Vatican City has joined Iran this week as one of only a handful of modern nation-states to draw international condemnation for support of Holocaust denial, a historical revisionism that denies that Jews were murdered in Nazi gas chambers during the 1930s and 40s. The decision started off as pure ecclesiastical procedure: Pope Benedict XVI, aka ex-Hitler Youth member Joseph Ratzinger, took it upon himself to lift an order of excommunication put on the Society of St. Pius X. The Society was formed by dissident “Traditionalist Catholics” as a response to the perceived liberal shift in Vatican doctrine in the 1960s, and the order’s communion with the Church was dissolved by Ratzinger’s immediate predecessor on an ecclesiastical technicality.
But, the Pope has lifted the dissolution of communion earlier this week, opening a floodgate of reporting on the fact that at least one of the Order’s members, British-born Richard Williamson, is an avowed Holocaust denier, and that the Society at large has a pretty severe reputation for anti-Semitism. (Another of the Order’s members is also a suspected Holocaust denier based on his writings, but the evidence is not as firm for him.)
While the Vatican has distanced itself from the Order’s Holocaust revisionism, calls for explanation have come in from around the world. Fifty members of the United States Congress (all Democrats and all Catholics) wrote an open letter to the Pope expressing “concern” over the rehabilitation of the order and asking that he clarify his views on the Holocaust. German leader Angela Merkel has also chimed in, hoping that the Pope will clear up his exact views on people who deny the mass slaughter of Jews by Nazis in the mid-20th century. It should be noted that Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany.
Apologists for the Pope, such as Bill ‘Secular Jews who hate Christianity control Hollywood‘ Donohue, president of the American Catholic League, have offered their own defenses, mostly complaining that not everyone understands the precise nuance of Church hierarchy.
The Pope could not be reached by this Edger contributor for comment.