Lots is going on in Europe these days, and not all of it is a pleasure. Here’s the full version.

Last week (the week before last actually already), Pope Benedict XVI revoked the excommunication of four priests that are part of the Pius Brotherhood (the decree in Italian). I’ve seen a lot written about it, but the only piece I’ve found so far that did (or could?) actually put matters into context was on Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung‘s site.

I’d like to stress that my reporting on matters and my attempt at understanding them does not mean I agree with their conclusions. My opinion will be stated at the end of this post.

In 1970, Marcel Lefebvre, archbishop of Dakar, founded the reactionary Pius Brotherhood in response to the changes the Second Vatican Council was to bring about in the Catholic Church, most noticeably liturgy. His open resistance to what had been defined in the council’s constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium among other things made Pope Pius VI suspend Lebfevre’s position as a bishop in 1976.

Now, it’s vital that you understand that in Catholicism, a person becomes priest respectively bishop through ordination, which is considered a sacrament. Sacraments (baptism, communion / eucharist, confirmation, marriage, ordination, anointing of the sick, confession) cannot be undone, so once you’re baptized, you’re Christian (that view is shared by all Christian denominations), so, unlike among Protestants, a bishop or a priest cannot get “fired” from their status but removed from their position or have their position suspended.

Josef Ratzinger, then already a highly respected young professor of dogmatics, was the advisor on questions of dogmatics of the progressive Cardinal Frings (Cologne) to Vaticanum II. In contrast to what many pieces I’ve seen written suggest by simply assuming that he secretly opposed the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger was active (and influential) in the making of the declarations. People that were his students around that time told me that, despite being labelled conservative now, his interpretations were refreshing and progressive then, just that his scholarly approach made him base everything on the scriptures as opposed to a spiritually tinted gut feeling that is not uncommon these days among secular Europeans.

In 1988, Lefebvre ordained four of the priests in his brotherhood as bishops without Papal consent; this violation of constitutionalised ecclestical hierarchy resulted in him and the priests getting excommunicated by Pope John Paul II. Among those priests was the now notorious Richard Williamson, who had stated in an interview for Swedish TV held in German that he did not believe that Jews were killed in the gas-chambers and that only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews had been murdered. So, while he had not denied the Holocaust in its entirety, he had diminished it. Either qualifies as a criminal offence in Germany, so now his case has become a matter of investigation for German public prosecutors. The Vatican immediately expressed its outrage over and disapproval of those statements. Pope Benedict XVI explicitly codemned all kinds of Holocaust denial and diminishing.

So what about that revokation of that excommunication anyway?

I’ve been trying to get a few inside sources, but all we can tell for now is highly speculative. Benedict’s motivation definitely has not been, as many blog posts insinuate, sympathy with Holocaust deniers. Such suggestions are frankly rather insulting and display a great deal of ignorance towards Benedict’s history of Christian – Jewish dialogue already under his predecessor.
The FAZ piece linked to above suggests he wanted to fix broken hierarchies within the Church, but that, too, is rather speculative.
An early commentary suggested that Benedict had acted up to the one of the highest of Christian ideals, mercy. Christianity, if you go all the way, requires you to have mercy with everybody even if you disagree with them or don’t have forgiveness for them. This, while also speculative, appears to be the most convincing explanation to me as it reflects Benedict’s “track record” of sticking to Christian teaching even if it doesn’t earn him the popular vote. And I think that all those Orthodox Jews that state that Judaism shouldn’t adapt to “feel good” popularism can relate to that way of thinking. It appears that Benedict is trying to prevent a larger rift, a schism between Orthodox and “feel good” reformatory forces within the Church by pointing out the core values of Christianity. And in a “feel good”, “religion is a social club”, and “I need a church for a nice wedding location” society, this is a smack into the face of many that are brought to see their complacency as hypocrisy, religiously speaking.

The revocation of the excommunication is tied to certain conditions, e.g. the priests acknowledging the role of the Pope and the consensus of Vaticanum II. Alas, I haven’t found many news sources pointing this out. So much for journalistic honesty.

At this point, we cannot even claim that Benedict knew about Williamson’s statements, afterall a pope is not omniscient and is not believed to be omniscient.

Will we ever know more? Yes, we will. Not necessarily during my lifetime or yours, but any documents – private, inofficial, and official – will go into the Vatican archives (they’re not secret, they’re just called such as in “secretary”; any scholar with references may access them – of course they cannot have any tourist flipping through the old parchments). The archivists are still working on organizing much older documents, so public release might still take a while.

The public outcry over Benedict’s decision was a loud one. The German Episcopal Council expressed their disapproval, the Israeli rabbinate respectively the minister for religious matters, Yizchak Cohen, threatened to severe ties with the Vatican, and Charlotte Knobloch, head of the German Jewish Council, declared the dialogue between the council and the Church was off. Johannes Gerster, president of the German-Israeli-Society and head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation in Israel, lamented the Vatican’s lack of sensitivity, but stated he did not expect this issue to have any lasting effects on Israeli-Vatican relationships. The chief rabbi of Italy though expressed his contentment about the Pope’s statement of clarification condemning Holocaust denial.

Now, Charlotte Knobloch refused to partake in the German Federal Parliament’s session on Holocaust Remembrance Day. She’d disapproved of the survivors being placed in the visitors’ ranks and felt they hadn’t been given due respect. The news bits concerning this included confusing pieces of information, but as far as I could see, the parliament’s protocol does not admit non-members of parliament or the government as speakers, so it had just never been a matter of consideration. Anyhow, Knobloch and the chair of parliament have since been communicating and from what I hear, they reconciled.

