Nicole Winfield of AP has the story here. And Catholic News is reporting that Cardinal Walter Kasper called denial of the Holocaust "stupid."
From her story:
The Vatican said Monday that comments by a recently rehabilitated bishop that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust were "unacceptable" and violate Church teaching.
In a front-page article, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reaffirmed that Pope Benedict XVI deplored all forms of anti-Semitism and that all Roman Catholics must do the same. The article was issued amid an outcry from Jewish groups that Benedict last week lifted the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop, Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II.
The Vatican has stressed that that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson’s views. Williamson and three other bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago after they were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent — a move the Vatican said at the time was an act of schism.
Benedict has made clear from the start of his pontificate that he wanted to reconcile with Lefebvre’s traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and bring it back into the Vatican’s fold. Lefebvre had rebelled against the Vatican and founded the society in 1969. He was bitterly opposed to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that brought liberal reforms to the church.
One of the key documents issued by Vatican II was "Nostra Aetate," which said the church deplored all forms of anti-Semitism. The document revolutionized the church’s relations with Jews. In the article, L’Osservatore said Benedict and his predecessors had all made clear the church’s teaching on "Nostra Aetate" in documents, actions and speeches and that its contents "are not debatable for Catholics."
Williamson’s statements, broadcast last week in a Swedish state TV interview, "contradict this teaching and are thus very serious and regrettable," L’Osservatore said. While broadcast before the Jan. 21 document lifting the excommunication, they remain "unacceptable," it said. --AP
But...if denial of the teachings of "Nostra Aetate" is "unacceptable," then how is it that one can be a bishop in good standing and reject the rest of the teachings of Vatican II? (Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, etc.) Violating church teaching is a charge that is frequently leveled against the far left, the left, the liberal, the progressive Catholic. Is violation of church teaching acceptable when it happens on the right?
