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Holocaust? What Holocaust?
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With the Pope’s 180 on Bishop Willliamson, the Vatican and White House are in retreat. A remarkable week.
UPDATE: It’s not every day that the Pope issues a “Whoops!” statement. Pope Benedict is known for wearing red Prada slippers, and he stuck both of them in the papal puss when he un-excommunicated the odious Bishop Richard “Holocaust? What Holocaust?” Williamson. Now, Benedict is demanding that Williamson repudiate his denials about the six million before he can be fully admitted back into the Vatican.
It’s been quite the week for about-faces, what with President Obama’s untidy cabinet appointments. Bishop Williamson’s offenses are hardly on the same scale as Tom Daschle’s chauffeur-gate and Nancy Killefer’s housekeeper-gate, but there it is—the Vatican and White House in retreat.
The Pope’s one-eighty is really quite dramatic. The Vatican is like a very large ship: it moves slowly, turns with enormous difficulty, and is hard to stop. The announcement is also very reassuring, suggesting as it does that Il Papa is susceptible of reason. Always nice to see that in high places.
This will not quite be the end of it. Doubtless, there will be shouts and murmurs of “What did the Pope know and when did he know it?” (With respect to His Excellency’s appalling interview with Swedish TV.) But it’s a very good start. Bene, your Holiness. Optime est.
My previous post on this subject below:
Why on earth would Pope Benedict XVI want to rehabilitate a Holocaust denier?
The running title of this blog is “What Fresh Hell.” This week’s heaping helping of fresh hell comes courtesy of Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four bishops whom Pope Benedict XVI has just un-excommunicated. A plainer way of putting it would be: rehabilitated.
The ecclesiastic quartet were elevated to Episcopal rank in 1988 by a whack-job (or “extreme right wing,” if you prefer) French archbishop named Marcel Lefebvre, as a means of protesting the modernist trends of the post-Vatican II church.
This repugnant episode is surely to the Vatican what Abu Ghraib was to the Pentagon. No, actually, worse.
Pope Benedict, the German cardinal formerly known as Josef Alois Ratzinger, lifted the excommunication in the interests of bringing the Lefebvre contingent back into the church. Mother Church is understandably sensitive when it comes to schisms.
This come-to-il Papa moment would almost certainly have gone unnoticed, even on a slow news days, were it not for the interview that Bishop Williamson had just given to Swedish TV. You really must view it for yourself.
Note, as you watch it, that as he speaks, he averts his eyes from the interviewer. I wasn’t surprised by that. I suppose were I to insist, in front of a television camera, that the Holocaust was largely a fiction, and that at most 300,000 Jews perished in the camps, “not one by gassing in a gas chamber,” I think I might look away, too.
Bishop Williamson is English-born, and speaks in the accent of his homeland (Fatherland?), in a mellifluous, educated way, which is perhaps what makes this arpeggio, coming at the end of the interview, so very chilling:
“There’s certainly been a huge exploitation. Germany has paid out billions and billions of deutsche marks, and now euros, because the Germans have a guilt complex about their having gassed six million Jews. But I don’t think six million Jews were gassed. Now be careful, I beg of you,” he says, now looking at his interviewer, “this [that is, Holocaust-denying] is against the law in Germany.” He points over his shoulder at an imagined onlooker, “If there were a German here, you could have me thrown into prison before leaving Germany. I hope that’s not your intention….”
And now, euros? Wow. Though he doesn’t smile, the “I hope that’s not your intention” line seems to be intended in a jocose sort of way. You’re not going to turn me in to the Gestapo, are you? Ho, ho, ho.
I’m no longer a practicing member of Mother Church, but the old reflexes die hard. Once an altar boy, always an altar boy. But really, I have to say, out loud, as it were, What—the fuck—were you thinking of, Your Holiness? This repugnant episode is surely to the Vatican what Abu Ghraib was to the Pentagon. No, actually, worse. Actually, not even on the same scale.
Hillaire Belloc—one of the great Catholics of his day—said of the Vatican, “What can one expect of an institution run by 800 Italian clergymen?” Pope Benedict, of course, is not Italian. He is German, which somewhat … complicates things.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Lessons from Another War
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
It's Time for Us to Go
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
A Prize Too Far
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Thank you Christopher...thank you for exposing the hypocracy of a group bound and determined to bring the world back to the 13th century.
As repugnant as it is, Holocaust denying it is not an excommunicatable offense. The reasons for this idiot's excommunication had nothing to do with his beliefs about the Holocaust and so the repeal also had nothing to do with it. Unlike Buckley I have not left the Church. I do not agree with the repeal of the excommunication based the original allegations, nor do I find Williamson's comments anything but horrendous, but unfortunate as they both are, the one does not have anything to do with the other.