Also, there’s been some criticism of the Pope’s recent choice of a conservative bishop for the Austrian diocesis of Linz. Wagner, the bishop to be, had made a few controversial statements in the past that – I’d have to feign surprise here – are pretty much in line with what you get to read by many Orthodox rabbis on the respective subjects. Cheap polemics is not in place here unless one cares to debate those issues with Orthodox Judaism as well.

Now, for my opinion: I can understand why Benedict XVI may have revoked those priests’ excommunication. It’s an inner-ecclesiastical matter that goes in line with his faith. I do see the insensitivity of the decision. I do, however, also see that many journalists, pseudo-journalists and wannabe-social analysts sprang to the occasion and declared their views without even trying to understand what was going on, shifting the focus onto a different issue. Rightfully, there was criticism of the Vatican’s decision based on spotlighting that issue. Still, it was not the Vatican’s motivation to rehabilitate a Holocaust denier. To claim so is not just an incorrect piece of information; it’s downright dishonest. Criticism is in place. Dishonesty is not. What this whole issue has also shown me is that Judaism urgently needs scholars again educated in other religions that do find a public platform without getting accused of being closet heretics or potential proselytizers. We used to have those scholars in Sholem Ben-Chorin and Pinchas Lapide. A lot of misunderstandings can be avoided through mutual understanding. Understanding does not inevitably mean agreement.
The Vatican’s insensitivity has definitely been a great source of embarrassment, but so has been the lack of knowledge that became apparent in many opinion pieces on the matter.

Judaism and Catholicism (rather: mainstream Christianity in general) share a lot of values and norms that define our Western societies to a large extent. We both are facing changes in society’s norms and values, and we’d be better off facing them together. Not as an undistinguishable mishmash, but each in their own right and identity, but with open dialogue and serious attempts at mutual understanding. This will not inevitably lead to mixed dancing.

Now, that we’ve both greatly embarrassed ourselves, can we go and get drunk together? I promise not to ask Benedict for a dance.

About the author

froylein

116 Comments

  • … to say nothing of the continued implosion of AGWT (Anthropocentic Global Warming Theory).

    This just in:
    NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.

    Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fears soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of anthropogenic global warming fears.

    One link of many to this story:
    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320

  • Oh, I don’t know Froylein. You speculate that Benedict’s motivation is an anti-populist appeal to orthodoxy — as a way to prevent the alienation of reactionaries by addressing some hypothetical schism between them and reformers whose motivation is simply to “feel good”. I’m sorry, but I can’t find the meaning of what you are trying to say here. How many reactionaries? Mel Gibson? Are there others, whose numbers, while surely not great enough to make any appeal to them “populist”, hardly seem great enough to cause a rift in Catholicism. I’m reasonably sure many if not most American Catholics feel that the pontiff cannot mandate absolute intellectual agreement among all of them with the decisions of Rome, and yet just because larger numbers are comfortable with not reinstating the prayer for the conversion of the Jews or canonizing Pius XII, they are the forces to be reckoned with? That doesn’t make any sense at all and reinforces the perception of the church as a political institution alone rather than one that in good-faith seeks sound intellectual justifications for its actions and pronouncements.

    This is silly of you to defend a series of obviously reactionary impulses on Benedict’s part that one can find no reason for other than as an interest in his part in being a reactionary for its own sake. Or are you just trying to create the “feel good” moment of the year between anti-progressive Catholics and anti-progressive Jews? 😉

  • MUL, you’ve just proved you know little about the conflicting tendencies within Catholicism. Polish Catholicism, with tens of millions of adherents, is generally more conservative and qualifies as reactionary (so does Italian, Spanish and Portoguese Catholicism). Many American Catholics would be considered conservative by Central European standards, where Catholics generally are secular / traditional. And look up the specifics on that Good Friday prayer and the status of Pius XII; his beatification has been postponed by Benedict XVI. False claims are hardly the basis for a conversation.

  • That’s fine that you want to proclaim yourself more knowledgeable of the inner workings of Catholicism than me. I’ll never claim otherwise. But your argument only makes sense if these numbers, large as you claim they are, are great enough to cause a rift within the religion. If they were previously alienated from the church because of its supposed liberalism pre-Ratzinger, that’s one thing. Are you really sure that’s a point you would argue, though? Are you really prepared to assert that his interest in appealing to them is what prompted both his reinstitution of the Tridentine Mass including the line about converting the Jews “from darkness” and the efforts to canonize Pius XII? If that’s the case, so be it. And may it so be the case that your argument now sounds more populist than before. Otherwise, you may proclaim all you claim to know about Catholicism, but your argument doesn’t make any sense. At least, not yet.

    And regardless of all that, I still feel these were bad decisions on his part. In that truthy, gut-level, conservative/traditional, political sense of mine. I don’t see how protecting the trappings of an institution is reflective of a more conservative inclination than protecting the values (of inclusiveness to outsiders and the oppressed over the sinner and the leaders of institutions) that it says it was built on. Sometimes the preservation of institutional norms is its own end, and is separate from conservatism. Was the protection of pedophile priests a conservative or institutionalist impulse? You tell me.

  • First of all, the evaluation that re-permitting (not re-instituting) the Tridentine rite was to appeal to the more conservative forces is not only my assertion but that of any person only slightly knowledgeable of Catholicism I’ve spoken to / read published, part of which Vatican insiders.

    Secondly, unlike his predecessor, Benedict has not only emphasized but ordered that pedophile priests must subject themselves to the laws and courts of the countries they live in.

    John Paul II was highly conservative BTW, just that he had a more charming appeal and a better take on presenting himself than Benedict XVI, but theologically he wasn’t liberal.

    Again, look up the specifics on the Good Friday prayer and the status of Pius XII.

