The first Anglophone commentary I have seen on the Swedish TV flap is from Robert Moynihan, reporting from the USA. He has some interesting angles, but unfortunately, he makes an erroneous claim about how an Italian newspaper reported it today.
After a quiet summer,
clouds gather over Rome...
by Dr. Robert Moynihan from America
Sept, 24, 2009
A storm is about to be unleashed on the Pope, the Vatican, and, by extension, the Catholic Church.
The first drops of rain have just fallen, with public accusations that the Pope lied this winter in connection with the "Williamson affair."
What is it about?
Whether this storm will "blow over," or intensify into a "perfect storm," only time will tell.
But whatever happens, there is this to keep in mind: many, inside and outside of the Church, would like the Church's traditional liturgy, known as the Latin Mass -- the old liturgy celebrated up until 1970, and two years ago designated by Pope Benedict XVI as the "extraordinary rite" of the Mass -- to disappear.
And they are irritated that Benedict -- against many and vociferous objections -- "restored" the old liturgy, which many thought had been buried definitively.
As strange as it may seem, this battle is in part about that -- about the survival of the Church's old liturgy -- about her way of worshipping God.
But when I say this, I do not mean to downplay other, quite obvious concerns, for example, the tense situation in the Middle East, or in the world economy.
I mean to say that, on a fundamental level, it is not simply a political or economic battle, as important as political and economic factors are, but a spiritual battle.
Is Rome alone?
And at a time like this, when many forces in the West (the European Union, the new US administration) seem to be aligning themselves in favor of a thoroughly secularized "new world order," the ally most helpful to Rome may well be the ally who still celebrates a divine liturgy which has not been modernized: the Orthodox.
And the most numerous and powerful of the Orthodox are the Russians.
In this perspective, these attacks on the Pope and the Vatican may drive Rome to ally herself, after a thousand years of separation, with Constantinople, and with Moscow -- reuniting the "three Romes"...
The allegation this morning is that Vatican officials (but not the Pope) lied when they said this winter that no one in the Vatican knew about Bishop Richard Williamson's views about the Holocaust when the Pope decided to lift his excommunication on January 24.
However, this allegation has been exploited by the Church's current antagonist in Italy, Prime Minsiter Silvio Berlusconi, through his media empire, to suggest that the Pope, too, lied.
This allegation made headlines today in Italy, where the Catholic Church and the Italian government of Prime Minister Berlusconi have been sparring for months over Berlusconi's immigration policies and his alleged sexual impropriety. This morning, Berlusconi (or those close to him) took the gloves off.
For the first time in the many months of acrimony, Berlusconi (or his associates) directly attacked the Pope. This escalates the battle.
Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi's family, carried the exaggerated headline "He Lied" ("Ha mentito"), referring to the Pope and his handling of the "Williamson affair."
At this point I must break in and correct Dr. Moynihan, because in fairness to Il Giornale, its headline today clearly referred to the Swedish program as making the allegation:
The headline reads:
In Sweden, a maneuver against the Pope: "He lied".
The article itself is quite factual in describing the allegations made by the Swedish TV program, based on the trailer by the TV channel and by the fiercely Pope-loyal post in Rorate caeli that had first alerted everyone last Sunday. It is not a hatchet job against the Pope at all!
Indeed, the issue also carries an account by Andrea Tornielli, who makes clear what I had been mentioning in my comments - that Mons. Fellay had personally received the decree two days before the Swedish TV broadcast (and the indicated date of the decree, which was signed by Cardinal Re of the Congregation for Bishops, not by the Pope). I will post Tornielli's story as soon as translated.
Moynihan apparently based his impression of the Il Giornale story on a blog by Damian Thompson
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100011034/berlusconi-turns-his-guns-on-pope-bened...
who cites another blog Catholic Conservation
cathcon.blogspot.com/2009/09/case-of-williamson-again-threatens...
for the conclusions they draw regarding Il Giornale's story today. It is a strange conclusion to draw, since Berlusconi has no reason to want to antagonize the Pope, much less harm him with a direct personal attack.
Il Giornale committed an unforgivable journalistic crime in the hatchet job it did on Dino Boffo where editor Vittorio Feltri clearly distorted facts and sources to paint the worst possible picture of Boffo, but this time, their article on the TV program - and even the headline - are factual and unexceptionable.
An unexpected 'bonus' from the Swedish broadcast, which can be seen here -
svtplay.se/t/103535/uppdrag_granskning
was this previously unpublished picture of the meeting in Castel Gandolfo in August 2005 between Benedict XVI and Mons. Fellay of the FSSPX. Cardinal Castrillon was present.
