Welcoming in an anti-Semite

LIBERAL CATHOLICS have been anguished and angered by the Pope welcoming a Holocaust denier back into the Church and promoting to the hierarchy, a man who believes that the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina was devoutly to be welcomed as representing God's wrath against New Orleans for its tolerance of homosexuals.

The Holocaust denier is British-born Richard Nelson Williamson, excommunicated two decades ago for membership of the breakaway Society of St. Pius X, led by schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Williamson reckons that tales of 6 million dead in concentration camps are lies concocted by Jews. Jews, he says, are "enemies of Christ" whose souls can be saved only by renunciation of Judaism and acceptance of Catholicism.

He believes, too, that Jews are involved in a global conspiracy aimed at world domination and that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an authentic, truthful document.

When it was put to him last year that his views were anti-Semitic, he responded that this couldn't be, since he also hated communists and Freemasons.

Meanwhile, Fr. Gerhard Wagner was last weekend appointed assistant bishop in the Austrian diocese of Linz, despite him being widely known in Catholic circles for strident insistence that Katrina was sent by God to smite gays and advocates of equality for gays.

Benedict's rehabilitation of Williamson 10 days ago, despite his denial of the Holocaust, has sparked outrage, particularly among German Catholics who were swooning with pride four years ago when Benedict was elected as the first German pope.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany says it is breaking off relations with the Church. Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed "embarrassment."

Former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher wrote in a newspaper column: "At the last papal election, we said 'We are the Pope!' But please, not like this," and pointed out that Benedict seems to be making a habit of insulting other religions, declaring that the Protestant denominations are not proper religions at all, and, at Regensburg three years ago, making a speech implying that Islam is a spurious and inherently violent creed. "His Holiness seems to have learned nothing," one German priest was quoted.

The Vatican replied that while Williamson's views might be wrong, they fall short of heresy and do not, therefore, present any impediment to his return to Church ministry.

"They have learned nothing" has been the common reaction of commentators in the Irish Republic to the refusal of the Irish Church leadership to press the Bishop of Cork, John Magee, to resign following revelations that he had failed to cooperate with official investigations into clerical child sex abuse in his diocese. But it's the commentators who have learned nothing.

The reason for the refusal of Catholic dioceses to co-operate with civil authorities to identify and remove perpetrators of clerical sex abuse, is straightforward.

The Catholic Church (and, to some extent, most other churches), whatever concessions to secular society it might be compelled by circumstance to make from time to time, regards itself as far above the civil law of any state. It believes itself to be the embodiment of Christ. Its practices and protocols are shaped by this core conviction. How could God's representative be answerable to the courts of man?

Any doubt that this is the view of the Vatican itself should have been dispelled by the notorious case of Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of an outfit called the Legion of Christ and serial rapist. The Legion operated a chain of schools, "Helping Hand," across northern Mexico. It was mainly on the children of these schools that Maciel preyed, for at least 40 years.

In the 1990s, a Fr. Alberto Athie prevailed on the Bishop of Coatzacoalcos, Dr Carlos Talavera, to raise the scandal of Marciel during the Bishop's quinquennial ad limina visit to the Vatican. Talavera broached the matter with Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope.

The Bishop reported Ratzinger's reaction: "Lamentably, the case of Marcial Maciel cannot be opened because he is a person very dear to Pope John Paul II." He added, by way of additional mitigation, that the rapist "has done much good for the Church."

When this was conveyed back to Fr. Athie, he resigned from the priesthood. Marciel continued to hear confessions, say Mass and abuse children.

Eventually, in 2006, Marciel was "invited" to withdraw from public ministry and to live a life of "prayer and penitence." He graciously declared that, "following the example of Jesus Christ" he would accept the invitation.

Marciel died last year. At no point were the civil authorities informed by the Church of his criminal activities.

Blithely dismissing the extermination of a whole people. Gleefully celebrating suffering and death. Aiding and abetting an onslaught on children. None of this poses any insurmountable problem for the upper echelons of the Church.

But help procure an abortion and you are anathema. It's not this or that pope or particular individual or place. It's the Church itself. It's religion.

First published in the Belfast Telegraph.