  • Although I’m not able to find the specific versions of the Pius XII controversy that you say are favorable to Ratzinger, my understanding is that the 1962 Good Friday prayer now reads as follows:

    Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

    Now, official Jewish reaction was divided between the ADL and the AJC, who took more concerned versus conciliatory stances respectively. Comparisons have been made to the Birkat ha-Minim, although with the context that Jews never existed in great enough numbers relative to Catholics to oppress them or even for us to know whether they would have oppressed them, nor were they inculcated into the kind of anti-Jewish attitudes that my parents knew to be common among Catholics growing up in America and expressed openly around the time of Easter. Perhaps the new version is more like a watered-down prayer for the leaders of the country, to grant them wisdom and yada yada yada, but the supercessionism is undeniable. That’s the formal term. I think the more descriptive term is “spiritual superiority”.

    The other retort among religious conservatives who defend the inclusion of inherently antagonistic proclamations among either or both faiths, is the Aleynu, whose lines in question I have always found to be anachronistic and unnecessary, if not silly. In political terms, we would call them “jingoistic”. Judaism, however, does have the distinction of not seeking conversion nor of being comfortable with condemning broad sections of humanity to damnation because of lack of adherence to a rather arbitrary article of faith.

  • All religions believe themselves to be the true one. That is only offensive to people unfamilar with religions.

    Pius XII has not been beatified yet at Ratzinger’s decision. Without beatification, there cannot be a process of canonization.

    The Aleinu is reflective of the consistent thought in Jewish teaching that chosenness doesn’t equal to innate greatness but a special bond that comes with special responsibilities.

    And when did you convert? Not too long ago, you professed not to be Jewish when Alex asked.

  • “All religions believe themselves to be the true one. That is only offensive to people unfamilar with religions.”

    First off, I’m not sure that I agree with this statement. Do they all profess to have a monopoly on truth to a similar degree? Do they all hold to the same sense of moral certainty? Eastern religions included?

    Further, call me crazy, but I’m not sure that even a monopoly on truth is the same thing as the sense of superiority one gets from consigning people to fire and brimstone and the like, or various other forms of physical and mental torture for all eternity. That’s a little bit of a more precious thing than just saying, “I’ve got the monopoly on truth!” wouldn’t you say? A little special, extra twist to subtly encourage your agreement with them! And a coercive one.

    “And when did you convert? Not too long ago, you professed not to be Jewish when Alex asked.”

    It is offensive to me that you would so assertively misremember Alex’s sad episode in this way. I said nothing of the sort. I professed nothing of the sort. You are taking Alex’s allegations (of which he had no evidence) and remembering them as if I professed to them. Feel free to look up the situation in question. Ck’s videotaped response was that it didn’t matter.

    My grandparents were born in the states and their parents were born in various parts of Eastern Europe… Poland, Russia, Byelorussian and the Baltics… back then all known as the Pale of Settlement. In elementary school we were given an assignment of looking into our genealogical history. I called up my grandfather and he went into a detail that included the branches that Hitler had apparently got a hold of. My parents were conservative and I grew up in this tradition, although some of my many cousins on my father’s side attended a modern Orthodox Jewish day school, as did I for a year. I received a prety standard Bar Mitzvah, although the particular portion I don’t recall at the moment. I visited Israel the summer of my first year of college and stayed with relatives south of Haifa for a few weeks. The girls I date are at least half the time Jewish, including one I was seeing for more than a year who was more traditional (a more sentimental category than those built on sectarian definitions, and one I also prefer) and who was interested in our getting married. She was and still is (I presume) a wonderful cook and kept kosher in the house — only dates Jews and saw no reason for me to prove I was Jewish. I still don’t have much trouble reciting the Birkat haMazon and usually did after the meals we would invite people over to following services on Friday nights.

    Now, does that settle it or do I need to provide the mohel’s certification and a picture revealing anatomical proof of purchase? My preference is this should end all discussion on the matter but sometimes I’m not sure what consitutes an adequete burden of proof as required by either you or Alex. I’m also not certain how it pertains to the actual discussion on Ratzinger’s guidance of the church and treatment of Williamson.

    (Although it’s nice to know that we agree on the quality of Dalia’s reporting ;-))

  • BTW – The girlfriend I just told you about was introduced to me (and vice versa) through a good friend of mine while he was a rabbinical student at JTS. His wife met her while they were in Israel. We are good friends who met in college. He is now a rabbi at a congregation on Long Island. He is orthodox.

  • Rest assured, Eastern religions and philosophies do also believe in condemnation of those not adhering to their truths, just that in their case it’s reincarnation on an inferior level, resulting in a longer way into nirvana. The Catholic Church, BTW, has ditched the teaching of hell.

    And while it doesn’t actually matter what faith you adhere to (and circumcision is not proof that anybody’s Jewish), your answer back then suggested you weren’t, at the very least in the affiliated sense. I was wondering as your takes on theology are not standard Jewish ones (as in Orthodox or Conservative).

  • I forgot to add something: My mother has a cousin whose two sons are also rabbis. Yes, they were born Jewish. As was their mother. As was her mother. Which makes my mom Jewish. My mother used to work for the U.S. government and the identifying documents in her possession that she showed me one time indicated her religion to be: Jewish. I remember being surprised that the U.S. government would care to document such details, but she was always pretty proud of being Jewish – and yet, like me, understood when and how it was relevant and when and how it was not. I guess this was in the days before the internet.

  • I’m not sure I know all that much more about official/doctrinal theology than any standard congregant, but I suppose my take on theological or spiritual matters are probably more creative and open-ended, if hopefully not too incoherent to someone for whom authoritativeness is an issue. And while it’s pretty technical to point out that circumcision alone doesn’t guarantee that one is Jewish, it would probably take a pretty negligent mohel to perform one without ruling out contrary assumptions. I feel safe in assuming that my mitochondrial DNA conforms to all the technical extrapolations that standard assumptions of Judaism require. And I don’t see how my answers to Alex (or perhaps lack thereof) indicated anything of the sort. They indicated that it didn’t matter. They still do. It still doesn’t.

