Bishop Williamson lashes out at the Jews again

[sin]

According to the posts here, should we have minded our own business?

What you should do is accept Jesus Christ and the New Covenant.

 

[TMC]

Second of all, when he speaks of ancient truths, he isn’t making anything up. He may be imprudent, but his views only ring loudly when those who hate HIM plaster his words all over the internet.

He is “making up” his position that the Church teaches this hate, because the Church has roundly and firmly condemned such statements. And it is Williamson who has plastered his own words all over the internet by continuing to make statements contrary to the faith on his blog.

 

[chosen_people]

(Edited)

Well what Williamson is saying is two things. First, that Jews of today bear the guilt for the crime of deicide. Secondly, that the Jews of today are “enemies of the true Messiah”.

Nothing new here:

The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they are adversaries to all men, prohibiting us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sin always: for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end.’

• I Thessalonians ii.14-16

or how about this:

O Jesus! Creator of heaven and earth, Whom nothing can encompass nor limit, Thou Who dost enfold and hold all under Thy loving power, remember the very bitter pain which Thou didst suffer when blow by blow and with hatred the Jews nailed Thy Sacred Hands and Feet to the Cross, with big blunt nails; and, not finding Thee in a pitiable enough state to satisfy their rage, they enlarged Thy wounds, and added pain to pain, and with indescribable cruelty stretched Thy Body on the Cross, and dislocated Thy Bones by pulling them on all sides.

from the 15 prayers of St. Bridget

Now some may find fault with statements that today’s Jews are “Christ killers” and the enemy of the Christian Deity, however, as you pointed out, this is merely “anti-Catholicism”.

 

[Ahimsa]

Was Lincoln Jewish?

 

[Hokomai]

Bp Williamson clearly lacks the ability to deal with historical issues in a proper way especially in judging the relative reliability of sources. I suspect, from watching his interviews and reading his views, that he also uses the mental processes of ‘choosing to believe’ in relation not only to matters of faith, but matters of history. In this, he is very ‘new age’, like people who decide to believe in the ‘healing power of crystals’. The fact that someone with these thinking problems is a member of anything is not a surprise - they are everywhere! The decision to promote him to a position of responsibility was not his own, but that of his religious superior. He behaves exactly as you would expect someone who thinks like that to behave. Those who appoint others always make some mistakes, but the Church lacks appropriate systems for undoing them

 

[Church_Militant]

Shalom Elechim CP.
Bishop Williamson is a bad excuse for a Catholic as well as any kind of bishop I’d like to post here some comments from His Holiness Benedict XVI regarding him and his polemics against the Jews. The following quotes are from Light of The World which I highly recommend to all and sundry.

The Williamson Affair
*
For .the first four years, the Pope had been doing a “good job”, to put it colloquially. His opponents had literally been silenced. But things changed in January 2009, and all at once the vicious attacks started up again as well. A certain portion of the press resurrected the charge that Pope Benedict is an ice-cold technocrat. We touched on the event that triggered this reaction at the beginning of the interview: the lifting of the excommunication of four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, which had broken off from Rome under the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. At the present time, the Society comprises, according to its own account, around 600,000 members, 500 priests, over 200 seminarians, 86 schools, and two institutions of higher education.

To start with: You must also have assumed that this step would bring you anything but approval in the world of public opinion, is that not right? The advantage to be gained was actually rather slight, whereas the risk of damage was considerable.*

That is correct. I have already explained that this step is to a large extent parallel to what we are doing in China. When bishops who are under excommunication because they have offended against the primacy later acknowledge the primacy, they are justly freed from the excommunication. In other words, their excommunication had nothing to do with Vatican II, as I have already said, but had been pronounced on account of an offense against the primacy. But now they had written a letter declaring their Yes to the primacy, and the next step was therefore quite clear from a canonical point of view.

Incidentally, already under John Paul II an assembly of all the heads of the dicasteries, that is, all those in charge of Vatican bureaus, had decided to lift the excommunication in the event a letter of this kind was sent. Unfortunately, the public relations work was not done well from our side, so that the real, canonical substance and the limits of this process were never made clear. Then, to top it all off, there was the total meltdown with Williamson, which we had unfortunately not foreseen, and that is a particularly distressing circumstance.

Benedict XVI, Pope; Peter Seewald (2010-11-23). Light Of The World (Kindle Locations 1614-1622). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

 

[Church_Militant]

Emphasis mine.

Would. you have signed the decree lifting the excommunication if you had known that among the four bishops there was a person who denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers?

No. If I had known, the first step would have been to separate the Williamson case from the others. Unfortunately, though, none of us went on the Internet to find out what sort of person we were dealing with.

