Kiwiblog

AP reports:

In a synagogue visit haunted by history, Pope Benedict XVI and Jewish leaders sparred over the record of the World War II-era Pope during the Holocaust and agreed on the need to strengthen Catholic-Jewish relations.

Both sides said the visit to the seat of the oldest Jewish community in the diaspora was an occasion to overcome what Benedict called “every misconception and prejudice”.

Signs of the Jewish community’s tragic history were abundant, as the German-born Benedict stopped at a plaque marking where Roman Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in 1943 and at another marking the slaying of a 2-year-old boy in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on the synagogue in 1982.

Benedict defended his predecessor Pius XII against critics, telling the audience that the Vatican had worked quietly to save Jews from the Nazis during World War II.

Many Jews object to Benedict moving Pius towards sainthood, contending that the wartime Pope didn’t do enough to protect Jews from the Holocaust.

My conclusion is that Pius refused to speak up publicly, as he didn’t want to risk the Nazis and Fascists moving against the Church. Now this doesn’t make him a bad person – it was arguably a reasonable decision for the Pope to make.

But in my lay opinion, it should disqualify him from sainthood. Sainthood should not be bestowed when there is significant doubt.

Of course decisions on Sainthood, are decisions for the Catholic Church alone. But if they proceed, they should not be surprised that many will think less of the Church for such a decision.

Reuters reports:

The Vatican has rejected an apology from a bishop whose denial of the Holocaust caused international uproar between Jews and Catholics, saying it did not meet its demand for a full and public recanting.

Good.

Williamson told Swedish television in an interview broadcast on Jan. 21, “I believe there were no gas chambers”. He said no more than 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, rather than the 6 million accepted by mainstream historians.

In his statement on Thursday, Williamson said, “I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.”

Yes he has apologised only for the hurt, not for the views. I also found it interesting he could not bring himself to mention “Jews” in his apology. That would be too much for an anti-semite.

I’ve now worked out why he is such an anti-semite:

The row over Williamson has led many to take a closer look at the SSPX, its view of Jews and its future in the Church.

The Vatican says that before the SSPX can be fully readmitted into the Church, its leaders and members must first accept the teachings of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, which urged respect for Judaism and other religions.

One of its key documents, “Nostra Aetate” (In Our Times), repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ’s death.

This explains a lot. He actually believes the Jews did kill Jesus and are collectively guilty for it. What a nutter.

I came across a reference to Irena Sandler on Friday. An amazing woman who was an example of humanity at its finest. From Wikipedia:

She organized the smuggling of Jewish children from the Ghetto, carrying them out in boxes, suitcases and trolleys. Under the pretext of conducting inspections of sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, Sendler visited the ghetto and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and trams, sometimes disguising them as packages. She also used the old courthouse of the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto (still standing) as one of the main routes of smuggling children out. The children were placed with Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary or Roman Catholic convents such as the Sisters Little Servants of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary at Turkowice and Chotomów. Some were smuggled to priests in parish rectories where they could be further hidden. She hid lists of their names in jars, in order to keep track of their original and new identities. Żegota assured the children that, when the war was over, they must be returned to Jewish relatives.

In 1943, Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo, severely tortured, and sentenced to death. Żegota saved her by bribing German guards on the way to her execution. She was left in the woods, unconscious and with broken arms and legs. She was listed on public bulletin boards as among those executed. For the remainder of the war, she lived in hiding, but continued her work for the Jewish children. After the war, she dug up the jars containing the children’s identities and began an attempt to find the children and return them to living parents. However, almost all the children’s parents had died at the Treblinka extermination camp.

During 1943, she managed to save a staggering 2,500 children by sneaking them out. Truly remarkable.

She sadly died in May, aged 98. She was 33 when she was tortured by the Gestapo.