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 February 3, 2009 - Church in uproar
over rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson - A Vatican
cardinal has said that the decision to rehabilitate an ultra-conservative
bishop who denies that any Jews were killed in the Holocaust
was “badly mishandled”, amid an escalating internal
row over the decision. As criticism mounts against Pope Benedict
XVI over his decision to welcome back excommunicated Bishop Richard
Williamson, the Vatican cardinal in charge of relations with
Judaism admitted that he had followed the escalating row “with
great preoccupation”. The remarks by Cardinal Kasper, head
of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, follow dismay
expressed by German bishops over a “loss of faith in the
Pope” because of the row over the lifting of Bishop Williamson
and three other ultra-traditionalists. Cardinal Kasper did not
attack the Pope directly — an unthinkable act for a cardinal
— but blamed the row on “the Curia”, the Vatican
hierarchy, and on “a lack of communication” inside
the Vatican. There had been “much too little” internal
discussion of the Pope’s reinstatement of the arch-conservative
followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, he said, and
a failure to foresee the row that followed.
- Cardinal Kasper, who, like the Pope, is German by birth,
has admitted that he was not consulted over the rehabilitations.
There is a growing view in Rome that Pope Benedict neither seeks,
nor is offered, advice that might head off potentially damaging
public relations disasters. Cardinal Kasper told Vatican Radio:
“There have certainly been errors in the way the Curia handled
this — I want to say this explicitly.” The reinstatement
of the four bishops was “far from complete”, he said.
There were “many open questions between us and them”,
including inter-faith dialogue and ecumenism. The followers of
Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the modernising reforms of the
Second Vatican Council, were excommunicated after being ordained
by him without authorisation from Rome, and formed the breakaway
Society of St Pius X (SSPX). Cardinal Kasper said that the Pope
had wanted to bring them back into the fold to “reinforce
the unity of the Church”. But the dialogue with the Lefebvrists
was only “at the beginning”. Leading Lefebvrists said
this week that they still refused to accept Vatican II, which
among other reforms condemned anti-Semitism “in all its
forms” and exonerated the Jews from blame for the Crucifixion
of Christ.
- Several German bishops have openly criticised the Pope’s
move. Monsignor Gebhard Furst, Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart,
said that the rehabilitations were “a betrayal of trust,
especially for our Jewish sisters and brothers in their relationship
to the Church”. [...] Hermann Haering, a liberal German
Catholic theologian, said that the Pope should resign “for
the good of the Church”. Cardinals were obliged to leave
office at 80, he said, and Pope Benedict was 81. Although not
used since the 13th century, there was provision in canon law
for papal retirement, and “it would not be a scandal”.
- Source: Church in uproar over rehabilitation of Bishop Richard
Williamson, Richard Owen in Rome, The
Times (UK), Feb. 3, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5649855.ece
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