The secretary general of the Saint Pius X Society has ordered Bishop Richard Williamson to shut up for real this time. A year or so ago when Bishop Williamson made embarrasing worldwide headlines questioning the holocaust, the SSPX prohibited him from speaking on the subject anymore.
Now in advance of his trial in Germany for holocaust denial, the SSPX is telling to stop talking and writing, period.
BERLIN – A breakaway ultra-conservative Catholic group ordered British bishop Richard Williamson not to speak in public or testify at his trial for denying the Holocaust, German media reported Thursday.
The secretary general of the Saint Pius X Society, Father Christian Thouvenot, wrote to Williamson, a leading member of the group, telling him to stop giving interviews or communicating publicly, according to the daily Tagesspiegel, which obtained a copy of the letter.
Williamson’s lawyer, Matthias Lossman, on Wednesday confirmed that the bishop, who lives in London, would not attend his trial which opens in the southern German city of Regensburg on Friday
The society told Williamson to “stop communicating by Internet, be it by blog, forum or via his web page,” the Tagesspiegel said.
He has also been ordered not to give interviews on general issues, and only to speak on matters of faith after obtaining permission from the society.
With the world media in full attack mode on the Church and the Pope these days, this is a very prudent move by the SSPX. All it would take is one ridiculous statement by a man who has made a career out of ridiculous statements to severely harm the Church.
While the move is also in the proper self-interest of the SSPX — theological discussions between the Vatican and the SSPX have been ongoing for months now and have been handled in a quiet and discreet manner and any wayward comment might derail the talks–I applaud the SSPX for the wise move.
April 16, 2010 at 4:49 am
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April 16, 2010 at 5:17 am
The bulk of the previous comments are laughable in the extreme. How many of those who take Bishop Williamson to task for doubting the official holocaust narrative have ever done their own independent research on the subject? All they 'know' is what they have been told. How about we all start thinking for ourselves? Begin by reading the works of Germar Rudolf, the German chemist thrown into prison for five years by the thought police because the results of his scientific investigations did not tally with the official story.
As far as obedience is concerned, no authority in the Church has any right to tell any Catholic what he or she may believe or say regarding any topic that lies outside of the deposit of faith. The Bishop is free to have an opinion on the causes of the French Revolution just as he is free to have an opinion on the nature and extent of the so-called 'Holocaust'. The act of the Society in attempting to silence him is an egregious abuse of authority. Alas, it is this same misuse of power which has, in large measure, been responsible for protecting the 'pedophile priests' when they should have been turned over to the secular authorities for judgement and punishment a long time ago.
April 16, 2010 at 8:04 am
Anonymous,
We are not required, as Catholics, to do research on the Holocaust. Since Bishop Williamson is a Catholic bishop, his main duty is to uphold Church teaching and administer the sacraments. His duty, as a bishop of the Society of St. Pius X, is not to continually profess conspiracy theories, but instead, he is bound, by duty, to profess the Catholic Faith. Revisionism is not Catholic. He is obsessed with the Holocaust and the number of Jews who were killed, when what he should be focusing on is the salvation of souls, as any Catholic bishop should be. The bishop is obviously a bit unhinged, and needs prayers, that he may have a change of heart and follow the Catholic faith, instead of revisionism.
April 16, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I, too, want to know where Fr. Haley is. He married my husband & me in '95 and I'd like to ask for his prayers. WHERE IS FR. HALEY????
April 16, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Many European governments understand that the lack of "thought police" facilitated the rise of the Nazis.
April 16, 2010 at 1:34 pm
The Catholic faith is all but dead in Europe.
April 16, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Anon said – "Leave the Jews alone".
Jews: Leave the Christians alone – the Pope, Bishop Williamson, Mel Gibson. Stop spitting on Christians in the Holy Land.
April 16, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Slightly off topic:
Ya know? Reading through many of these posts and the commentary tends to leave me – and maybe some of you – frustrated and upset. So I just want to say that I hope we all remember that we can not solve any of these things by bickering, being unkind or…most importantly….ALONE. (Meaning without God)
So I just want to remind folks, that, where there is darkness we must shine light! I sometimes think the devil must "LOVE" Internet forums for all the conflict that sometimes arises. (Not a criticism of CMR!) These are troubled times and the issues are difficult. But we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that WE can solve everything ourselves…
Lastly, I want to tell all of you who reading this that the love and prayers are this one guy (me) are with each of you. I hope that we can all take a breath, have confidence and faith, and that you will all have a wonderful Friday. God bless you!
April 16, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Blogs were created for presentation and discussino of ideas. Grow up.
April 16, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Dear Anonymous of 10:02 posting.
