WHAT'S WITH THE VATICAN SECRETARIAT OF STATE
AND THE VATICAN PRESS OFFICE THAT IS UNDER IT????
The item about the Swedish TV broadcast tonight has been out there since Sunday, fed further by a separate statement by the Bishop of Stockholm yesterday to the news agencies, saying he told the Nuncio in Stockholm all about Bishop Williamson's negationist statements for Swedish TV before the Pope's revocation of the FSSPX excommunications was made known. This is the same statement he reportedly makes in the program to be aired tonight (around this time, in fact) in Sweden.
And yet, not a single pre-emptive pip out of the Vatican! Three days headway was not sufficient for them to put together a pre-emptive response????
If the Nuncio in Stockholm was told, it was his duty to report it immediately to his bosses in the Secretariat of State. Did he? And if he did, what did the Secretariat of State do? Was it the same cavalier inaction as at the time of the Wielgus case, when it was the duty of the Nuncio to ride herd over the vetting of a bishop's nomination before the name was even submitted to the Pope? The Nuncio - and his bosses at State - failed embarassingly then, although
no one was really embarassed in public but the Pope alone, for the failure of his subordinates in carrying out a routine task.
Inaction by the Secretariat of State, yet again, is hardly turning the other cheek - it's sheer stupidity. And insensitivity. And inability to learn a lesson.
And how can one not consider all this as other than utter and inexplicable disregard for the interests of the Holy Father and the Church by the very people who hold the highest responsibility for safeguarding those interests?????
P.S.
Just as I finished typing up this post, I see from Lella's blog that Fr. Lombardi finally made a statement addressing the issue - and as far as I can see, it is a non-answer answer:
Fr. Lombardi makes a statement
VATICAN CITY, Sept. 23 (Translated from Apcom)- "It is absolutely unfounded to say or even to insinuate that the Pope had been previously informed of the (negationist) positions of Bishop Williamson".
Vatican press director Fr. Federico Lombardi made this clarification regarding the news about a Swedish TV broadcast tonight on the 'Williamson case'.
"To re-launch the Williamson case," Lombardi said, "only serves to continue to create purposeless confusion."
In short, the Pope did not know, and "This (prior knowledge by the Pope) was clearly denied in the February 4 note from the Secretariat of State
[Remember the initial Swedish TV broadcast was on January 21, and the decree made public January 24 - yet it took the Secretariat of State two weeks to answer back!] which also expressed very plainly the radical dissociation of teh Pope and the Catholic Church from any anti-Semitic position or negation of the Holocaust".
Moreover, he said, "the letter of the Pope to the bishops of the world on March 10 put an end to the question, and there is therefore
no reason to reopen it. The Pope explained the sense of remitting the excommunications as a gesture to promote unity within the Church, and at the same time, he showed the total lack of foundation for the accusations directed at him for lack of respect towards teh Jewish people. he also acknowledged simply the limits of internal adn external Vatican communications and provided a new status for the Ecclesia Dei Commission, precisely to guatantee and better and more secure way of proceeding with questions relative to relations with the traditionalists."
BUT FR. LOMBARDI DOES NOT ADDRESS IN ANY WAY THE QUESTIONS POSED BY THE CONTENT ITSELF OF THE NEW SWEDISH BROADCAST!
This content consists of interviews given by three Catholic prelates - the Bishop of Stockholm, the Apostolic Nuncio to Stockholm and Cardinal William Kasper. And what they say is what Fr. Lombardi needed to address, because there would have been no program at all if they had simply refused to be interviewed!
1) Was the Nuncio in Stockholm informed about Williamson's interview beforehand or not? If he was, did he pass it on to the Secretariat of State? If so, who in the Secretariat of State? And what did this individual do about the information?
2) What about the cooperation of the Bishop of Stockholm with this second broadcast? He did not have to do it, but he did. Is he not accountable to the Vatican for such behavior? Likewise, for Cardinal Kasper who gave his self-serving contribution to the broadcast in July (repeating statements he made over Vatican Radio, for God's sake, shortly after the Williamson scandal erupted last January!).