  • Considering that not only mohels carry out circumcisions but also imams as well as doctors and that circumcision used to be standard procedure in the US for a while, it pretty much is evidence of nothing at all.

  • Barking dogs and such, the Chinese are so wise. Is this like a scene from Europa Europa? I just felt like divulging extensive details out of how appalled I was that you took Alex’s dialogue to indicate something that it couldn’t have. And it gave us something to talk about. Silence or even offense at being persistently interrogated and accused of things doesn’t indicate an agreement or disagreement one way or another with the accusations, does it? I take this attitude from Western notions of liberty and propriety, and the fact that religion among civilized nations is generally considered a personal matter. Ck seemed to agree, no?

    But as for theology more generally, my own opinions are probably more influenced by Hume, and by the pragmatists. I like The Metaphysical Club, by Menand. Absolute certainty breeds a tendency toward violence. Influential stream of American thought that was once popular and in longstanding need of a thorough revival that now seems iminent, thankfully.

  • “Considering that not only mohels carry out circumcisions but also imams as well as doctors and that circumcision used to be standard procedure in the US for a while, it pretty much is evidence of nothing at all.”

    You’re being pretty silly here, froylein, seeing as how I had proceeded to address what the mohel did at the time – with observers at witnesses at the bris (and pictures thereof), not how there is now strictly anatomical evidence today of what the mohel did then. Unless you are more obsessed with my penis per se than with the matter of how mohels make the decision to circumsize. I can’t help with that. ;-(

  • You weren’t exactly silent, but evasive, which gave the impression (not only to me I might add) that you were embarrassed.

  • One thing for sure, please keep your penis covered while commenting. I know a few mohels (Chasidishe), and they’ll circumcise any boy brought to them.

  • “You weren’t exactly silent, but evasive, which gave the impression (not only to me I might add) that you were embarrassed.”

    Embarrassed about being Jewish? Absolutely not. Embarrassed about being thought not to be Jewish? I guess that’s an interesting possibility, and one you might try considering. Embarrassed about the fact that someone would stoop to such low and ridiculous tactics to reveal and prove nothing of import to the discussion? That’s probably closer to the case. Embarrassed about what would constitute an adequate argument in the mind of someone who identifies as a sensient human? That’s probably as close as it gets.

    Some things offend me because of how incredibly stupid they are. That’s about as close as I come to being offended by anything. I worry about the human species when it includes the possibility for affiliation by individuals who don’t have much more than a neanderthal’s capacity for reason.

    “One thing for sure, please keep your penis covered while commenting. I know a few mohels (Chasidishe), and they’ll circumcise any boy brought to them.”

    Does this mean you still doubt that I am cirumcised? 😉 (It’s usually not possible to do it twice).

  • Sometimes a straight answer is the best to avoid suggestions. And in the context of your own responses, not in the big picture though, I could understand why Alex asked.

    MUL, really now, I’m not particularly interested in familiarzing myself with your genitalia. I’m not a urologist.

  • “MUL, really now, I’m not particularly interested in familiarzing myself with your genitalia. I’m not a urologist.”

    That’s good to know, because my mohel probably wouldn’t let you near my penis! ;-D

    Ok, I’ll stop. Sorry! lol. (Couldn’t resist).

    Seriously though, the rest of the conversation was interesting. I’ll be interested to see how rest of the details of the Williamson case play out, as well as those related to the approach the church is taking generally. Thanks for posting this.

  • Holy crap. You duck out for a few hours, and all, uh, hell breaks loose.

    This is a public relations disaster for the church. Make that a PR problem for the church, and a disaster for the pope, who at least on these shores is very much a man alone on an island.

    And public relations is important– perceptions matter, and it’s the Vatican’s responsibility to make decisions like this, given the sensitivities involved, in a very clearly-explained manner. That didn’t happen.

    After Mass this morning, I headed to the rectory to peruse the priests’ NY Times and sneak a few donuts, and ran into our pastor, who put the following in the bulletin under the headline, “Catholic Bishop Denies Holocaust”:

    “Recently it was reported that the Pope lifted the excommunication of schismatic bishop Williamson, who among other things stated that the number of Jews killed in the concentration camps is highly exaggerated and that there were no gas chambers. These are unacceptable words. To say it more bluntly I quote Cardinal Kasper who wrote: ‘to deny the Holocaust is stupid and is a position that has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.’ In addition, Pope Benedict in his weekly audience said: ‘the Holocaust should be a warning for all against forgetting, denial and reductionism. I renew with affection the expression of my full and unquestionable solidarity with our Jewish brothers. I hope the memory of the Shoah will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate when it conquers the hearts of men.'”

    Fr. Jack’s pretty, uh, po’d at the moment and has been on the phone trying to get the Cardinal Archbishop to issue a statement.

    Thanks, Holy Father. We need this like a hole in the head.

  • As to the substance: the excommunications are removed, but the men have not been admitted to ministry, i.e. can’t say Mass or perform priestly functions. So it remains to be seen what quid pro quo Benedict gets out of his display of generosity.

    You can be a wife beater, a murderer, an idiot and, yes, a Holocaust denier, and that won’t get you excommunicated. However, the issue with Williamson is whether he accepts Vatican II doctrines, one of which revises church teaching on Jews and Judaism. Holocaust-minimizing, with the rest of his anti-modernism, suggests he may not. And if not, this controversy– pending further developments– suggests an unacceptable giving-in and yielding of papal authority. If the far-righties can cross the pope about Jews and get away with it, why can’t the “progressives” reject the rules on abortion, etc.?

    Even very conservative US Catholics (e.g. George Weigel) are all over Benedict about this.