Christopher,
Right on, as usual.
"Idiotic and hateful sentiments ought to afforded every opportunity of dissemination, so that all may hear and heap scorn and odium on them. " Oh Chris, if only that were true. Unfortunately we have only to look at Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to know that while reasoning people will heap scorn on their ridiculous and incredulous sophistry, unfortunately a certain number of the less mentally agile will find them heroic and become their disciples.
Why spend so much time discussing someone who is clearly a "nut job". Do you think your readers are so dumb they need to be assisted in identifying one? I am sure he is grateful for the free publicity now that you have sent everyone who reads your piece to his video's.
The American religious scene is riddled with "nut jobs" who make outrageous statements on a daily basis on youtube or any other media, I do not hear you riling against them with the same vigor.
This man has a theory about the holocaust, who cares? If the Jewish community and now you had not spoken out about this man no one would have ever heard of him, I certainly had not.
Are you so worried that ordinary folks in the US might potentially take him seriously? Why? Is the evidence that contradicts what he says so shaky that it requires you to reinforce it with your personal experience?
I was a great admirer of your father. He was part of the intelligentsia and stimulated intellectual debate. He too at times had radical theories that would make all of us cringe. All of them were honest but sometimes based on flawed value sets and reasoning. One would debate vigorously and then simply agree to disagree but certainly not prosecute. That is the power of intellectual debate and a free society.
Your piece has a defensive feel to it, is arrogant and seems laced with hidden agendas. What has the Catholic Church done to you? Why bring up the British and the potato famine? This man does not represent what the Catholic Church stands for and everyone knows that except perhaps some other "nut jobs".
to Aranxa
I humbly disagree with your statement. You have to look at the context of his statement and his context comes from being a Bishop. If he was not in this position the appropriate step would not be excommunication. Because he is in a prominent position to lead the Faithful astray and is speaking in direct contrast from the Church the appropriate action is excommunication.
Let us hope and pray that Mother Church wakes up and does what is right.
I'm afraid I'm not well-versed in the history of un-excommunications.
Was this Bishop excommunicated in the first place for gay pedophilia? Did The Pope at some time have something to do with that?
And if so, does this Bishop also deny the extent of Nazi persecution of gay people? What about the Gypsies? He looks like he is sublimating a desire to rip off his vestments, don a frilly red flamenco dress and bust loose.
I am absolutely positive that the reason we should pay even more attention to the Pope than we do is that his conception of birth control is rational and scientific and will lead to the most sensible solutions and therefore, progress for poor populations.
But to watch this jerk on YouTube, when we all know that Demi and Ashton are putting on a show on Twitter, is an egregious misuse of modern technology and a waste of our time.
Pope-a-Dope? Surely, Mr. Buckley, you gest.
I'm not sure which of these are the more entertaining Catholic versions of 'great moments in shoe throwing'; this re-communication of Bishop Williamson or the 'Te Adoramus Maria' scandal perpetrated by Playboy Magazine in Mexico. To be absolutely correct, their Latin leaves a great deal to be desired. The correct form would be 'Maria, Adoramus Te', but hey, who's counting, certainly not me, 'you know' the one with the perfect NYS Latin Regent Scores. I wouldn't expect Hef to be the gold standard Latin Scholar.
As for Bishop Williamson's insistence on the 'historical record' regarding the NUMBERS of persons killed in the Holocost, I would think it more than reasonable to conclude that counting Holocost victims in Nazi Germany would be somewhat approximate to determining where the 700 Billion Stimulus money disappeared to, or the exact causes of our CDS fiasco. I was happy to see that a CDS Platform and MARKET has now been established, just recently ... in Toronto, no less. Oh Canada!
I do try to take people at their word, at least until definitively proven otherwise; the word being 'Holocost', from the Greek root meaning 'completely burnt'. No mention of 'gas' being present in the choice and selection of words designed, as they are, for communication. A recent example may also include such delicacies as the word 'marriage', who's meaning has also chosen a most bastardly direction for itself these days. But, hey, these are the times we live in, wherein words no longer have any meaning other than that attributed by the writer himself. It's an 'I'm gonna git ya sucka' world we find ourselves living in these days. The Freudian explanation of this chosen manifestation is most enlightening, and perfectly aligned, as are the planets, to explain out current circumstance. But you should already be fully aware, being as you are a spawn of Damien. I, fortunately, fell into the hands of Alban. I think an 'l' is missing though. Yes, words, they reveal so much.
The issue is 'celibacy' and not the object of desire. I find celibacy a most wonderful gift. As for your self professed backslidden Catholicism, I might remind you of a source and wellspring for your own faith, the last words of St.Francis before his death ...
