Word: williamsons
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Fabled as the Shangri-la of fugitive Nazis, Argentina found itself dealing with old ghosts when it was revealed that a Holocaust-denying bishop, suddenly controversial in the Catholic Church, was living in the country. Richard Williamson had been living in a secluded seminary in the outskirts of Buenos Aires for five years when an international uproar erupted over the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to lift an excommunication order imposed upon him by the late Pope John Paul II. And so Argentina, already dealing with a worrisome resurgence of anti-Semitism, has decided to deport the prelate...
...Williamson is being kicked out of the country on a technicality. The government said that he had neglected to mention that he is a bishop on his immigration papers when he came to Argentina in 2003. In his papers, Williamson appears only as an employee for the tree-lined La Reja seminary outside the city of Buenos Aires, when he actually presided over the religious institution. At the ultra-orthodox seminary, run by the Society of St. Pius X, mass is said in Latin with the priest facing the altar and turning his back to the congregation. At services, women...
...views expressed by Bishop Richard Williamson are disgusting. Yet they are simply not, under any possible reading of canon law, the point on which communion with the Catholic Church is decided. The Catholic Church states that communion requires belief in Catholic doctrine, association with one’s fellow Catholics, and submission to the Roman Pontiff...
...Bishop Williamson has met these conditions, and so the Pope has restored him to his canonical rights. He may be silenced or prevented from exercising his episcopal office, but his communion with Rome is not in question. A false view on historical fact does not incur excommunication. Will those who demand Williamson’s “re-excommunication” now also enforce the Catholic Church’s policies against advocates of legal abortion...
...reaction of the Catholic Church is already clear. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the SSPX, has silenced Bishop Williamson, forbidden him from making further public statements, and removed him as rector of the SSPX’s South American seminary. The Pope, too, has clearly stated that Holocaust denial is unacceptable. Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone has issued a statement requiring Bishop Williamson to renounce his views before assuming any episcopal jurisdiction...