You are correct (especially that I need to grow up – how did you know?! Working on it.) and I did not mean to suggest that lively debate was in any way an evil thing. I certainly hope you will forgive me if you felt that it was directing at any particular commentary – your perhaps? It was not.
Perhaps I am the only one who gets exasperated by discussions that include so many statements of "fact" that are, in fact, based mostly on ignorance of the facts.
The conspiracy theories of 911 are the ones that throw me over the edge, since it takes an extraordinary level of both ignorance and sheer blind faith to believe what some conspiracies suggest. The frustrating thing is that to dispel these takes, both heroic patience and Herculean effort as one must cover so much territory to do so. (Everything from a discussion of the nature of government, (3 people can't keep a secret) how intelligence agencies work (and DON'T), to aviation (here is what a thin aluminum wing is made of – slam it into a brick wall at 400 miles an hour – do you think it just might break off? AH DER!!) and on and on and on….
Same goes for Holocaust deniers and those who believe that the TRUTH about the precise number of murdered is worth talking about MORE THAN THE FACT THAT ANY WERE!
And so that is about where I loose my patience with otherwise intelligent, but grossly uniformed or grotesquely misinformed good folks. And it is my failing.
So that it why I return to what is most important. Are the discussion of these ideas important? Yeaup. It's why I am am hear reading!
But is it more important that we remember that our little tests in life are not about whether or not we got the correct answer, but in how we interact with each other in discussing it? I think maybe it is.
Anyway. I have done a poor job of explaining. And I apologize if I offended. My thoughts are only good ones for each of you.
April 16, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Regarding 911, the US government's own explanation for what happened on that day is itself a conspiracy theory and, in my view, the least plausible of the available alternatives. Intelligence agencies (read CIA and the Mossad) are far more competent (in spite of their many apparent failures) than a rag-tag band of Arabs who, according to their own flight instructors, couldn't fly planes, and were guided by a sickly cave-dweller in Afghanistan. To anyone who examines the evidence objectively, there can be no doubt that 911 was a false flag attack, as Francesco Cossiga, former President of Italy, has openly admitted.
As far as the Holocaust is concerned, revisionism may not be Catholic in the sense that it is not and never can be a part of the faith, but it is not unCatholic or anti-Catholic either. One can be a Catholic and a revisionist. What is Catholic is a love for the truth wherever it be found and however inconvenient it may be to admit it. If Williamson sincerely believes that the official stories concerning the Holocaust and 911 are largely false, he has a right and a duty as a person of conscience and more so as a Bishop, one who stands for truth, to say so publicly.
Brian … it is the policy of the German government to burn any exemplars of Germar Rudolf's books that they happen to come across. They also imprison people for spreading revisionism. Hmmmm …. sounds awfully familar … Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose! The Nazis also burned books and incarcerated their political opponents. It was not the absence of thought police that allowed the Nazis to gain such power; it was the Nazis' own instution of the Thought Policing that allowed them to so dominate the German people.
April 16, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Brian – "Many European governments understand that the lack of "thought police" facilitated the rise of the Nazis."
Au contraire!
Mark Steyn wrote about this two years ago in Maclean's Magazine. Nazi Germany had hate speech laws that they vigorously enforced. As Steyn writes:
"The problem the Jews found themselves up against in Germany and elsewhere was not the lack of hate-speech laws but the lack of protection of the common or garden laws — against vandalism and property appropriation and suchlike. … Most of us have a vague understanding that Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933 as a pretext to "seize" dictatorial powers. But, in fact, he didn't "seize" anything because he didn't need to. He merely invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Republic's constitution, allowing the state, in the interests of the greater good, to set — what's the phrase? — "reasonable limits" on freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom from unlawful search and seizure and surveillance of postal and electronic communications.
All the "thought police" did in 1920's and 30's Europe was make it far more difficult for the truth to be told about what was actually happening.
FWIW I disagree with the prosecution of Fr. Williamson by the German government; I agree wholeheartedly with the decision by his superiors to tell him to zip it. They have the obligation to speak with a unified voice to the faithful. Even though this is not a matter of the faith, it is a matter in which millions already falsely believe that the Church was complicit. Having a priest deny the Holocaust is merely fuel for that fire.
April 16, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Regarding 911, the US government's own explanation for what happened on that day is itself a conspiracy theory and, in my view, the least plausible of the available alternatives. Intelligence agencies (read CIA and the Mossad) are far more competent (in spite of their many apparent failures) than a rag-tag band of Arabs who, according to their own flight instructors, couldn't fly planes, and were guided by a sickly cave-dweller in Afghanistan.