    The pope’s an arch-theologian, a vaunted explainer. At the end of the day, he’d better have an outcome in which these extremists publicly accept all relevant Vatican II doctrines.

    I know all of our Jewish pals here are rooting for the Pope to assert his authority and come down on these turkeys like a ton of bricks.

  • froylein, you just kinda hang out at the rectory, ask if you can check your e-mail at the office, then slip into the kitchen, where the Boston Globe and Sunday Times are on the table, along with a box of donuts and a pot of coffee. The crullers are Fr. Jack’s, but the rest are fair game.

    (Fr. also had some unkind words about Germans and tact, which I forebear from repeating.)

  • I don’t need the Pope to come down on anybody like a ton of bricks. I’d like him to explain that this was an unintentional oversight or something to that effect. I need to know this was an error or poor judgement, because if the alternative is that he did what he did knowingly, then it seems that one of the most heinous beliefs out there regarding Jews is acceptable to the Church. That is troubling, not that there is anything I or any other Jewish person can do about it, and it is doubly troubling because of the ongoing debate WWWII’s Pope’s actions.

  • Fr. Jack thinks he should just admit it was a mistake, but I’m not sure how that would work. Does that mean you re-excommunicate them? I think the best approach is to say that all Catholics, including obviously clergy, are expected to acknowledge and obey all church teaching, including Nostra Aetate.

    They’ll probably get around to doing something like that, maybe sooner rather than later, but in the meantime the damage has been done.

  • The Pope already stated something to that effect two or three days ago, but it didn’t make the news in the US (just as little as his preconditions re: lifting the excommunication).

  • Yeah, the way this thing was handled… The story was out for several days (at least here) before the pope spoke of it directly.

  • Over here, L’Osservatore Romano had the Vatican’s response out within minutes after Williamson’s claims became known, so they were cited on mainstream media, too.

  • Super Bowl? No clue. But there’s a party drink we call Bowle, which consists out of fruit soaked in some spirit, juice / soda and champagne.

  • A group of criminals (Steelers) are playing Princes of the Church (Cardinals).

  • The other possibility is that Nostra Aetate and other parts of Vatican II never penetrated very deeply in world Catholicism, and are destined to be Holocaust-era blips in the otherwise unbroken history of official anti-Jewish dogma and sentiment.

  • Well, time will tell, but I don’t know of anyone who has the slightest interest in returning to Williamson-style, pre-1950s theology (the Latin Mass, etc.). In an church that is growing less Eurocentric, arguments over the Hitler period and European history generally have less and less interest for most Catholics, including American ones.

  • I dare say, since more than 99.99% of all Catholic theologians and clergy welcomed Vaticanum II, its acceptance is pretty high compared to, let’s say, the contents of several encyclicals.

    BTW, any non-Jewish religion is theologically anti-Jewish. The Pilgrim Fathers were theologically and socially anti-Jewish, the founding fathers of the USA considered only white Protestants of English background humans. Obviously, that view has changed in the US, just as the awareness of anti-Judaistic theologies potentially leading (and having led) to anti-Semitism among the common people has risen among Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism. Those extremists that believe all Jews need to be disunited for Jesus to return are ironically enough welcomed with arms wide open in Israel.

  • Greg, FYI, my father’s Catholic and studied at the Gregoriana, the Catholic elite faculty in the Vatican, which one cannot enrol at but only get invited to.

    That aside, since this is a matter of concern for the Jewish community, it is vital that it’s understood what is going on. Many blog posts I’ve seen on the topic were unfortunately filled with false information, weird links and way-off allegations. Spewing hate speech and paranoid rants at each other won’t get anybody anywhere.

  • Oh, just saw it’s the clueless and hateful Greg alias Steve alias monosyllabic-name-of-your-choice.

    We have no particular need nor desire for your contributions here.

  • I think early US history is rather more complicated, froylein. Maryland, for example, was founded by Anglo-Catholic Lord Baltimore in 1634.

    I remember as a kid being taken on a school trip to Touro Synagogue, founded in 1763 in Newport, RI. I remember vaguely thinking that Jews had all come to America in the 20th century, so the visit was quite an eye-opener.

    Of course, I now see it as having been a vapid exercise in interfaith dialogue.

    Greg, we can hope, but the jury is still out.

  • Tom, founding fathers refers to a specific group of men. 😉 Maybe I should have capitalized the term.

  • Adam, since Mr Wilders stands for alleged values that I deem non-democratic, pre-Enlightment, overall unbalanced, and populistic, he’s among the last persons I’m interested in giving a platform.

    Tom, indeed, they were a bunch extraordinaire.

  • Adam, did you bother reading other posts on the front page including the guest post about Wilders?

    Sheesh!

  • “BTW, any non-Jewish religion is theologically anti-Jewish. The Pilgrim Fathers were theologically and socially anti-Jewish, the founding fathers of the USA considered only white Protestants of English background humans. Obviously, that view has changed in the US, just as the awareness of anti-Judaistic theologies potentially leading (and having led) to anti-Semitism among the common people has risen among Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism. Those extremists that believe all Jews need to be disunited for Jesus to return are ironically enough welcomed with arms wide open in Israel.”

    Evidence?

    I can’t speak for the Puritans specifically, but the U.S. was founded by a rather philo-Semitic bunch, generally, and in contrast to the norm in Europe. There were differences, of course, and Albion’s Seed does a tremendous job outlining the four British cultural pathways that made up early American immigration, distinguishing New Englanders from William Penn’s colonists, the Southerners and those who went to Kentucky and made up the “Highlanders”. Penn’s “Sylvania” was founded on the highly novel concept of religious tolerance for all, as was Rhode Island, if I’m not mistaken. But the New Englanders who had originally provided refuge were a little bit more provinicial, I’m sorry to say Tom. The Massachusetts delegation to the constitutional convention actually protested the clause against foregoing a religious “test” for office!

