matter is a huge PR disaster for Benedict, SSPX, The Holy See, and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.

Some "Good Traditional Catholics" need to google up original offending Swedish T.V. interview. If they do they will note several items. One item is that the interviewer asked the fateful question in reference to a statement that the Good Bishop had made earlier. Thus this was not the first time that SSPX Bp. Williamson had made the odd offensive comment. But it gets better, SSPX Bp. Williamson as much admitted that his views were illegal in the place that he was offering them. He knew that he was technically breaking the law when he spoke up. So not only did he know he was being offensive, he also knew that he was being illegal as well. Still he pressed on and made his comments.

Those recklessly stupid comments can be given short shrift. There was a holocaust, there were gas chambers, the death toll was massive, it was one of the blackest of sins ever committed by mankind. The documentation behind the holocaust is massive; it fills multiple libraries and more than a few specialized museums/memorials. To deny the central fact of the holocaust, its depth, its breath, its pervasive and massive evil, is to be both mentally and morally deficient in ways that beggars description.

To deny the holocaust not only insults the basic humanity of the Jewish people and their story but also the Gypsies, Russians, Poles and yes Catholic Martyrs that passed through the gates of the Concentration Camps. To deny the holocaust is to deny people who died for their Catholic Faith. To deny the gas chambers and the ovens is to deny those martyrs the implements of their martyrdom; it is a profoundly anti-Catholic thing to do.

Mind you all SSPX Bp. Williamson had to do with the particular question offered up by the interviewer was to state "no comment." Better yet he should have backpedaled away from the previous comments with all diligent speed. "I have reconsidered those words and have found them ill-conceived" would have been a good jumping off point.

But no, he leaped into the matter with both feet and made a fool of himself, his order, the Holy Father and the entire Roman Catholic Faith. What was a small fire became a major conflagration that required all hands to put out. This was not the media’s doing, it was the doing of SSPX Bp. Williamson and his epic case of Foot-in-Mouth disease.

Some ask what SSPX Bp. Williamson needs to do to make this right. Are they really Catholic after all? It's called penance; ask a priest about it. He needs to make a statement that is a contrite acknowledgment of the hurt he has caused and yes the evil that he helped perpetuate, however unknowingly. Holocaust denial is an unmitigated evil. Since SSPX Bp. Williamson loves the old Latin ways it is a simple formula: "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." Then he can shuffle off to some nice Benedictine monastery where they observe a strict code of silence. It's the least he can do for the Holy Father.