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March 7, 2008 £1 (Republic of Ireland €1.50)

Lefebvrists face crisis as bishop is exposed as ‘dangerous’ anti-Semite

SSPX refuses to distance itself from prelate who accuses Jews of doing work of the Anti-Christ

BYANNAARCO

A SENIOR bishop of the Lefebvrist Society of St Pius X (SSPX) has endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious antiSemitic forgery that enjoys widespread currency in neoNazi circles. Richard Williamson, one of four bishops ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, told The Catholic Heraldthat the document – which supposedly reveals a Jewish plot to dominate the world –was authentic. He is also on record as saying that the Jews are fighting for world domination “to prepare the AntiChrist’s throne in Jerusalem”. The SSPX has refused to condemn English-born Bishop Williamson and says it has “no policy” on the authenticity of the Protocols, a Russian Czarist forgery that has been described as “a manual in Hitler’s war to exterminate the Jews”. The Society’s support for Williamson – who also believes that the Americans planned 9/11 –is likely to end any chance of full reconciliation between the SSPX and Rome. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights organisation, said this week that it is planning to take action against Williamson. Dr Shimon Samuels, the centre’s director of international relations, described Williamson as “the Borat of the schismatic Catholic farRight” and said that he was “a clown, but a dangerous clown”. Williamson, 67, who was excommunicated along with Archbishop Lefebvre and now runs an SSPX seminary in Argentina, is a cult figure among ultra-Right seminarians. Some of his former students have posted video tributes to him on YouTube, in

Sayings of Bishop Williamson

Bishop Williamson expounds his controversial theories on a YouTube video put up by his seminarian fans

ʻIn accordance with their false messianic vocation of Jewish world-domination, the Jews are preparing the Anti-Christʼs throne in Jerusalem.ʼ

ʻCan you imagine Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music staying with the Captain if the romance went out of their marriage? Would she not divorce him and grab his children to be her toys? All the elements of pornography are there...ʼ

ʻThis is my diagnosis of the Unabomber. You may say what you like about him as a criminal terrorist, and

much of it is true... But he still has a remotely Catholic sense of how technology brutalises man. How Catholic are those technophiles who wallow at ease in their computers? Give me the Unabomberʼs seriousness over their shallowness, any day of the week.ʼ

ʻA woman can do a good imitation of handling ideas, but then she will not be thinking properly as a woman. Did this lawyeress check her hairdo before coming into court? If she did, she is a distracted lawyer. If she did not, she is one distorted woman.ʼ

which he expounds his conspiracy theories. In 2000 Williamson endorsed the Protocols on an official SSPX website. He wrote: “God put into men’s hands the Protocols of the Sages of Sion... if men want to know the truth, but few do.” The SSPX’s support for Williamson comes at a time when Pope Benedict has extended an olive branch to the breakaway traditionalists

in the form of a liberalisation of the pre-Vatican II traditional form of the Mass. Bizarrely, Williamson last week implied that the Pope was an anti-Semite because of the Pontiff's changes to the 1962 version of the Good Friday Prayer. In an interview with the Herald, Williamson said that he himself was not an anti-Semite, but didn’t like “adversaries of Our Lord Jesus Christ”.

He said: “If Jews are adversaries of Our Lord Jesus Christ –obviously not all of them, but those that are –then I don’t like them. “My definition of antiSemitism is to be against every single Jew purely because he’s a Jew. That’s not at all my case. I once had a Jewish rabbi come and speak to seminarians. Does that sound to you like antiSemitism?” Although Williamson’s

anti-Semitism has been an open secret in the traditionalist Catholic world for years, there will be widespread dismay at the willingness of the SSPX headquarters to defend his views. The Rev Arnaud Sééléégny, the general secretary of the SSPX General House in Menzingen, Switzerland, said Bishop Williamson would not prove an “obstacle in any reconciliation with the post-Conciliar

Church” and that the Society was “sure to include Mgr Williamson if there was a reconciliation” because “everyone is allowed to have his opinion in the Society”. He also said that the Society did not have a policy on the Protocols of the Elders of Zionand that “the Society has no duty or ability to make a pronouncement” on the document’s authenticity.