Arborelius is obviously hostile to the Lefebvrians but why should his personal opinions override the Pope's gesture of reconciliation? As for Kasper, his statements have more than just a touch of deliberate malice and childish pique against the Pope - "Take that, for not consulting me!" - as well as hostility to the Lefebvrians.
At the very least, Fr. Lombardi should have said whether anyone at the Vatican has tried talking to both Bishop Arborelius and the Nuncio to get their stories first hand.
In this age of hyper-reporting capability and indulgence, the Press Office cannot just ignore easily verifiable reports because they contradict the scenario painted by the Secretariat of State on Feb. 4. (And did they really need two weeks to come up with that?]
And it cannot pretend as it does that the problem is 're-launching the Williamson case'. No, the problem is getting to the truth about the obviously defective information chain for which, in this case, the Secretariat of State, is primarily responsible.
Like the Boffo case, this will not go away until readily available facts are made known.
Perhaps the most distressing aspect of Fr. Lombardi's statement is that, in effect, he is saying, "The Pope in his March 10 letter acknowledged responsibility for not learning about Williamson's negationism beforehand. That should be enough."
It is not! The Pope, in effect, took on responsibility for all of his incompetent and cowardly subordinates - and I include his own trusted Secretary of State - who, even now, are leaving him alone to be exposed to this new onslaught.
P.S. What exactly do we know about Mons. Anders Arborelius, Bishop of Stockholm? Other than that he wined and dined the Swedish TV team before their January broadcast on the Williamson case, according to the journalists' blog?
The Italian blog
messainlatino says he is a good friend of Cardinals Lehmann and Kasper. That figures! There must be a worse epithet than 'snake in the grass' one can use for these consecrated vipers, sons of Satan (or perhaps, more appropriately, brothers of Lucifer in his overweening pride)! The sort whose head 'the woman' was sent by God to crush!
P.S. #2
Now, AP has a report on the broadcast based on a preview of the program. I wonder if the Vatican tried in any way to obtain a preview of the program so it could have answered better. Did anyone in the Vatican even try to talk to Bishop Anders or to the Nuncio after Swedish TV advertised this program last Sunday????
Swedish TV says Vatican knew
about Holocaust-denier - but
does not suggest the Pope knew
By KARL RITTER
STOCKHOLM, Sept. 23 (AP) – A Swedish TV program to be aired Wednesday claims that top Vatican officials knew that an ultraconservative British bishop was a Holocaust-denier when his excommunication was lifted in January.
The program, which was obtained by The Associated Press prior to broadcast, could add new fuel to the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson.
Jews and Catholics worldwide were outraged after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Williamson, along with three other ultraconservative bishops, in an attempt to bring dissidents back into the mainstream church.
The order, dated Jan. 21 [
but only made public by the Vatican on January 24], came as Sweden's SVT aired an interview recorded two months earlier in which Williamson said he didn't believe any Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.
Vatican officials have said they didn't know about the interview at the time. Benedict later condemned Williamson's remarks and spoke out against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Yet in a follow-up report, SVT says the Vatican had been informed of Williamson's Holocaust-denial shortly after the interview was recorded in November.
It doesn't suggest, however, that the Pope knew about the remarks.
[Well, thank God for that.]
The program singles out Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who had been leading efforts to heal the schism with the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X. The Vatican announced in July that Castrillon Hoyos was stepping down
[as he had long declared he would] after reaching the customary retirement age of 80.
The SVT program says Sweden's Catholic diocese informed the apostolic nuncio — the Vatican envoy to Sweden — about Williamson's remarks and that he in turn informed Vatican officials, including Castrillon Hoyos.
"Naturally we passed all the information that we had on to the nuncio. After that I don't really know how it moved along," Stockholm Bishop Anders Arborelius told SVT.
In a statement Wednesday, the diocese reiterated that it had sent a report about the content of the interview
to the Vatican in November 2008.