Shouldn’t the very first step before lifting an excommunication have been to scrutinize the excommunicated persons and to examine carefully how they conducted their lives—especially when you were dealing with a community whose isolation had skewed its development in a direction that was both theologically and politically dubious?

It is correct that Williamson is an atypical case in that he was, when you think about, never Catholic in the proper sense. He was an Anglican and then went over directly to Lefebvre. This means that he has never lived in the great Church, that he has never lived with the Pope. Our offices that are in charge of dealing with these matters assured us that all four of the bishops were unreservedly ready to accept the primacy. But of course one is always more intelligent in hindsight.

…
*All the leading offices in the Vatican immediately issued statements clarifying that Holocaust-deniers have no place in the Catholic Church. In fact, just two months earlier, on the ninth of November, you had recalled in Rome the seventieth anniversary of the Kristallnacht. On that occasion you issued an appeal for “more profound solidarity with the Jewish world” and for prayer for the victims. You said that it is the duty of every individual to take up the fight on every level against every form of anti-Semitism and discrimination.

At the general audience of January 28, 2009, your first opportunity to make a public personal statement regarding the Williamson affair, you read a declaration in which you expressed your “full and unquestionable solidarity with our fellow receivers of the First Covenant”. You called the Shoah “a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism” of the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, the General Secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany went so far as to claim that the Pope wanted to introduce a Holocaust-denier into “polite society”. A Jewish journalist even spoke of rehabilitating active “Jew-haters”. He called the Pope a “hypocrite”. The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany declared an immediate suspension of the dialogue with the Catholic Church. Doesn’t all of this also suggest that, in light of the Williamson affair, the relation to the Jews is still in flux?*

One thing that is evident, at any rate, is that there are still great fears and tensions and that the dialogue can easily be damaged and is fragile. In the worldwide Jewish community as a whole, however, there were many people who immediately vouched for me and said that I would never introduce a Holocaust-denier into polite society. These people know me. In that sense, a breakdown of the dialogue was out of the question.

CP, I hope this helps in the sense that Benedict XVI makes it very clear the Church’s position on the Holocaust and on people who put forth things like Williamson has done.

BTW, CP, with regard to your quote of St. Brigid, you might consider that the point is that men were doing those things to Christ…not you, nor even all Jews and I was struck deeply by something I read last night in the Gospel of St. Luke that I believe is very relevant here.

Luke 23:33] And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.
34] And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.

I was struck by this because it seems to me that Jesus actually interceded for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying him. He for gave them and if He did then would not also God the Father? I believe so, and this even further repudiates the position of anyone like Bishop Williamson.

St. Brigid is, I think, expressing the great suffering that Jesus endured at the hands of sinful men, which is ultimately all of us. I do not see her comments as an indictment of the Jews or Judaism.

Elechim Shalom.

 

[archangel04]

I have no issue with Jews voicing their concerns, but when it turns into ordering the Vatican to do and believe such and such is when I have an issue. Outside forces should play no part in what our Church believes in my opinion. I do not know the Churches definitive teaching on this subject. Can someone state it? Whatever the defined teaching of the Church is, is what I will believe.

I see where you are comming from. An example of this could be back in '07 when the Pope liberalized the TLM many Jews were concerned due to some of the prayers which prayed for the conversion of Jews. Having concern is no problem, but requesting or demanding a change when you are not Catholic is ridiculous, which some people did attempt who happen to be Jews. This is ecumenism at its worst.

 

[TrueLight]

Why should we not pray for the conversion of Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons etc?

 

[Mike_Searson]

Bishop Williamson is a bad excuse for a Catholic as well as any kind of a bishop

He is actually a poor excuse for a human being.

 

[kozlosap]

He is actually a poor excuse for a human being.

 

[Melchior_1]

Why should we not pray for the conversion of Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons etc?

No one is saying we shouldn’t. What people are saying is that we probably shouldn’t:

• Blame the Jews for killing Jesus. The Old Testament, and Christ Himself, were very clear they He was to die a brutal death.
• Say that the Holocaust never happened, because it did.
• Say that the numbers were inflated so that the Jews could get their own slice of land.

The SSPX needs to put the muzzle on this fellow, he’s making them all look TERRIBLE.

 

[Carolus_Martell]

I’m sympathetic to the SSPX society but those ‘decide’ allegations are uncalled for. St Stephan’s indictment of the Sanhedrin addressed that issue so eloquently, and for the ages, so enough is enough.

