(UNDATED) Sometimes life imitates art, and sometimes life imitates Monopoly.
That’s what happened recently when Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Richard Williamson, a British-born breakaway bishop. It was as if Williamson received the Vatican version of a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.
Do not pass go. Do not recant. Do not apologize.
Pope John Paul II excommunicated Williamson and three other bishops in 1988 when they were ordained-in direct violation of Vatican rules-by the late schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. His group, the Society of St. Pius X, bitterly opposes many reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including the call for improved relations with Jews and Judaism.
More recently, Williamson has denied the Holocaust and the existence of Hitler’s lethal gas chambers. For good measure, he also believes women “by nature” should not attend universities, and thinks the U.S. government-not al-Qaida-carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I’m not sure which was more surprising: that Benedict allowed the four bishops back into the church, or that he did so without any sign of repentance or regret for Williamson’s statement that “the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.”
Because Williamson made those comments in Germany, where it is a crime to publicly deny the mass murders of the Holocaust, German officials are considering possible legal action against the renegade bishop.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Vatican’s office for Vatican-Jewish relations, told the media he had not been consulted prior to Benedict’s action. “It was a decision of the pope,” the cardinal said.
Benedict’s decision was first met with a sense of bewilderment that quickly gave way to fierce anger. Some have called Williamson’s rehabilitation a Chernobyl-like “meltdown” in Catholic-Jewish relations and the greatest threat to continued talks in a generation.
U.S., European and Israeli Jewish leaders-including Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel-condemned the pope’s actions as a not-so-subtle repudiation of John Paul’s teaching that anti-Semitism is a sin against God and humanity.
Seeking to do a little damage control, the Vatican quickly disassociated Williamson’s views from mainstream Catholic teaching and his superiors imposed an immediate gag order. Church officials stress that that Benedict sought only to end the schism between the Rome and SSPX, nothing more, nothing less.
On Wednesday, Benedict reaffirmed the church’s “solidarity” with the Jewish people, recalled the horrific evil nature of the Holocaust and the Church’s condemnation of anti-Semitism. Still, severe damage has already been done, and unless and until Williamson comes forward in contrition and expresses his agreement with church teaching about the Holocaust, a dark shadow will remain over Catholic-Jewish relations.
Sadly, the current crisis is occurring at the same time we have lost two giants of the interreligious world, and two of my dearest colleagues: Rabbi Michael Signer, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Notre Dame; and Rabbi Leon Klenicki, the longtime interfaith affairs director of the Anti-Defamation League.
I knew and loved both Michael and Leon. To be sure, we attended countless conferences and meetings over the years, but as in all deep friendships, what really mattered were the shared meals and drinks, the private telephone conversations and e-mails, and the joy of communicating with two gifted and compassionate colleagues.
I always counted upon their remarkable leadership and knowledge as we labored with our Catholic colleagues to build sturdy bridges of mutual respect and understanding.
Now we are in the midst of another Catholic-Jewish crisis, and Michael and Leon are no longer with us to guide, lead, and comfort us. They are sorely missed.
(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)
