The Pope’s Dubious Holocaust Remembrance [View all]

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http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/theeditors/6792/the_pope_s_dubious_holocaust_remembrance/


January 28, 2013 12:13am
Post by EVAN DERKACZ

Sunday sundown signals the start of this year’s Yom HaShoah, or “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” marking the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. First, in the name of optimism, let’s point out that it's a good sign that we live in an age when the pope is expected to make a statement like the one B16 made today:

The memory of this immense tragedy, which above all struck so harshly the Jewish people, must represent for everyone a constant warning so that the horrors of the past are not repeated, so that every form of hatred and racism is overcome, and that respect for, and dignity of, every human person is encouraged.

Great. Great. Problem is, this same pope remains determined to bring the “ultra-traditionalist” Society of St. Pius X, which broke with the Catholic Church over the Vatican II reforms, back into the fold. The SSPX has a, let’s say, “problematic” relationship with Jews which they seem unable or unwilling to rid themselves of.

Most famously, during an interview on Swedish TV, SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson claimed that “There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies!” And he put the number of Jews killed at “200,000 to 300,000.” Straight from the Holocaust denier’s handbook.

You’d think the pope would’ve been humiliated by these statements since the interview aired on the very day that he lifted the excommunication of Williamson and three other SSPX bishops. The pope and his supporters of course claim that he had no idea that Williamson held these views and that he was shocked—shocked—to learn of it.

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