Maybe They Actually Gave Them Bubble Baths
The head of the tax-free real estate empire otherwise known as the Catholic church has welcomed a Holocaust-denying bishop back into the fold. Hugs! From CNN:
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers....The church's decision to lift the excommunication comes a few days after a Swedish television aired an interview with Williamson in which the 68-year-old claimed the Nazis did not use gas chambers.
"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler," he said in the interview, which appeared on various Web sites since its broadcast. What do you think?
"I believe there were no gas chambers," he added.
He added: "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers."
Those Zyklon B canisters were just for decoration, huh?
P.S. The Jews didn't "perish," like green peppers left in the bin too long; they were mass-murdered.
was Hitler influenced by the evil islamist turks that he was allied with at that time in history to do this despicable acts?
WLIL at January 27, 2009 2:41 AM
No, other way round. It was after Hitler started the rounding up and exterminating that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem got on board with the Axis.
brian at January 27, 2009 4:33 AM
Quite upsetting as news if we remember that the Church loves to take the moral high-ground on anything. On the other side, can we expect anything else from them? They used to move around pedophile priests so they would be hard to trace and persecute.
Toubrouk at January 27, 2009 5:51 AM
Ya know, when Benedict first ascended, I was willing to overlook his involvement in the Hitler Youth. After all, we all do things as children we're not proud of. And, I assumed it was involuntary, anyway.
Now I'm beginning to wonder.
cpabroker at January 27, 2009 7:57 AM
You were expecting something better from the Whore of Babylon? How foolish.
hamsa at January 27, 2009 12:02 PM
And pray tell, why should he not be entitled to his opinion?
bradley13 at January 27, 2009 12:44 PM
Opinion is not the same as the denial of reality. Benedict is a tottering old fool.
Eric at January 27, 2009 1:21 PM
You guys are happy to tell the Islamists that freedom of speech is important, even if they are offended. Fine - and I agree. But this is also freedom of speech: if this guy believes that no Jews dies in gas chambers, he can say so. You may argue with him, you may visit the camps and point to evidence. But there is no excuse to defrock him, throw him in jail or even to call him a "doddering old fool".
It seems that most people believe in freedom of speech only until they, themselves are offended...
bradley13 at January 27, 2009 1:39 PM
I am not offended. No one is suggesting (except the German government) that he doesn't have a right to an opinion, no matter how stupid and irresponsible it is.
>> But there is no excuse to defrock him.
I disagree. It shows his lack of character and flawed decision making process. Ask yourself this- how did he come up with the number of 200,000 or 300,000 Jews? Through evidence or denial? The Bishop is a very important and powerful role in the Church. Most of the pedophile priests that were shuffled around were shuffled around with the blessings of the Cardinals and Bishops.
Eric at January 27, 2009 2:37 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/01/27/maybe_they_actu.html#comment-1623539">comment from bradley13You're free to speak -- you're just not free to wear a funny hat and be an ordained member of the church without their say-so. Likewise, I'm free to say they shouldn't have ordained funny-hat wearers in positions of power in the church who advocate such idiocy.
Amy Alkon at January 27, 2009 2:45 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/01/27/maybe_they_actu.html#comment-1623540">comment from Amy AlkonJust read Eric's comment above mine now (sometimes I reply from within my software instead of from my web page). He said what I wanted to say, only better.
Amy Alkon at January 27, 2009 2:47 PM
How do you get from freedom of speech to pediphilia? Not by any logic path.
Let me be provocative here: where do the well-known numbers of holocaust victims come from? How do we know what really happened in the camps? If no one is allowed to question the "common knowledge" and, in fact, no one is allowed to excavate or disturb the sites of the camps - just where does this information come from? How was it arrived at? Why is no one allowed to question it?
This is a situation that ought to raise hackles on anyone with an interest in objective truth.
But to get back to the case at hand, I am reminded of the quote: "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken
bradley13 at January 27, 2009 2:57 PM
>> where do the well-known numbers of holocaust victims come from?