[To the Vatican directly, or through the Nuncio? Or did it also inform the Vatican separately?]
The SVT program says the Vatican envoy, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, confirmed off-camera that
he contacted several people in the Vatican, including Castrillon Hoyos, immediately after receiving the report in November.
[In this case, Cardinal Castrillon, wherever he is, must speak out now and give his side. Could he have been so irresponsible as not to inform the Pope about it? Also, someone in the Secretariat of State must have been told by the Nuncio, because his line of command is at the Secretariat of State, and to inform Castrillon Hoyos, if he did, would have been a service on his part.]
Tscherrig did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.
In a statement commenting on the program, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was "absolutely without foundation to claim or even insinuate that the Pope was informed in advance of Williamson's positions."
"The Pope has explained the reason for the remission of the excommunication as a gesture in favor of church unity and at the same time showed the total groundlessness of the accusations that he (the Pope) showed a lack of respect for the Jewish people," Lombardi said.
The statement didn't address whether other Vatican officials knew about Williamson's remarks.
Castrillon Hoyos said in a newspaper interview Jan. 29 that no one at the Vatican knew about Williamson's views until after the decree had been signed.
"We absolutely didn't know anything about this Williamson," he told the
Corriere della Sera.
Castrillon Hoyos had been head of the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, which was charged with reconciling with the Society of St. Pius X. In announcing his retirement on July 8, the Vatican said that effort would now be headed by Cardinal William Levada, the highest-ranking U.S. churchman in the Vatican hierarchy.
Levada heads the Vatican's powerful orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed for decades before becoming Pope in 2005.
"(The Pope) recognized with candor the limits of internal and external Vatican communication, and gave a new status to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, just to guarantee a better and safer way in dealing with matters relating to relations with traditionalists," Lombardi said in the statement Wednesday.
"To relaunch the 'Williamson case' can only serve to continue to create confusion for no reason," he said.
Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said in a statement that the new SVT report "calls into question the repeated Vatican assertions it had no prior knowledge of Bishop Williamson's views, and would be a source of deep distress that the Vatican has not been candid with survivors of the tragedy of the Holocaust."
[And here come those Jews who seem to live for the purpose of finding any occasion to say "Gotcha!' to the Pope!!!]
In last year's Swedish interview, Williamson denied that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He said about 200,000 or 300,000 were murdered and none were gassed.
Williamson later apologized for his remarks, saying he would never have made them if he had known "the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise." But he did not say his comments had been erroneous, nor that he no longer believed them.
[He said, as ridiculous as it is, that he would study books about the matter further!]
SO I HOPE CARDINAL CASTRILLON SPEAKS OUT RIGHT AWAY - ALONG WITH WHOEVER IT WAS IN THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE THAT THE NUNCIO INFORMED.
Just because the Swedish broadcast does not directly accuse the Pope of lying does not keep the Jews hostile to the Pope from saying so. He will always be the scapegoat to critics of the Church.
The least that his subordinates can do is own up to what they did and did not do, in order to clear up this muddle. In these days, the Church, most of all, which preaches truth and rectitude, is no longer allowed to sweep unpleasant things under the carpet.
P.S. #3
Here now is an English news release from STV about its broadcast - it is not at all friendly - and seems deliberately intended to incite Jewish hostility! And yes, this news item, at least, as much as says the Pope must have lied.
Interview with Williamson
was no secret to the Vatican
by PETER BAGGE
23 September 2009 - 13:43
(The program)
Uppdrag granskning reveals that the Vatican was, in fact, aware of the now world-famous interview with Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson when the decision to lift the excommunication was made - despite prior statements to the contrary.
The interview with then-excommunicated Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Catholic traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (the SSPX), aired on Swedish TV in the investigative journalism program Uppdrag granskning in January 2009, sparked off the most serious crisis between Jews and Catholics seen in recent times.
In the interview, Bishop Williamson denied that the Holocaust had taken place. "I believe there were no gas chambers," is one of many statements on the subject.