Madness like this is why we should pray the Rosary everyday and ask for divine guidance for politicians and church leaders. Thankfully the Vatican survives as the last bastion of sanity in a world gone mad. How beautiful were the Holy Father thoughts on Psalm 23 as reported by the Wanderer.

Past world history would suggest now would be a good time for a Christian-Jew alliance of sorts. Despite our differences we both owe a lot to each other for many things… like the whole of Western Civilization for one.

 

[jmj1984]

worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/10807/bishop_williamson_hits_out_against_jews_again

Well we’ve had holocaust denial, 9/11 as an “inside job”, quoting from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if it was a factual text about the Jews controlling the world and now he’s back with that old time favorite: deicide.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that there isnt really anything of substance in this news article.

Instead of whipping everyone into a lynchmob shall we examine what the bishop actually said '*In his second volume on the life of Jesus published several months ago, Pope Benedict XVI made remarks enabling journalists to jump to the conclusion that the Jews must no longer be held responsible for deicide, i.e. the killing of God. Worse, on May 17 the executive director of the US Bishops’ Conference’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs said that one cannot charge the Jewish people with deicide at any time in history without falling out of communion with the Catholic Church. Against what many people today want to believe, it is time to recall, however briefly, what the true Church always used to teach on the judicial murder of Jesus.

Firstly, the killing of Jesus was truly “deicide”, i.e. the killing of God, because Jesus was the one of the three divine Persons who in addition to his divine nature had taken a human nature. What was killed on the Cross ? Only the human nature. But who was killed on the Cross in his human nature ? None other than the second divine Person, i.e. God. So God was killed, deicide was committed.

Secondly, Jesus died on the Cross to save all of us sinful human beings from our sins, and in this sense all men were and are the purpose of his death. But only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide because it is obvious from the Gospels that the Gentile most involved, Pontius Pilate, would never have condemned Jesus to death had not the Jewish leaders roused the Jewish people to clamour for his crucifixion (Mt. XXVII, 20). Certainly the learned leaders were more guilty than the unlearned people, says St Thomas Aquinas (Summa III, 47, 5), but they all cried together for Jesus’ blood to come down upon them and their children (Mt. XXVII, 25).

Thirdly, at least Pope Leo XIII considered there to be a real solidarity between the Jews clamouring then for Jesus to be killed and the collectivity of Jews of modern times. Did he not in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus have the entire Church, from the end of the 19th century onwards, pray to God that he turn his “eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once God’s chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Saviour; may it now descend upon them a laver (i.e. washing) of redemption and life” ?

But Leo XIII is by no means alone in observing such a continuity amongst Jews down the centuries. Do they themselves not lay claim today to the land of Palestine on the grounds that it is theirs by right from the God of the Old Testament ? Has there ever been a race-people-nation on the face of the earth more proudly self-identifying as identical down the ages ? Originally raised by God to cradle the Messiah, alas, when he came they refused, collectively, to recognize him. Collectively also, meaning there are always noble exceptions, they have remained faithful to that rejection, so that they changed their religion from that of Abraham and Moses and the Old Testament to that of Anas, Caiphas and the Talmud. Tragically, their very messianic training by God drives them to go on rejecting the one whom they hold to be a false messiah. Until they convert at the end of the world, as the Church has always taught they will do (cf. Rom. XI, 26-27), they seem bound to choose to go on acting, collectively, as enemies of the true Messiah.

How can the Pope let go of such ancient truths ?

Kyrie eleison.*’

Its a controversial statement thats for sure but compared to what people are making it out to be and previous statements he’s made its balanced and well written. People are free to agree or disagree with what he says of course but its in no way, shape or form comparable to denial of the holocaust.

 

[mrld20]

I think Catholics need to stop with fearing and hating the Jews… We embrace Muslims, we can embrace Sikhs, and Hindus and the Dalai Lama and his flock of Buddhdists.

But then someone has to get hung up about the Jews… The Church needs to purge itself of its antisemitic elements and be down with it…

Holocaust denial is a scary thing. I know a very elderly friend of mine who survived the holocaust. And he was Catholic!

Anyone who denies millions of Jews and millions of other human lives all which are considered sacred by god died is not being a good Christian and will certainly face judgement when they stand before God.

Also as a side note I am a big interfaith dialogue person. I love my Jewish friends (and other friends from other religions as well) and wouldn’t think of hatred in the name of God.

Hatred of a group of people no matter who they are is wrong.

For all I could care it could be a group of Satanists and I would still show Christian love and charity.

That’s the Christian thing to do

 

[mrld20]

Hey man Paul actually said don’t blame the Jews!

Romans 11 dude don’t mince words. The church has also taught the jews are not to blame for Jesus’ death… Stop playing theologian… your not one!

