Jan. 27th, 2009 03:06 pm
Stupidity is not heresy
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muckefuckSo am I the only one who's puzzled by the furor over the "rehabilitation" of the Most Reverend Richard Williamson? I guess I shouldn't be--I mean, the media seem as constitutionally incapable of reporting accurately on religion as they do on science (or, really, anything besides celebrity scandals). And even if they did report it flawlessly, there's no guaranteeing that the vast majority of people--who have even less insight into the workings of the RCC's creaky mediaeval machinery than they do into the absurdist structures of legal systems that actually affect their lives--would grasp the fundamentals.
Which, as I see it, are these: In 1988, Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre consecrates four bishops without Vatican approval. This is an excommunicable offence--an automatic one, IIRC, so the five of them are booted from the Most Holy and Apostolic Church without the need for anyone in Holy See to lift a finger. (The four guys are still bishops, though, since in canon law parlance their ordination was valid but not licit.) Twenty years on, with Pope Benedict XVI rolling back the clock on Vatican II to let back in most the the innovations that have bedeviled Lefebvre and his followers, he makes a move to bring the schismatics back into the fold. Essentially, it's the same offer that's always been good--stop espousing heretical views, agree to accept my authority, and you're back in--but this time it's accepted; like the flipping of a switch, the excommunications are removed (or maybe they never officially happened--I admit, even I get vague about some points).
That's it--purely a technical legal matter. I've seen scorn for the Vatican's statements that the personal views of the individual bishops are a separate matter, but it's true; as far as I know, Holocaust denial is not now, nor has it ever been, an excommunicable offence. Does anyone care to speculate for a moment how many of the 400,000+ priests already ensconced in the Catholic hierarchy are Holocaust deniers? You can say--as many commentators have been--that this simply shows how fucked up the Church's priorities are. But isn't there something a bit surreal about seeing otherwise good liberals call for more squelching of dissent on the part of the Catholic hierarchy? I personally think that Holocaust denial renders a person unfit to hold a position of responsibility, for the same reason that denying the heliocentric theory or the germ theory of disease would; that is, if you can't accept that the Holocaust happened despite the existence of literally mountains of highest-quality historical evidence, then I really don't trust your powers of discernment in any matter more important than what to have for breakfast (and perhaps not even there).
But, as scandal after scandal--political, financial, sexual, etc.--sadly shows, the RCC really doesn't feel it has the luxury of mothballing any priest with more than two limbs and two dozen marbles. That's bad business in the long run, but I don't necessarily see it as "condoning" anti-Semitism any more than it's "condoning" paedophilia, embezzlement, collusion in politics, or any of the other sleazy shit Catholic clergy get up to without immediately losing their collars. Again, Papa Ratzi wins the Brass Ear for Intercommunal Relations by not considering how the whole matter would play to hoi polloi, but to hold the rehabilitation up as "proof" of his anti-Semitism is just perverse. Seriously, if this is the best evidence you can find, then you simply aren't looking very hard.
Which, as I see it, are these: In 1988, Archbishop Marcel-François Lefebvre consecrates four bishops without Vatican approval. This is an excommunicable offence--an automatic one, IIRC, so the five of them are booted from the Most Holy and Apostolic Church without the need for anyone in Holy See to lift a finger. (The four guys are still bishops, though, since in canon law parlance their ordination was valid but not licit.) Twenty years on, with Pope Benedict XVI rolling back the clock on Vatican II to let back in most the the innovations that have bedeviled Lefebvre and his followers, he makes a move to bring the schismatics back into the fold. Essentially, it's the same offer that's always been good--stop espousing heretical views, agree to accept my authority, and you're back in--but this time it's accepted; like the flipping of a switch, the excommunications are removed (or maybe they never officially happened--I admit, even I get vague about some points).
That's it--purely a technical legal matter. I've seen scorn for the Vatican's statements that the personal views of the individual bishops are a separate matter, but it's true; as far as I know, Holocaust denial is not now, nor has it ever been, an excommunicable offence. Does anyone care to speculate for a moment how many of the 400,000+ priests already ensconced in the Catholic hierarchy are Holocaust deniers? You can say--as many commentators have been--that this simply shows how fucked up the Church's priorities are. But isn't there something a bit surreal about seeing otherwise good liberals call for more squelching of dissent on the part of the Catholic hierarchy? I personally think that Holocaust denial renders a person unfit to hold a position of responsibility, for the same reason that denying the heliocentric theory or the germ theory of disease would; that is, if you can't accept that the Holocaust happened despite the existence of literally mountains of highest-quality historical evidence, then I really don't trust your powers of discernment in any matter more important than what to have for breakfast (and perhaps not even there).
But, as scandal after scandal--political, financial, sexual, etc.--sadly shows, the RCC really doesn't feel it has the luxury of mothballing any priest with more than two limbs and two dozen marbles. That's bad business in the long run, but I don't necessarily see it as "condoning" anti-Semitism any more than it's "condoning" paedophilia, embezzlement, collusion in politics, or any of the other sleazy shit Catholic clergy get up to without immediately losing their collars. Again, Papa Ratzi wins the Brass Ear for Intercommunal Relations by not considering how the whole matter would play to hoi polloi, but to hold the rehabilitation up as "proof" of his anti-Semitism is just perverse. Seriously, if this is the best evidence you can find, then you simply aren't looking very hard.
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