I have not had time to watch the whole program - just the first five minutes, but it starts out, judging from the visuals, with a brief exposition about the FSSPX and what appears to be the fact that they function in three places in Sweden.
The producers have said no one in Sweden - which has no great reputation for spirituality or religion and is mostly Protestant - is really interested in this topic but why is SVT pushing an anti-FSSPX and anti-Pope agenda?
Here is the translation of Tornielli's piece, which appears on his blog today, but his information, to the cardinals' meeting at the Vatican, was also part of the main story referred to above.
The Williamson case:
Who knew, and what they knew
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from
Sept. 24, 2009
In yesterday's Il Giornale, I had an article dedicated to the new attack from Sweden against Benedict XVI with regard to the Williamson case, in which the same channel - which last January broadcast the now infamous and unfortunate interview given by the Lefebvrian bishop who said the Nazis used no gas chambers on the Jews - broadcast a second installment on the issue last night.
Before writing it, I asked Fr. Lombardi for a statement which I reported yesterday [the reason why the statement was not posted by the Vatican]. The news was taken up today by other newspapers
[and by the Italian news agencies yesterday], who cited Fr. Lombardi's statement that the Pope had no prior knowledge of Williamson's negationism before lifting the FSSPX bishops' excommunication.
But I have been much struck by the text of an e-mail that the same Fr. Lombardi as director of the Vatican Press Office, sent to the Swedish channel.
In the e-mail, Lombardi writes: "I did not know that information about Williamson had been sent to the Vatican
[as claimed by the Bishop of Stockholm and the Apostolic Nuncio in Sweden], nor do I know who received it and read it. No one told me a single word about it," adding that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos had not said anything to him about the matter.
It is evident that there is an intention to exploit the issue in a way that would involve the Pope, who was, unfortunately, in the dark about all this.
However, the Vatican spokesman's e-mail makes clear that he (Fr. Lombardi) wants to set himself apart from those who would have been responsible for the communication failure.
[Indeed, the e-mail was all about Fr. Lombardi making clear he had no responsibility for the failure of information to reach the Pope, and the one line that he sought to 'exculpate' the Pope was expressed in an absurd way, as I commented yesterday.]
I remember that on the afternoon of January 22 (two days before the decree lifting the FSSPX excommunications was officially announced and published - though
it had been given to Mons. Fellay even earlier; and the day after the first Swedish TV broadcast on Williamson, which was pre-announced by the German magazine
Der Spiegel),
there was a meeting at the Secretariat of State among Cardinals Bertone, Levada, Hummes, Re and Castrillon, along with the Deputy Secretary for Internal Affairs, Mons. Fernando Filoni, and Archbishop Coccopalmiero (responsible for legislative texts). Fr. Lombardi was not invited.
From what I gathered afterwards, the prelates never brought up Williamson's interview, only discussing the significance of the Pope's gesture and whether this meant full communion, etc. They also decided that the decree was 'sufficiently clear' and that there was no need for an explanatory presentation to the media.
[This is definitely shocking. The Williamson interview had already been aired, the whole world was talking about it, and all these eminent cardinals did not consider it worth discussing at all????]
Mons. Fellay already had a copy of the decree, but the announcement was not to come until two days later, so after the TV broadcast, the decree could have been held pending clarification.
The gravity of Williamson's statements was greatly under-estimated by those who knew about it. From last night's broadcast, the Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, makes it clear that he had informed the Apostolic Nuncio about the interview before the end of 2008.
How and when was this information transmitted to the Vatican? Who received it there and what did he/they do with it?
And how could it happen that an act of mercy and reconciliation on the part of the Supreme Pontiff was thereby transformed into a boomerang which brought new tensions with the Jewish world and harsh contestations from within the Christian world itself?
Certainly, despite the evident miscalculations and delayed reactions in managing the case after it had erupted, any attempt to involve Benedict XVI in the fiasco can only be contrived and exploitative. Through the Note from the Secretariat of State on February 4, he had made it known that he was unaware of Williamson's negationism.
The case - unfortunately not the only one - 'documented' the functional problems of the Curial machinery (not the Vatican communications media, which has its share of shortcomings, but in this case, had no direct responsibility). But one had thought this particular problem had been absolutely overcome after Papa Ratzinger's extraordinary letter to all the bishops of the world in which he took upon himself the failures of his subordinates.
Responsible officials in the Curia committed serious errors of judgment, but without a doubt, there were also those, including some in the Vatican itself, who blew on the flames, by volunteering enough inopportune statements to project the image of a totally fragmented Curia.
Benedict XVI, who was totally faultless in all this, courageously took on the responsibility for the fiasco to the Church and to the world.
One cannot understand why this painful case should be reopened at this time, except to once again make things difficult for the Pope.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/04/2010 00:10]