I must begin by expressing my shock and sorrow at the decision by the Vatican to welcome back the excommunicated bishops from the Society of St. Pius X, a schismatic group of Roman Catholics who have opposed the renewal in the Catholic Church arising from the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). One of the most heartening aspects of this renewal was the initial steps in turning away from centuries of anti-Semitism in the now famous Declaration of the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (called by the first words of the Latin Text, Nostra Aetate, lit. "in our age"). Among the significant statements of this decree was that "the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone."
By any standards, the almost 45 years since this declaration have witnessed unparalleled growth among Catholics in better understandings of Judaism, realization of the sins of the past, and various conversations and dialogues that addressed not only theological issues, but common social concerns, while cementing bonds of friendship. Jews and Christians pray together and share common hopes for healing a broken world. In fact, in the USA alone, there are about thirty centers and institutes devoted to Christian-Jewish relations, most housed in universities (for a complete list see The Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations at www.ccjr.us).
More than any document, the actions of Pope John Paul II bequeathed to Catholics images of understanding and reconciliation: embracing his life-long Jewish friend, Jerzy Kluger (October 1978); addressing Jewish groups in Mainz, proclaiming that the covenant was never revoked (November 1980); praying the psalms with rabbis in a Roman synagogue (April 1986); an aging John Paul, head bowed visiting Yad VaShem; and leaning on a cane while placing a the following prayer for forgiveness in the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) of the Temple of Jerusalem (March 2003):
God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants
to bring Your name to the nations:
we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those
who in the course of history have caused these children of Yours to suffer
and asking Your forgiveness
we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood
with the people of the Covenant
But this progress has been shaken by the rehabilitation of the bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of the Society of St. Pius X (better known as the Lefebvrites) with the dramatic announcement that one of those, Richard Williamson, was a Holocaust denier, as well as a life-long anti-Semite who has published virulent distortions of Judaism.
Until January 24, I suspect most people here did not know or care much about the Lefebvrites. Some brief remarks are in order. Archbishop Marcel Lefevbre, who died in 1991, was born in 1905 to a traditional Catholic family. Marcel's father, a rigid disciplinarian with monarchist political views, was active in the French underground during World War II. Captured by the Nazis, he died in Sonnenburg Prison at age 62 in 1944. Marcel entered a Catholic religious order (the Holy Ghost Fathers), and after ordination, from 1929 until 1959, worked in French-speaking Africa. When he returned to France, he was made a bishop.
He was active at the Second Vatican Council, where he was strongly opposed to the "opening of windows" to the modern world proposed by Pope John XXIII, with special antipathy toward the decrees on religious liberty (freedom of conscience) and relations of the Church to non-Christian religions. After the Council, he spoke vigorously against the decrees and later started an organization that shared his views. This group spread and opened seminaries in various parts of the world, first in Switzerland and later in the United States. He and his group were formally schismatic, that is, a group that did not recognize the authority of the papacy. In 1976 he was suspended from priestly functions by Pope Paul VI, but responded with an angry sermon. Pope John Paul II continually sought reconciliation with the Lefebvrites and made serious concessions to them; yet they were rejected, and the most serious break with the larger church came on June 30 1988, when Lefebvre ordained four of his priests as bishops, among whom was Richard Williamson.
After the death of Lefebvre in 1991, the organization he founded continued to grow and now comprises over 500 priests. The Vatican continued to make concessions to them, the most notable of which was the wide permission given in July 2007 for celebration of the pre-Vatican Tridentine liturgy, and, of course, the recent events of last month.
While the lifting of an excommunication of a Holocaust denier into the church has been a dramatic flash point, so much so that there is a steady backtracking from this by the pope and other Vatican officials, the deeper issue is the pervasive anti-Semitism of the Society of St. Pius X, the Lefebvrites. Though people expressed surprise and shock at the remarks of Williamson, during the more than 20 years he was rector of seminaries in the United States, he issued a steady stream of anti-Semitic statements. Anti-Semitism is part of the DNA of the Lefebvrites, and major questions remain about the other bishops welcomed back with Williamson, as well as the more than 500 priests formed in the seminaries with a theology that does not recognize the new views on Judaism itself and its relation to Christianity that have been the fruit of church life and scholarship over the past generation. The conditions under which the Lefebvre group will be welcomed back must be scrutinized and not simply by officials of the Roman Curia.