    But the point being that among the founders, philo-semitism was the norm – and the broader nation, in viewing itself as the “New Israel” drew inspiration from the old Israel rather than contempt for it.

  • The Pope wanted a group of schismatics back in the Church so as to prevent further schism. Schisms can start small and get big. Look what happened to what used to be a small group of Jews who thought a carpenter from the Galil was Moschiach. Snowballs rolling downhill, etc.

    What Benedict did does not surprise me in the least, and any Jew who thinks that Jewish feelings will trump the need of the church to put heretics back in line before they consecrate too many bishops and set up a papacy in, say, Avignon, is dreaming.

    To a Catholic, especially the Pope, the Church will always come before everything else. We should stop being surprised. Now that Williamson is “back in the fold” he will have to shut up when Benedict tells him to.

    As for Widlers, froylein, you’re missing the point. His views are not important. What is important is that he is being muzzled because people are afraid that he’s going to offend the Muslims and they may riot. It’s far, plain and simple. Regardless of whatever else Wilders may or may not believe, and whether or not you would consider having tea with him, this European penchant for muzzling people whose opinions are unpopular is very disturbing. Soon, it will be illegal to say anything the Muslims deem to be an insult. is that really what you want?

    Where is Voltaire when you need him?

  • Yeah, Ephraim– if the Vatican had a do-over, it would’ve given that crank Henry VIII have his divorce, and mollified Luther while that was still possible.

  • MUL, that was the consensus of all my American history, politics & literature profs as well as the reading material we had. It goes in line with Puritan theology, too (which is greatly marked by the concept of new “chosenness”). Penn, in contrast to that, was a Quaker and founded Pennsylvania as Quakers were being discriminated against in the Puritan colonies (which went as far as getting the mark of Cain tattooed onto their foreheads). The period of history we’re talking about is that of the “Jewish Emancipation” resp. “Jewish Enlightment”, when Jews in Europe (Central Europe mostly) experienced unprecedented liberties (not that life was awesome, but conditions had improved).

    Ephraim, I think somebody who thinks we need to report about Wilders for whatever is happening to him in response to his behaviour, at that suggesting he was of best Jewish interests, is missing a few points of history.

  • BTW, just recalled that on a US American teachers’ resource site, I found a text comparing Puritan and American settlers. I copied it to my old HD; I’ll see if I can retrieve it, but it summarized what I also found in history books (of American origin, lest somebody starts whining) that Quakers practised religious tolerance (having been subject to religious discrimination themselves plus being profoundly pacifist as per their theology) whereas Puritans would use force to ensure that there were no non-Puritans on their territories, and everybody who wanted to reside in their midst had to belong to their faith, attend their Sunday services and abide by their social norms.

  • Missing the sarcasm, Tom. It seems that you think Benedict should not have rescinded the excommunication. I don’t get the impression that Benedict has made any concessions whatsoever to their theological positions as would have been necessary to co-opt Henry and Luther; on the contrary, now that they are un-excommunicated they are back under Church authority where Benedict can control them, and Benedict, so far as I can tell, has not given them too much of a quid-pro-quo. But, I’m not a Catholic, so perhaps I’m missing something. A bone-headed move, I absolutely agree. It just does not surprise me too much, although I am sure that many good Catholics, yourself included, are hurt and baffled by it. But, I rather feel the same way sometimes when Ovadia Yosef, or someone in a similar position, unburdens himself of one of his gems of “wisdom”, so I feel your pain.

    Froylein, I don’t think Wilders is “good for the Jews”, and that is not my point. My argument is that once the government has the power to deny free speech to someone whose views it dislikes, the only thing that matters is who the government is, not what truth is. Holland is obviously afraid that Wilders is going to cause the Muslims to go apeshit and start rampaging through the streets. So they pre-emptively silence people because they are afraid of the Muslims. There is simply no other explanation for this. If they were being fair, any imam who calls Jews apes and pigs would similarly be on trial. But of course that does not happen. So this is clearly dhimmi boot-licking. You would think that the government would not punish somebody who says “You know, I don’t think Islam is compatible with Western secular deocracy” but rather punish the people who riot when they are “offended”. You know, the people who actually commit crimes.

    It is obvious that the thought police are still alive and well in Europe and that they are dancing to a tune written in Riyadh. You guys had better do something quick before you can’t say anything at all.

    Like I said, where’s Voltaire when you really need him?

  • I guess what I’d then be curious to know is whether the Puritans were more or less influential than the Quakers (or equally so), and if so, when the influence of either started to take hold or overtake the other. It sounds like we’re in agreement about each tradition representing somewhat influential, if conflicting streams that have both been thoroughly incorporated into the American consciousness — so much so that most Americans wouldn’t even consciously think to recognize it.

    As an American who is familiar with both areas of the country where the two settled, the dichotomy that still exists today is quite evident to me and I am grateful that a very detailed and clear description of its provenance (along with other strong and strange quirks of American culture) was provided upon reading the description of David Hackett Fischer’s book.

  • Ephraim, I think you’re absolutely right on the substance, and I certainly understand Benedict’s motivations– he likely has contempt for these ‘bishops’ (if only because they’re disobedient), but wants to keep their followers in the fold. Hard to disagree with that. And if these guys are indeed ‘conservative’ and ‘traditional’, they will have to toe the line going forward.

    But you have to take care in how these things are articulated, given the sensitivities involved. Benedict put interfaith relations at risk in the way this was handled. I can’t see JPII bringing this sort of mess on himself.

    Oh, well. You just roll your eyes at yet another self-inflicted wound, a specialty, unfortunately, of the RCC.