According to Fr Sééléégny, reconciliation with Rome “as it is” is unlikely but he hoped that “one day Rome would rediscover its Catholic tradition”. Williamson himself suggested that reconciliation between the Church and the Society was impossible, as there were two churches – “the religion of man and the religion of God”. He told the Herald: “The Second Vatican Council is

the religion of man, of man put in the place of God. Deep down what it means is that it’s a new religion, dressed up to look like the Catholic religion, but it’s not the Catholic religion.” The Society of St Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, broke with the Church when the archbishop illicitly ordained four bishops in 1988 against Pope John Paul II’s express wishes. The bishops were excommunicated. Williamson, who was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, is a former Anglican who became a Catholic in 1971. He was ordained priest at the Lefebvrist seminary at Ecôône, Switzerland, in 1976. He later became rector of the SSPX seminary in Winona, Minnesota. Since 2003 he has been rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina. In a YouTube video, Williamson is filmed arguing that the Twin Towers were not brought down by aeroplanes but by “demolition charges”. He has also condemned The Sound of Music as an immoral film because it “puts friendliness and fun in the place of authority”. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion presents a Jewish plot for world domination. The text claimed to be the secret minutes from a meeting of Jewish elders conspiring to take over the world through economic manipulation, controlling the media and stoking religious conflict. Used by Czarists and the Nazi Party, among others, the Protocols have carved out a huge new readership in the Arab Middle East, according to the US State Department’s Global AntiSemitism Report.

Editorial Comment: Page 11

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Vatican doctrinal chief praises English bishop’s school blueprint

BYMARKGREAVES

BISHOPPatrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster has received yet another endorsement for his proposals on Catholic education –this time from Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The cardinal is the third high-profile Vatican figure to praise Bishop O’Donoghue’s document, entitled Fit for Mission? Schools. In a foreword to a newly published version of the document the cardinal said he was “delighted” that Bishop O’Donoghue has promoted the use of the Catechism in schools. He said the bishop

“challenges the ascendancy” of relativism in today’s society and he recommends the document as a model for other dioceses to follow. The cardinal said: “Diligence among parents and teachers in passing on to children and young people the fundamental truths of God and man is the key note of Fit for Mission? Schoolsand it is to be hoped that others will follow the example of the Diocese of Lancaster in establishing educational and pastoral programmes that implement theCatechism of the Catholic Churchas the fundamental guarantee for keeping Christ’s Gospel whole and alive in their

schools and colleges.” Bishop O’Donoghue, who will retire in the summer of 2009, said it was “a great honour” to receive such praise. “I never imagined that my brother bishops, who hold such high office in the Holy See, would give it such attention,” he said. He added: “My one hope is that Catholic schools and colleges are able to counter the relativism among our young people and families that makes the deepening of faith so difficult.” Bishop O’Donoghue’s document has already been endorsed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic

Education, and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, secretary of the Congregation for Clergy. Earlier in the year he said he had been “overwhelmed” by the positive response. “Before Christmas my office was inundated with congratulations, enquiries and requests for copies,” he told the Herald. But he has been criticised by one Labour MP for pushing a “fundamentalist” line on Catholic education. Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons select committee on education, pointed to the Fit for Mission? Schools document as evidence of a more “doctrinaire” attitude among bishops.

Downside abbot calls forfewer dioceses in England

Martin Sheen to be given a Catholic medal

BYMARKGREAVES

THEABBOTof Downside has proposed that the dioceses of England and Wales be replaced with a smaller number of super-dioceses to cut down on bureaucracy. Abbot Aidan Bellenger

argues in this week’s Catholic Heraldthat dioceses “all over the country are suffering the financial burden of heavy and duplicated bureaucracy”. He calls for a “new ecclesiastical map” which would reflect the fact that the Church’s heartland now lies in the south of England and the Midlands rather than the north. Currently priests are being found for parishes “which reflect the past rather than the future”. He writes: “In attempting to keep ‘the show on the

road’ much energy and money is being dissipated. The core message can all too easily be obscured. It may be that a new model of the Church is needed.” The abbot also says that bishops should focus on preaching the Gospel and leave the administration of their dioceses to other people. He proposes that more monasteries and pilgrimage centres would help to attract people to Christ.

Notebook: Page 10

The star of The West Wing is to receive an award from the University of Notre Dame for his work as a Catholic peace activist.

Page 4

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