Pope Benedict: "Holocaust? What Holocaust?"

Aw, Those Holocaust Deniers! Always Good For A Laugh!

NOT!

Pope Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) is certainly showing his true colors with this one:

VATICAN CITY (AP)

— Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunications of four bishops consecrated without papal consent 20 years ago by the late French ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Vatican announced Saturday.

One of the four bishops was shown this week in an interview saying that the Nazi gas chambers probably didn't exist. The report prompted Rome's chief rabbi to ask the Vatican to halt plans to rehabilitate him.

AP has that last bit slightly askew: reinstate, yes, rehabilitate, no.

"Bishop" Richard Williamson is a Holocaust denier and today was reinstated by Pope Benedict XVI. His anti-Semitism is well known (as can be seen explaining his views - as "scientific" of course).

That he was reinstated by Benedict is not really a surprise (remember that Benedict was a Hitler youth and his position before becoming Pope was as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (the descendant of the Inquisition.) In fact, delving into Williamson's life is just as interesting, because his mentor was the infamous Archbishop Marcel-Francois Lefebvre.

Infamous? This was a "man of God" who favored dictators. He was a staunch supporter of France's Vichy government (the puppet of Hitler's Germany), he was a rabid Holocaust denier, and hated the precepts of the Vatican II ecumenical council. He openly favored Franco and his fascist regime. In other words, he was exceptionally far to the right. He was a father of today's Christofascism. In today's parlance of celebrities, just think of him as Mel Gibson's dad.

Let's associate then, shall we? Because of his extreme authoritarian views Lefebvre was an enemy of popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I and John-Paul II. His protege and successor was/is Bishop Richard Williamson. Williamson, along with Lefebvre was excommunicated 20 years ago by John-Paul II. Now-pope Benedict XVI has reinstated him.

Benedict/Ratzinger is scheduled to visit Israel in May of this year.

He should make other plans.

Perhaps the Oświęcim synagogue* in Poland.

In his native tongue, however, it would be called ...Auschwitz.

Just a thought.

*In 1939, more than the half of the population of Oświęcim was Jewish. The community was more than 400 years old and there were more than 20 synagogues. The last native Jew in Oświęcim died in 2000.