The Pope should step down because he’s allowing a sinner an opportunity to join the Church. Man, if Jesus hadn’t resurrected He’d be spinning in his grave upon learning we were allowing sinners into the Church now. Have we no standards?! Because you know, Jesus only came to save perfect people like liberal theologians.
According to The Mail and Guardian:
The excommunication of a Holocaust denier escalated on Monday, with one theologian calling on him to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Criticism following the pope’s January 24 announcement has been particularly cutting in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable with a jail sentence.
“If the pope wants to do some good for the church, he should leave his job,” eminent liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering told the German daily Tageszeitung.
“That would not be a scandal, a bishop has to relinquish his position at 75 years, a cardinal loses his rights at 80 years,” he said.
Pope Benedict (81) sparked an international uproar when he cancelled the excommunication of four bishops consecrated in 1998 by the rebel conservative French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
And what exactly does the bishop’s view on the Holocaust have to do with the excommunication? Absolutely nothing. The bishop is clearly muddle-headed about some things but that doesn’t cut him off from grace, does it? Isn’t it the liberals who are always talking about compassion anyway? I guess compassion is only for gay marriage advocates and abortion promoting Catholics.
February 2, 2009 at 7:13 pm
“Cancelled” the excommunication? Sure it’s just quibbling, but couldn’t they have come up with a better description? “Rescinded” or “repealed” come to mind. “Cancelled” makes it sound like the SSPX was just fined or in time-out or something.
February 2, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Why does the opinion of one liberal theologian matter? This guy doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. They might as well write an article on my opinion of the situation – heck anyone reading this blog has probably studied it more deeply than Haering’s knee-jerk reaction. The media gives a voice to nuts who only go and inflame the matter; they rarely print an interview of someone with a reasonable, moderate stance on an issue.
I particularly laughed at how Haering wants to impose his own personal interpretation of the rules on all of us that since a Cardinal loses his vote at age 80, the Pope should resign since he’s 81 – yet Hearing refuses to follow the rules (you don’t get to be an “eminent liberal Catholic theologian” without a healthy dose of dissension).
P.S. I wonder how old Mr. Haering is?
February 2, 2009 at 8:59 pm
What, really, is a theologian anyway? This fellow sounds as if he got his licensure or certification from a Wal-Mart in Geneva.
— Mack
February 2, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Besides, Bishop Williamson issued a quasi apology….. to be found via below link.
There is more interesting stuff here:
http://www.blackkow.com/
Blessings, Mum26
February 2, 2009 at 11:39 pm
In other news, hospitals are only treating sick people. Clearly, a case of discrimination against all those healthy people who can’t get admitted into a hospital.
February 3, 2009 at 2:18 pm
These are the same folks that will say “Jesus ate with sinners” in order to justify sodomy, contraception, abortion, denial of pretty much every dogma, you name it.
Their rage is about more than just Williamson’s conspiracy theories–it’s the same rage that compelled the Pharisees to have Jesus condemned…
February 3, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Here is another example of +Williamson’s deeply ingrained anti-semitism. I think this is the kind of remarks they are truly afraid of hearing.
“There have always been jews that have converted (to the Catholic faith) and if they have really converted, they make magnificent Catholics. Because as St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans, the religion of God is in their bloodstreams. And when a jew truly rediscovers the Catholic Faith, He’s coming home in a way that no gentile is coming home. He’s coming back to Our Lord, and the Apostles and Our Lady who were all Jewish. The Catholic faith was founded by Jews. And when jews come back to it, their coming home…a gentile can never be at home in the Catholic faith in the same way that a real Jewish convert can be.”—Bishop Williamson 2003 interview
February 4, 2009 at 3:02 pm
You mean abortion promoting “Catholics”. Let’s face it, if you support abortion, then you aren’t really Catholic. It flies in the face of our fundemental beliefs.