A Church Historian's Judgment on the Williamson Affair

UPDATE: An editorial in the Jesuit review Stimmen der Zeit says that the reacceptance of a group whose sole raison d'etre is to oppose Vatican II is a scandal, even apart from the Holocaust denial. See also: http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090316_1.htm. Meanwhile Bp Williamson, who has become the poster boy of negationists worldwide, speaks up undaunted: http://dinoscopus.blogspot.com/2009/04/eleison-comments-xciii-difficult.html

 

Here is what Massimo Faggioli wrote in The Tablet, April 11:

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The anti-Semitic remarks of the Lefebvrist bishop Richard Williamson, which came as no surprise to anybody familiar with the political and ideological orientation of the sect, has sparked, most notably in Europe and North America, a huge outcry. Not only did bishops’ conferences and individual bishops speak out, and, understandably, representatives of Jewish communities around the world, but also political leaders have done so, albeit sometimes discreetly. Their reactions forced the Holy See to acknowledge the central point at issue: the meaning of Vatican II. For the followers of Lefebvre from the beginning proclaimed their refusal to accept the Council, and particularly to accept certain elements of its corpus. Their only reason of existence is their rejection of the Council.

Benedict’s attempt to reabsorb this schism has revealed that the Second Vatican Council represents for today’s Catholic Church more than a “compass” for its future path, which is what John Paul II had hoped for in Novo Millennio Ineunte, his 2001 apostolic  letter to the bishops, in which he outlined his priorities for the twenty-first century… There are two facts revealed by what we might term this international theological case. The first is that, in the contemporary Church, contemporary politics and international public opinion, the Second Vatican Council has shown itself to be a “guarantee of citizenship” for the Catholic Church in today’s world. The second is that this “guarantee” has been identified in public opinion with the definitive rejection of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism as elements of a pre-modern and antidemocratic political culture. This guarantee has also been identified with other specific ways that the Council broke with the Catholic Church of the nineteenth century…

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To reflect now on the reception of Vatican II one must take into account not only theology but the Council’s “political” reception and its “constitutional core”. As a result of Benedict’s decision, it has become even clearer that the “political problem” with the four Lefebvrist bishops was not only Williamson’s anti-Semitic remarks but their overall rejection of the Council. This focused particularly on the documents that put the Council most clearly in discontinuity with previous church pronouncements… When, some weeks ago, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, reminded the Church that the rejection of anti-Semitism is a fundamental feature of post-war Germany, she also reminded Catholic leaders of the Church’s political and cultural responsibilities in the international arena. She thus underscored Vatican II’s discontinuities with the preconciliar Church…

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The Second Vatican Council took place after the Second World War. The relationship of the Church to democratic culture, in the appreciation of the modern liberties rejected by Pius IX’s Syllabus in 1864, in collegiality and co-responsibilities, in the commitment to ecumenism and to inter-religious dialogue, and so forth – have had a political impact… Documents of the Second Vatican Council contain a core of belief that world leaders, opinion-makers, religious communities and others take for granted today when they interact with the Catholic Church. These nontheological actors thus provide an assessment of the Council and help resolve the debate swirling around its interpretation. They do so because they are sensitive to the “constitutional” core of the Council rejected by the followers of Lefebvre…

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If the Regensburg address in 2006 showed the dire need for a different approach to Nostra Aetate and the relationship with Islam, the year 2009 represents the need for a new awareness as to how important Vatican II was in the history of the Church. This means doing away with the simplistic “continuist” view of the relationship between the Council and earlier pronouncements of the papal Magisterium. In this moment of political reception, it has become clear that those who reject the Council’s positions automatically put themselves outside the “constitutional” boundaries of modern Catholicism..

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The efforts to analyse Vatican II in strict continuity with the past are often tied to ideological positions that advocate a reactionary Catholicism as the only hope for the survival of western civilisation… In his book The Third Wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century, published in 1991, less than 20 years ago, Samuel Huntington argued that the process of democratisation might have more to do with the Second Vatican Council than with the spread of free markets.

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An extended version of this article has appeared in Rassegna di teologia; see http://www.rassegnaditeologia.it

Comments

[Dolorosa]

Bishop Williamson is not anti-semitic. He is a strong Roman Cathoic who knows the faith and follows in the foot steps of Fr. Fahey who wrote the excellent book, the Rulers of Russia, or Fr. Coughlin who spoke out against those who like the author of "Towards a Soviet America" want to do harm to an unsuspecting public. God save the Bishop! http://romancatholicheroes.blogspot.com/

[NOT]

So Joseph is there no room in the inn for sinner?

Do you think that all those who hold unacceptable views should be excluded from communion?