"What I am saying is this: is it possible that God abandoned his people? Out of the question! I too am an Israelite, descended from Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

[BIBLEDRB]Romans 11:2-36[/BIBLEDRB]

 

[jmj1984]

I think Catholics need to stop with fearing and hating the Jews… We embrace Muslims, we can embrace Sikhs, and Hindus and the Dalai Lama and his flock of Buddhdists.

But then someone has to get hung up about the Jews… The Church needs to purge itself of its antisemitic elements and be down with it…

Holocaust denial is a scary thing. I know a very elderly friend of mine who survived the holocaust. And he was Catholic!

Anyone who denies millions of Jews and millions of other human lives all which are considered sacred by god died is not being a good Christian and will certainly face judgement when they stand before God.

Also as a side note I am a big interfaith dialogue person. I love my Jewish friends (and other friends from other religions as well) and wouldn’t think of hatred in the name of God.

Hatred of a group of people no matter who they are is wrong.

For all I could care it could be a group of Satanists and I would still show Christian love and charity.

That’s the Christian thing to do

Neither Holocaust denial nor stating that the jews have a particular blame for Christs death is per se showing a hatred of the jews. Of course we know that in actual fact for the former point of view the only people who hold it are anti-semites, **still hypothetically **someone could hold it and not be an anti-semite. To be one, one is required to hate the jews, to wish them harm etc… The latter point of view is fairly common throughout the church’s history being held by many saints and even popes so we cannot say that only anti-semites hold it, though of course it remains controversial. I state this because I don’t see how 'hatred against a group of people no matter who is wrong’ came into the discussion, to hate someone is to wish someone harm, to love someone is to wish them good.

**Holocaust denial is in the light of the overwhelming historical evidence for the event incredibly foolish, dishonest and in the light of what the holocaust was, imprudent and deeply offensive. **However it is one thing to be a holocaust denier and another to claim that people of other faiths must convert and the jews in a special way (having been Gods chosen people), that is not hatred that is love. If love consists of wishing people good and God is the ultimate good and source of all goodness to wish people to convert is nothing more than an act of love. Conversely wishing that people do not convert or hindering their conversion or not aiding it could be said to be acts of hatred.

Lastly I cannot say the church has ever feared Jews except in the early church when Jews killed christians as for example St Paul did and we are told about in the book of Acts.

 

[catharina]

(Edited)

Well what Williamson is saying is two things. First, that Jews of today bear the guilt for the crime of deicide. Secondly, that the Jews of today are “enemies of the true Messiah”.

Nothing new here:

**The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they are adversaries to all men, prohibiting us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sin always: for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end.’

• I Thessalonians ii.14-16**

Do you understand that you are quoting St. Paul, a Jew, who is making reference to the Jews of his own day and time, any who were involved in the death and persecution of Jesus Christ, likening it to the persecution of prophets - also by Jews … so Paul speaks of Jews to Jews (and others), himself being a Jew?

or how about this:

O Jesus! Creator of heaven and earth, Whom nothing can encompass nor limit, Thou Who dost enfold and hold all under Thy loving power, remember the very bitter pain which Thou didst suffer when blow by blow and with hatred the Jews nailed Thy Sacred Hands and Feet to the Cross, with big blunt nails; and, not finding Thee in a pitiable enough state to satisfy their rage, they enlarged Thy wounds, and added pain to pain, and with indescribable cruelty stretched Thy Body on the Cross, and dislocated Thy Bones by pulling them on all sides.

from the 15 prayers of St. Bridget

Now some may find fault with statements that today’s Jews are “Christ killers” and the enemy of the Christian Deity, however, as you pointed out, this is merely “anti-Catholicism”.

 

[catharina]

Hey man Paul actually said don’t blame the Jews!

Romans 11 dude don’t mince words. The church has also taught the jews are not to blame for Jesus’ death… Stop playing theologian… your not one!

"What I am saying is this: is it possible that God abandoned his people? Out of the question! I too am an Israelite, descended from Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

[BIBLEDRB]Romans 11:2-36[/BIBLEDRB]

Many thanks and Bless you!

 

[catharina]

worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/10807/bishop_williamson_hits_out_against_jews_again

Well we’ve had holocaust denial, 9/11 as an “inside job”, quoting from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if it was a factual text about the Jews controlling the world and now he’s back with that old time favorite: deicide.

Although sspx “news” is not of overwhelming interest to most Catholics,
who only hope for a full union between sspx and the Vatican, still I must
thank you for bringing this news to the attention of CA. If not for your post,
it’s likely that I wouldn’t have heard of this latest news.