Only three days later, the Pope's and the Vatican's decision to lift the 20-year-long excommunication of the bishop was announced, sending shock waves throughout the world.
[Without mentioning that the decree had been, in fact signed days earlier - January 21 according to the document date, but according to the testimony of Bishom Fellay, at least two days earlier, Jan. 19, when he was given a copy of the decree at the Vatican.]
Israel reacted by demanding that all diplomatic ties with the Vatican be severed, congressmen in the US sent letters of protest to the Pope, and ministers in several European countries openly criticized the Vatican's pardon.
The Vatican has maintained that they had no knowledge of the interview with Richard Williamson when the decision to lift the excommunication was made.
Uppdrag granskning is now able to reveal that
the Vatican was, in fact, aware of Williamson's statements well before the decision was made, and that one of the Pope's closest associates, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos had been informed. [
The information was included in an internal report written by the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm, Sweden, as early as November 2008, not long after
Uppdrag granskning had interviewed Williamson in Germany.
The report includes remarks made by Richard Williamson expressing his view that the Holocaust never took place, and that statements to that effect are a criminal offense in Germany.
The Catholic Diocese of Stockholm asserts that this report was passed on to the Vatican's emissary in Stockholm. According to Bishop Anders Arborelius of the Swedish Catholic Church, "He (the Papal representative) was very troubled and he attempted to send the report on to Rome."
The Papal representative has declined to be interviewed, but has confirmed that he immediately passed the report on. In addition to this, he also contacted a number of officials at the Vatican - including Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, who, along with the Pope, has denied all knowledge of the TV interview.
For eight years, Cardinal Hoyos was the Pope's closest associate in the negotiations with the SSPX. The cardinal is presently 80 years old and is now retired.
The Vatican continues to maintain that the Pope had no knowledge of the events. In an e-mail sent to Uppdrag granskning, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi ensures us that he is: "certain the Pope is telling the truth."
I would like to see tne entire e-mail from Fr. Lombardi! The statement he is "certain the Pope is telling the truth" sounds too absurd and BLAH! - As if the Pope were an ordinary human being who has to be defended from a charge of lying!
The Pope is the Pope - he is a man of God; he cannot lie, and even if he could, he would not!
I see the AP writer who watched the program missed the screaming implication that the Pope must have lied if 'his closest associate in the negotiations with the FSSPX knew'...
P.S. #4
SVT has now made the text of Fr. Lombardi's e-mail available - but in Swedish with a
terrible English translation which I will reproduce as is:
Fr. Lombardi's e-mail to SVT
23 September 2009 - 20:00
Dear Mr Fegan,
the only thing I can say is that I did not have any knowledge about your interview with Bishop Williamson before it was broadcasted. After that I was informed about it by journalists and Swedish colleagues of Vatican Radio.
Card. Castrillon said me no word about it before the interview was broadcasted.
I did not know that an information was sent about Williamson to the Vatican, and I do not know who has received it and read it. No one said me any word about it.
The Pope has said that he was not informed as he approved the lifting of the excommunications. I am sure that the Pope tells the truth.
As I informed my Superiors about your interview with Williamson, I saw that the decision about the lifting of the excommunications was already done. [It would have been, because if we go by Mons. Fellay's account, he got a copy of the signed decree on Jan. 19.]
Therefore the only thing I could do, was to distinguish strongly between the sense and the intention of the decision of lifting the excommunication by the Pope, and the absolute inacceptability of the negationism of Williamson as his personal position which was not connected in any manner with the origin of the excommunication. This is what I have repeated many times in those sad days.
I hope that this answer is clear. Thank you for your attention. Best regards.
F. Lombardi
CARDINAL CASTRILLON, PLEASE SPEAK UP!!! YOU ARE NOW THE ONLY NAMED FALL GUY. THE INCOMPETENT COWARDS AT SECSTATE ARE STILL SLOUGHING THEIR SKINS DOWN IN THE CURIAL UNDERGROWTH.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/09/2009 13:41]