  • Ephraim, my point was not to diminish Wilders’ freeddom of speech (which doesn’t cover freedom of libel here; a lot of his claims and those of his supporters are painfully familiar from past propaganda), byt to explain to Adam, who randomly chose a post written by me to drop the above lines, why I wasn’t willing to give Wilders anymore of a platform than he’d already been given. That aside, Europe does address issues with Muslim immigrants; Germany has imprisoned several hate preachers, as they’re called here, respectively extradited several to Turkey.

  • If a private citizen was suing Wilders for libel, which, while perhaps defined differently in various places is illegal everywhere, that would be one thing.

    But as far as I can tell from this side of the pond, the government is putting him on trial for hate speech. That’s a whole different ball game.

    If this is over his film “Fitna”, I don’t see how it is libelous to quotes passages in the Koran that advocate making war on the infidels while showing images of Muslims doing ecxactly that. So fas as I know, “Fitna” contains no commentary from Wilders, it’s all quotes from the Koran. Hard to call that libelous.

  • Statements by him (Fitna aside) that became public here would qualify as hate speech / demagoguery. If the Netherlands are similar to Germany in that regard (they might well be), it could easily be a criminal offence.

  • That’s precisely my point.

    These “hate speech” laws are being used to stifle dissent. They should all be abolished.

    The idea that someone can say “I thnk Islam is bad” and can get hauled up on charges while Jews are assaulted and even killed and the authorities claim it’s not a hate crime just shows how bad things have gotten.

    If giving a Nazi the right to speak will preserve my right to speak, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

    Holland is simply knuckling under to threats of Muslim violence. It is beyond shameful.

    It is a plain and obvious fact that Muslims perpetrate violence against non-Muslims and proudly proclaim they do so in the name of their religion. They preach that Islam will conquer the West. They attack Jews in the streets with impunity and firebomb synagoges. They murder their own sisters and daughters if they have besmirched their “honor”. All this is done in the name of Islam.

    And Wilders is to be punished for pointing out that these things have no place in Europe and that the religion that preaches them might not be compatible with European cuilture? That’s like saying that water is wet.

    Only in an insane asylum could someone get punished for pointing out what is obvious to anyone with sense.

  • Ephraim, what bothers me is that the pseudo-liberal, traditionally leftist media are as unbalanced as it gets in such matter over here. There are only a handful of newspapers in this world that know the trade and the responsibility of good journalism.

  • It seems increasingly short-sighted to rail at the influence of one end of a political spectrum on a continent’s media, when an establishment whose influence was complicit in an furthering an even more nefarious history is becoming increasingly open to the nutty fringe on the other side.

    Ephraim’s right. The anti-speech codes themselves are another part of the problem (except for perhaps in Germany where the symbolic suppression of pro-Holocaust speech seems an appropriate, if increasingly merely symbolic gesture). And Hitchens’ piece only makes me more sympathetic and surprisngly open to the atheists — on strictly political grounds. The only hope for the world as your nutters on both right and left continue bumbling their way to their precious apocalypse remains the United States. Not surprising given its status as one of the few Western countries capable of turning the Muslisms from an unassimilable fanaticism that persists for generations, and perhaps indefinitely, in Europe.

  • Your comment is a complete non-sequitur, froylein. What do you mean by it? That what I see reported in the newspapers about Islamazoids going batshit at the drop of a hat is not actually happening?

    Wilders is being prosecuted by his own government under “hate speech” laws that are, in and of themselves, nothing more or less than censorship. Is this or is this not a fact?

  • He’s being prosecuted on grounds of breaking the law. “Hate speech” laws do not prohibit criticism of groups but spreading false information in order to discriminate or encourage / justify violence against them.

    MUL, have I blamed it all on the media? No. Do I see a rising tendency of poor quality journalism deeming itself intellectually progressive? Yes. Would I agree with my brother that many of those unqualified for “proper” jobs still take a chance at journalism? Alas, I would.

  • How is pointing out the plain and obvious fact that certain tenets of Islam are incompatible with Western pluralism and that political Islam seeks to dominate non-Muslims false information? It is true.

    I don’t believe that Wilders has advocated that Muslims should be physically attacked. He has said that Islam is incompatible with Duth democracy and that Muslims living in Holland should assimilate into Dutch society, even if that requires giving up certain Islamic practices and beliefs. You can call that arrogant if you like. But I don’t believe he has called for anyone to be attacked. The Muslims have, however, and they do it all the time.

    And, like I said, libel laws are already in place so an aggrieved person (not the government) can sue someone for libel if he wants to.

    But you are right: what Wilders did may very well have been against the law. That is precisely why those laws must be abolished.

    Or we can do this: when the laws are fairly enforced across the board and the government prosecutes Muslims for spreading hate speech against non-Muslims by quoting their Koran, which is, just as Wilders says, full of hatred and contempt for non-Muslims and calls for jihad against them, I will revise my opinion of European hate speech law.

    Until then, color me skeptical.

  • Froylein:
    He’s being prosecuted on grounds of breaking the law. “Hate speech” laws do not prohibit criticism of groups but spreading false information in order to discriminate or encourage / justify violence against them.
    – – – – – – – –
    This is doubletalk.

    1) There already are libel laws that cover false charges.
    2) These laws are specifically couched in the language of “offending victim groups” – definitions purposely left vague – and make only passing reference to factual veracity.

    As Ephraim said, who’s rioting, who’s promulgating anti-democracy rhetoric in their mosques – what is the reality?

    Since when was it the government’s job to endorse one version of reality – and silence others?

    Nope.
    These laws are being used to stifle opinions – opinions that epitomize protected political speech. Opinions about public policy and the political process.

    The answer to

  • The answer to offensive speech is more speech.

    Not stifling speech.

    Once the government is given the power to decide what ideas are acceptable, we are on a very slippery slope.

  • Europe’s not on the slope anymore, BD. That point was passed long ago.