Oh, Anon… plenty of people can objectively look at what happened and conclude far differently than you have. The rag-tag band of Arabs didn't need to fly the planes very well in order to crash them. They never bothered to learn how to land them, either, which is telling.
As far as poor sickly ol' OBL, he had a significant support organization helping him, and you don't need to be all that physically vigorous to come up with an idea. Saying 9/11 couldn't have been bin Laden because he needs dialysis is like saying that Stephen Hawking can't do physics because he's got ALS.
The big thing is that the intelligence agencies would not have had to stop at doing this, they would have had to keep it all a secret, and continue to do so for eight years and counting. There's no way it could happen – and certainly not with a media apparatus that so thirsted to destroy GWB's presidency that they exposed many of the things the country did while fighting the war, in some cases compromising our armed forces' security and mission to do it.
April 16, 2010 at 5:47 pm
regatding 9/11–can anyone direct me to a plausible explanation as to how Bldg 7 collapsed the way it did? I don't like the conspiracy theory, but I want to understand.
April 16, 2010 at 5:56 pm
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April 16, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Why is their censorship on this blog? That's not Catholic.
April 16, 2010 at 6:57 pm
What does Bp. W think about the Kennedy assassination? Was it the CIA? Was there another shooter? Was Johnson secretly a freemasonic Jew?
April 16, 2010 at 7:01 pm
For all the conspiracy theorists, and others who wonder:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/1227842
April 16, 2010 at 8:44 pm
THANK YOU, PAUL! for posting the Popular Mechanics piece. They could dedicate every issue for the next 100 years to documenting all the evidence. It STILL would never be enough for the Conspiracy Theorists (C.T.s)
Is it easier to have blind faith in a conspiracy than it is to learn about the million pieces of the whole, truth? Think about it – in order to understand a collapsing tower you have to take the time to understand the engineering, etc. To understand Al Qaeda's motive, one needs to understand the Koran, Wahhabism, the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, UBL, etc.
Having stood outside the Pentagon that morning, and had the plane pass my head by about 50 ft, I can tell you that it leaves an impression and surely motivates one for an interest in the truth. Unfortunately for the C.T.'s out there, the Truth is just too obvious and too much work?
I was once interviewed by a French reporter who believed that a missile hit the Pentagon. There were only about 5,000 witnesses stuck in traffic watching the plane hit that morning. I guess they were all in cahoots? There was only an entire plane's worth of plane pieces strewn all around and in the building – shown on TV live… I guess this GIANT missile was also packed to the gills with aircraft landing gear and all the parts needed to make up a whole plane, not to mention those who died. They just appeared there? It's just beyond absurd. How do you even talk to these people? It's incredibly frustrating. This reporter actually started the interview by stating that no one saw it. I asked, "WHAT?! Are you nuts? Have you even TRIED to speak to any of the thousands of eyewitnesses?!” Ridiculous!)
I personally feel that CT's should FIRST do their research (not by reading their own CT websites, btw) before smearing the reputations of good people.
What about the 8th Commandment? Is it not bearing false witness to impugn the integrity of the people who work in the intelligence community to suggest that they may have directed the worse mass murder in American history?! What evidence is there for this? There is NONE! There are only suggestions, ill-informed questioning and blatant innuendo. Gossip masquerading as a quest for truth. What a terrible, awful thing. The father of lies himself must love it when the truth about an awful evil is covered up this way.
What about the 5th Commandment? Is it not destructive to the country to ignore the real perpetrators of these crimes and obfuscate the facts for one’s own sense of pulp entertainment? (Or whatever it is.) It is one thing to pose informed questions and "discussion" it is quite another to use "Truth searching" as a shield to hide behind one's own ignorance.
If you don't understand something that is one thing (I RESPECT the poster who asked can someone please explain the building collapse. Simple question for which there is a simple answer). But when you are in ignorance you are really in no position to suggest, “Well, couldn’t it have been this?” at the expense of someone else.
This is like happening upon the scene of any other murder. The murder left the murder weapon there. The murder had motive, opportunity, and claims responsibility. There is a gigantic pile of evidence all around to support the truth. And the murderer continues the killing spree. Would you walk up and say, “Nope. Too easy. I think it was the Pope.” Where is the conscience in this?
The people who work in our military, intelligence community and other offices of our government are not nameless parts of a machine. They are real, individual people, most of whom, certainly in the military and in the intelligence community, carry out their duties with care and integrity. They deserve a modicum of respect and at least the minimum thought before being heinously accused of mass murder. Just the same amount of respect as any other person – not less.
April 16, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Whoops! Sorry about that giant post above. Accidentally deleted the spaces. Irish was way up 😉