" ADORAMUS te, sanctissime Domine Iesu Christe, hic et ad omnes Ecclesias tuas, quae sunt in toto mundo, et benedicimus tibi; quia per sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundum. Amen."
vankuyk why are YOU so defensive about Christopher's critique of this particular nutty "theorist?"
There's a valid question and considerable public interest in why a conservative german pope would let a holocaust denier back into the church.
It's weird and unsettling.
Anytime propaganda pops up with a racial agenda conspiracy attached to it--it should be derided, debunked, and publicly shamed. Otherwise uninformed people will take it seriously. How could someone not at least consider what such an elevated and educated man was saying if there wasn't a chorus of "what the f---?" rising up to reassure us that even the high placed and learned like this man can hold ridiculous beliefs that shoud be taken with a heavy dose of salt.
You seem exceptionally injured by this article. I don't think Mr. Buckley is suppressing debate or free thought--he says so in his article--he's just plainly making fun of ought to be made fun of.
If "This man does not represent what the Catholic Church stands for" the WHY IS HE WORKING FOR THEM AGAIN?
Look if you say some crazy racist remarks publicly at McDonald's and get fired, you don't ever get re-hired.
Now if the Pope had attached some humiliating and intensive restrictions on what this "theorist" could do and be in the church--we'd all be more understanding. It is a church and not a business (we hope) and everyone deserves a shot at redemption--but this doesn't feel like the Pope takes these offenses serious enough.
Apparently, neither do you.
Also anytime I hear someone complain about someone else criticizing the Catholic Church, I think of how ridiculously rich and powerful the church is and then I think, "I think they can probably stand a little healthy criticism and anyone that well off deserves and needs critics to keep them honest.
Thank you for writing what so many of us are thinking.
Good article, and a very good point. However I have no problem with people 'denying' the holocaust. Speech should be free, even for the ignorant.
I mean, if we keep silencing the idiots, how do we know which ones are the idiots? Aside from the funny hats.
Denying the holocaust is like denying gravity. The denier just makes himself look like an idiot and a buffoon. I should also add that I don't care about the pope, or catholics.
Thank you, Mr. Buckley. By now, you are arranging talks between Bishop Willamson and President Obama without pre-conditions.
REM: The Hope-er you fall, the dope-er you get...and, you've fallen far, Pilgrim [sic].
I, for one, am so incredibly tired of the hypocrisy and self-righteousness of the Catholic Church. These are the reasons it is slowly, but surely, becoming irrelevant. This all just gives organized religion the bad name it often deserves.
Beautifully state, IJamesB. I am a Catholic and would seek to echo your sentiment verbatim:
If "This man does not represent what the Catholic Church stands for" then WHY IS HE WORKING FOR THEM AGAIN?
It's a pretty darn legitimate question -- especially when this Pope would likely agree with certain U.S. priests about the excommunication of Catholic voters who, against the express direction of the U.S. Bishop's guide to the formation of conscience and the Catholic vote, DID actually examine their conscience, DID find supposed "pro-life" Republicans absolutely reprehensible on pretty much all other matters (Case in point: "Saint" Tom Delay's peculiar silence on the issue of FORCED abortions for sweatshop and sex industry workers in the Northern Marianas Islands. Are we sure this guy's name isn't D-I-C-K?) and DID vote their conscience. They just didn't vote the way the Catholic Church demanded them to.
I do not understand Holocaust deniers. The irrefutable evidence complied by the Nazis themselves inescapably proves the annhiliation of the Jews took place. While individuals and governments can and do lie, misrepresent, and simply forget things, the ashes, the hair, the cannisters, the photographs and films, the reports and neat typewritten accounts are irrefutable.
It makes some sense that German people who were not physically part of the killing industry might be able to say that they didn't know how bad it was, but body parts were being shipped across Germany and her conquered states to factories to make household goods. A degree of ignorance I can see, but to deny the events ever happened? To deny that the entire adult population was part of this on some level? That is beyond shameful or stupid.
As for the non-German holocaust deniers: the question isn't whether the Holocaust occured, the question is: what do you get out of the denying of it? This is not something that can be treated, at any level of society, as a minor abberation or a peculiar eccentricity. Building personal/national status on denying the deaths of more than 6 million people doesn't cheapen their sacrifice. It just shows the rest of the world exactly what the deniers are: arrogant, self-serving, self seeking individuals who shouldn't be trusted to carry out the garbage, much less minister to the religious or run countries.
1. The bishop (along with three others) was illicitly ordained by a renegade archbishop against papal orders in 1988 .
2. In this way these bishops essentially excommunicated themselves.
3.Pope Benedict decided to lift the excommunications once the wayward bishops and followers made it clear they were determined to remain Catholic and accept the teachings of Pope Benedict and the church.
