Bishop Richard Williamson is a member of the ultra conservative Society of St Pius X. He and other priests were ordained bishops by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. They were excommunicated in 1988. In an effort to close a chapter with the society, Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication late last month.
Last November, Bishop Williamson gave an interview in which he claimed that the Holocaust was exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers. The interview was broadcast just a few days before the Vatican announced the Pope's decision to lift the excommunication.
As expected, all hell broke loose. The Pope, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the head of the Society of St Pius X, all Jewish associations, and anyone with a milligram of decency, strongly condemned the bishop. A dissenting voice was that of Fr Floriano Abrahamowicz, who claimed the Nazi gas chambers were used to disinfect inmates upon their arrival at Nazi concentration camps.
The controversy lost Williamson his job as rector of a seminary in Argentina. Furthermore, the Vatican Secretariat of State said he would not be received into full communion with the Church unless he disavowed his statements on the Holocaust in "an absolutely unequivocal and public manner".
Williamson does not seem to be greatly impressed. From his Argentina home he sent an e-mail to Der Spiegel, saying he was willing to review the historical evidence about the Holocaust, and "if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time." But no one will concede him this time.
Papal spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, did not mince his words: "A bishop who denies the Shoah (Holocaust) is better off growing potatoes or doing anything else, but not being a bishop."
I know no one who has tried to defend Williamson by saying he had a right to say what he said. No one said his fundamental right to free speech gave him the right to say this shocking thing. No one pontificated by quoting (or perhaps better misquoting) international documents.
This is totally understandable as the right to freedom of expression is not absolute. It carries with it duties and responsibilities, and as such it can be circumscribed for various reasons. Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights gives a list of such limitations.
Williamson's statement does not fall within a rational and reasonable interpretation of the right to free speech. The denial of the Holocaust is a dangerous and manifest distortion of history; and those who distort it risk repeating past obscenities.
Holocaust denial is morally reprehensible. It is a form of anti-Semitism that was very clearly condemned by Vatican II. At his weekly general audience on January 28, Pope Benedict affirmed the obligation to remember the Holocaust as a concrete example of "the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man".
"May the Shoah be a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all," the Pope said.
The negation of the Shoah is universally condemned. Similarly, there should be universal condemnation of those who treat the Shoah not as a hideous event deserving condemnation but as a means to derive sexual pleasure.
Supporters of Stiching please take note.