The Germans were meticulous in their bookkeeping. I am really starting to think you don't know anything about this subject.
Eric at January 27, 2009 3:14 PM
>> If no one is allowed to question the "common knowledge" and, in fact, no one is allowed to excavate or disturb the sites of the camps - just where does this information come from?
First hand accounts from millions of Germans, Brits, Yanks, Russians, Jews, Slavs, Poles, gypsies, etc. not to mention the existing presence of filmed archives and the well designed camps themselves.
Eric at January 27, 2009 3:20 PM
"And pray tell, why should he not be entitled to his opinion?"
Opinion without evidence is not opinion, but merely prejudice. The other problem is that his position in the church gives his "opinions" a weight which they would otherwise not have as many fools will think "OOO, he wears funny hat, must take him seriously then." Authority is influence and the Pope should not be allowing this ignorant man to have such influence. I guess behind the grandfatherly smile there still lurks "God's Rottweiller".
Porky at January 27, 2009 3:50 PM
This guy's an idiot and a huge embarassment to the Catholic Church.
Is this "bishop" who was not consecrated a bishop by church authority actually a bishop in the Church now? The excommunication was lifted, but was he also installed as an actual bishop in the Church?
Conan the Grammarian at January 27, 2009 4:34 PM
The catholic church is a huge embarrasment to humanity.
Mel at January 27, 2009 5:20 PM
Richard Williamson has not (yet) been officially recognized as a bishop by the Catholic Church. For the time being, he is in a sort of ecclesiastical limbo, as by being de-excommunicated, he has been welcomed back into the arms of the Church, but he's srill only recognized as a bishop by his pals in the Society of Pius X.
Holocaust denial is only the tip of the ice-berg with this guy. He's also a 9/11 truther, among other things. Anyone who wants to listen to 10 minutes of his ravings can do so here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooGBMFShUVo
Williamson is perfectly free to spew his insanity to anyone who's willing to listen. And the rest of us are free to call a spade a spade, & to give Pope Benedict a well-deserved thrashing for giving credibility to a gibbering lunatic.
Martin at January 27, 2009 5:33 PM
Looks like "Nostra Aetate" and John Paul's engagement of the Jews was a holocaust-induced hiccup.
We now return us to our regularly scheduled program of antisemitism.
Ben-David at January 28, 2009 12:37 AM
I agree. Free speech is free speech. Whether you agree or not. Whether the guy works for the church you already condemn or not. Why do you care? I can see caring if you're catholic.
momof3 at January 28, 2009 7:17 PM
i don't have a big problem with the genuine catholic or christian world, even when i found them to be an uncaring lot. I just hate those evil uncaring moslem world for their unpleasant threatening impositon on our nonbelievers freedom and the horrible sick rigid lack of free choice in their predominantly foul insane sinister unsafe cruel unstable islamic ruled country.
WLIL at January 28, 2009 10:32 PM
From the article: The Society of Saint Pius X was founded by Archbishop Lefebrve, who rebelled against the Vatican's modernizing reforms in the 1960s, and who consecrated the men in unsanctioned ceremonies. As a result, Pope John Paul II excommunicated the four in 1988.
Keep in mind that excommunication for a Catholic means being condemned to an eternity in hell after you die. Benedict may have felt that that was too harsh a sentence for joining with a renegade archbishop (however reprehensible the guy's political views).
Conan the Grammarian at January 29, 2009 9:27 AM
Does anyone really believe the Pope believes the church's dogma?
Eric at January 29, 2009 7:39 PM
Needless to say that this outrageous decision of the Vatican has been the hot topic of the week over here in Germany. Fortunately, Benedict gets a lot of serious criticism, not only from our government but also from some of his own cardinals. That is something I've never heard before about any pope.
In Germany, Holocaust denial is outlawed. I wonder whether Williamson will travel to Germany ever again.
Rainer at February 6, 2009 10:30 AM
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