4. Saying a person is not excommunicated is not the same as saying one shares all his ideas or statements.
Christopher, I'd love to suggest to you and your readers taking a look at the book "The Holocaust By Bullets," by Father Patrick Desbois. He's a Catholic priest from France who definitely ISN'T of the Lefebvre sort. He's dedicated a huge amount of his life to documenting the murders carried out by Einsatzgruppen in Ukraine -- before the Nazis tried to sanitize the process with remote Concentration Camps and gas chambers.
It is an incredibly powerful read, not just historically, but spiritually. I'm a lapsed half-jew, and now a staunch atheist, but it's a wonderful to be reminded that there are thoughtful, inquisitive people who do amazing and compassionate things in the name of faith. If only this Pope -- and this horrible Mr. Williamson -- were among them.
(It really is an incredible book, and an incredible project he's working on. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, after reading your touching and raw account of your visit to Auschwitz)
Of course all the films made of the chambers were made in Hollywood especially all the dead bodies pile
up on top of each other. I suppose the Germans could not have used carbon menoxide gas to kill those people. He could have been Herman Goering's character witness in Nurmberg in 1945 I think. I know why the Catholics liked Herr Hitler...he was "pro-life"....abortions were illegal and punishable by prison...he hated the anti-cathoiic
communists....he opposed national health care
and did not invade the Vatican. There were Bishops in Rome who financed Nazi war criminals to escape to Argentina and provided them with the necessary papers to do so. As long as you oppose abortion and are anti-communist then this Bishop et al
say you're all right with them.
I am a strong Catholic and this makes me sick
What does this mean:
"This repugnant episode is surely to the Vatican what Abu Ghraib was to the Pentagon. No, actually, worse."?
Thank you Mr. Buckley. Now if will you turn your attention to another whack-a- do by the name of Rush Limbaugh. I would love to know your take on the current controversy. Is it more difficult for a conservative to criticize Rush than the Pope?
Perhaps there are things that some people _cannot_ acknowledge. We all do it to some degree. If the Germans had won the war, the murder of some 6 million Jews and many more would not have happened. The victor writes the history books. But Germany lost the war, and we know that 6 million Jews, along with so many other people, were murdered by the Nazis. There are many holocaust deniers out there.
Will the U.S. ever fess up to the murder of 100s of thousands of Iraqis? No! We are writing the history books as that chapter ends.
Christopher:
Really feel you should cut the Pope some slack. Look closely at what Bishop W. said, relying on certain "historical evidence" and questioning the use of cyanide gas as being the agent leading to 6 mill in deaths. If your dad were around, I think he would attack the Bishop's historical evidence instead of the messenger, because obviously, the Bishop is misinformed from experts who don't know their stuff on the handling of this particular gas. And by the way, averting one's eyes from the interviewer is probably better than rubbing your nose, although I did see the Bishop do this once.
chris does the word revisionist come to mind !!!!!!!!! chris you are a great writer but you cannot change their minds !!!!!!!! unfortuately you and i will not be around to hear what they say 100-200 years from now !!!!!!!!!!!! probably revisionist history on some kind of reader the future will have as there will be no more trees to even make a book !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has got be the most fake claim of repentance I have ever seen . By false teachers that paul talks about in 1timothy3:11 reads this scripture and find out for yourselves why do they keep christ on the cross at there churchs and on his staff that he cares I"ll tell you why because they keep nailing him to it over and over .the pope is the leader of the one world church freemasons america they have hijacked society has a whole dont be fooled by these fakes,frauds and powermongers .Open yours to see and yours to hear let the scales off your eyes someone is trying make you aware of these tyrants. a fancy hat and a staff does that make holy ask yourself that question what makes him so holy .jesus is high the priest in hebrews read it he says he is the high priest dont confess your him bible says to confess to one another in your church tell me were it say to confess a priest and ask God for forgiveness not a man with fancy black suit wake america I am blowing the trumpet
unless there has been another post, i am right above mr "the jews are responsible for my back pain" man there, matthewbenzor.
this is the second double take i have made with the pope about his past, one with the hitler youth and some irony that eludes my thc addled brain at the moment. this current issue is troubling, at the very least.
but the caution that anyone thinking this pope an idiot is hellishly simple must be made. perhaps his dogmatic pursuit of right and wrong during his tenure at congregation of the doctrine of the faith and shocking adherence to surprising decrees is now being tempered by a more john of the cross - inspired situational relativism, john of the X, to my mind always will be the great great great grandaddy of all you post structuralists.
oh, by the way, besides the absolute: once a catholic always a catholic (unless they say so, and you dont seek forgiveness,) making you, mr buckley, a catholic, no matter how much you dont think of yourself as one, is there a chronicle of your lapsed faith?
Thank you.
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