We are still awaiting a definition of Anti-Semitism.
That is a valid question and straight to the point. It the two are not equal there must be some situation where one can deny it without being antisemetic. One such easy case would be innsanity or like of ability to think things through. Another reason would be naivety. In the case of Bp. Williamson, if he is not antisemetic, I would save that he has an attraction to the bizarre and conspiratorial, combined with a prejudice of anything and everything mentioned in Vatican II and by any clergy he considers modern. He might well look at some antisemetic literature and accept a bit of scientific evidence for it, while rejecting from his own peers the possibility that they might have anything correct to say if they are too modern for him
I don’t think anybody under discussion here - least of all Bp Williamson - ‘denied the holocaust’. What he did was claim that the gas chambers were fake, and question the figure of 6 million. As to the gas chambers, in his favour is the known fact that the ones on display were actually constructed after the war. What is against him is the first-hand witness of survivors. Instead of throwing around Boo-words, it would be better simply to mention this. As for the figures, in his favour is the fact that the publicly-displayed figure for Auschwitz was abruptly changed from 4 million to 1.4 million without explanation. Against him are the testimonies of the survivors. In his favour again is the fact that there actually seem to be too many registered survivors to make the figures tally. To claim that the pope is somehow in bad faith for refusing to lift the excommunication of somebody who contributes to this cloudy matter is unsustainable.
Of course it may be just a remarkable coincidence that everytime the Catholic church drops the ball from a moral aspect it revolves around Jews just as the Catholic church gained in stature from Vatican II.
You may be waiting but I have already posted it. I’ll repeat it for you.
His statments absolutely equate to holocaust denial. There’s no serious question about that. And when you couple this with other statements he has made, you have to be blind to believe he doesn’t hate jews. Perhaps he has convinced himself that his beliefs are sincere, but there’s no question in my mind that they are grounded in hatred and/or fear of Jews.
He’s not denying the individual acts, but quibbling over the figures.
My apologies for having missed that. If there are no objections, we will proceed with this as a working definition.
Well, I was hoping you would define the term you have used rather freely, but in default of that, I will be happy to use that of valke2.
That is an opinion that is not shared by everyone. It depends upon the criteria of judgment.
You might actually be right about that. It was all certainly about far more than the language of the Liturgy. The lack of progress between the Vatican & the SSPX in previous years stemmed in very large part from the Vatican’s insisting on treating it as such - and as a matter of obedience while refusing to consider the context, which validly activated the exemption-from-sanction clauses.
But surely you know that we Catholics are specifically forbidden, under pain of Mortal Sin, to usurp the Judgment of God and make these assertions about the state of somebody else’s inmost thoughts?
To get to the truth is a good reason. According to John’s Gospel Jesus labeled the Jews “liars and murderers” doing the work of their father the Devil. Was He anti Semitic?
Well we have “the Jews”
John was a semite and a Jew, so he wasn’t anti-semitic. I don’t think he labelled all Jews as murderers, but rather some people within the Jewish religion who were persecuting and killing Christians.
Agreed.
Well, I must call a Point of Order. Jesus was not tarring every Jew with the same brush. Many of them did accept the Messiah. Jesus was addressing a very specific group, was he not? Those whose father was the devil were not the Jewish nation as such, but every individual who is ‘of his seed’ - ‘I will place an enmity between thee and the Woman’ etc. They are scattered over the face of the Earth, in every nation.
I for one won’t quibble over the nature of such statements as “all Jews [or any other identifiable group whom we don’t know personally] are liars and murderers”.
Agreed on “not every Jew” but disagree with your explanation of “every individual”; the context of His accusation does not support it.
Jesus wasn not anti-semitic, because he was not speaking to or about all of Israel. He was speaking to and about those who violated the commandments and pretended to be holier than thou.
I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that the Jews are not evil because they lack the intellectual ability to “wrap their head around Jesus’ teachings” but that if in fact they do understand but prefer to be Jews " becasue it is convenient for them", in that case they are evil?Jesus wasn not anti-semitic, because he was not speaking to or about all of Israel. He was speaking to and about those who violated the commandments and pretended to be holier than thou.
John is very clear in his writing that the Gospel is rooted in Juadism. The entire structure of his Gospel is very Judaic, even though his theology uses Greek philosophy. Had John truly believed that Jews and Judaism were of the Devil, he would not have written a Gospel using Jewish hermaneutics. He was well educated. He could have written like Luke and stayed away from Jewish tradition in his writings.
But John drives home a point. The problem is not the Jews, but those who would deny the Incarnate Logos becasue it is convenient for them, not because they cannot wrap their head around Jesus’ teachings. Those are the ones whom John refers to as evil.
JR