    They’re hurtling downhill, picking up speed by the second. The edge of the cliff is coming up pretty fast.

  • Thanks, Tiff!

    BD. there’s a distinction, at least over here; libel is one thing, spreading false information with the intention of causing aggression against a certain group is another thing.

  • Ben-David’s right. Keep government out of the speech-regulation business, especially political speech.

  • You’re dancing around the point, froylein. It’s hard to believe that you could be this dense.

    My and BD’s point is not that Wilders may have disobeyed the “law”. He may very well have. Our point is that the law is, in and of itself, evil, and should be abolished.

    Wilders has said that Islam, especially political Islam, is incompatible with European society and culture. This is clearly true, not false.

    He has pointed out that the Koran preaches hatred of non-Muslims and calls for jihad against them. This is also clearly true, not false.

    If the government has to prove that Wilders advocated aggression against Muslims, I think they may very well fail. My guess is that they will try to prove that by creating a “climate of hatred” or something violence would be inevitable.

    My guess is that they will forbid Wilders from quoting the Koran during his railroading…..I mean, his “trial”, since that could be considered “hate speech”.

    Kafka was more right than he knew.

  • Ephraim, I’m not arguing that you and BD see that Wilders may have interfered with existing laws; I was just elaborating, but obviously, his more incendiary remarks never made the news in the US.

  • So what did he say? Did he advocate pogroms or something?

    My guess is that “incendiary” in the EU is probably fairly tame by US standards.

    Anyway, like I said, unless he is actively inciting to murder and riot, and it can actually be proven that his words resulted in an actual crime being committed, he should be allowed to say what he wants.

    His opinions about Islam are certainly insulting (to Muslims). The idea that this should be a crime is monstrous.

  • Ephraim, I’ll keep this short as I’m dead tired, but I looked into Dutch sources that said that the judiciary based the lawsuit on Wilders making “generalizing statements that qualified as an insult towards Muslims” (insulting as in factually false plus offensive) and that therefore the lawsuit was “of public interest”.

    Indeed, Americans on average are more rude than (Central) Europeans on average.

  • Now, froylein, before you make such a judgment about Americans, you really must venture west or (dare I say it) north of the GW Bridge. It’s a really, really big country out there.

  • Tom, I’ve got friends from all over the US, but good manners on average aren’t their strength. (Actually, many guide books for Americans moving over here advise them to brush up on their manners and their knowledge of history and world politics.)

  • Manners? You think this is about manners? Are you joking?

    This has nothing to do with manners, froylein, and you know it. It is disingenuous of you to imply that it does.

    This is about making it a criminal offense to insult people. Do you really mean to say that it is illegal to insult Muslims in Europe now?

    I mean, seriously: are you Europeans out of your minds? If it really is true that insulting Muslims is illegal in Europe now, there is no hope for you.

    Yes, yes, I know you will say that this isn’t about Muslims, this law applies to everyone, etc. You know that is nonsense too.

    Christianity and Judaism are insulted and denigrated all the time, in the streets and in practically every mosque. You may have deported an imam here and there, but has anything really been done to stop it? Of course not. Because everyone knows that Jews and Christians don’t go around murdering people for “insulting” their religion. Only Muslims do. That is what this is about.

    If you are going to say that it is illegal to “spread false information with the intention of causing aggression against a certain group”, then every single person who participates in those anti-Israel/pro Hamas demonstrations which threaten Jews with extermination and Europe with jihad is a criminal. Why are they not in jail or deported?

    Yet only Wilders is being prosecuted. This is a travesty and you know it. You should stop trying to defend what is obviously indefensible.

    Again, this has nothing to do with the substance of Widlers’ views. He may very well be a despicable person. But that is not a crime.

    Or should not be, at any rate. But it appears that in Holland that is exactly what it is.

  • Ephraim, do yourself a favour and don’t prove me right. A society that is used to rudeness sets different standards. Also, visit Europe. See the actual situation for yourself. Not only Wilders is being persecuted. I won’t claim things here are as I believe they should be, but they aren’t by far as bad as some people that have never been to Europe make them out to be.

  • I don’t particularly care whether you think I’m rude or not froylein. I try to be polite most of the time, believe it or not.

    However, this is an issue of principles, not manners. As an American, I believe that freedom of speech is a bedrock principle that is violated by the government at the peril of the health of the country. Once it is accepted that the government has the right to silence people with whose view they disagree, there really isn’t any freedom, only the absence of government enforcement should they decide to go easy on someone. That is jusr caprice, not freedom.

    I would far rather accept impoliteness than discover that I could be thrown in jail because someone in power thought I was being impolite. I canot even begin to fathom the mindset that thinks being rude should be a crime. I think david Duke is a vile and poisonous person. But I do not believe he should be in jail.

    Also, the situation in Europe may not, in general, be as bad as it appears, I’ll grant you that. But that is not my point either. With laws like the ones you describe in place, the foundation for oppression is there. The only thing required is a desire on the part of the government to go after someone. This is why I oppose all sorts of “hate speech” codes.

    Again, just so you don’t misunderstand, I do not advocate that people go out of their way to insult others. But some people, such as Nazis, thought police, and any sort of religious fanatic who wants to impose his particular brand of religion on people who do not want it, must be opposed. And sometimes it is necessary to be rude. In any case, self-righteous people have a tendency to be thin-skinned. They get insulted all the time. Sticks and stones, etc.

    I do not advocate gratuitously insulting Islam and their “prophet” for no good reason. However, the right to do so must be sacrosanct, even if it is rarely if ever exercised.

    It’s pretty obvious that more than an ocean separates Europe and America.

  • Although it’s been a while since I’ve been to Europe, and I’ve got no love for the American brand of shallow narcissism, I have to say I agree with you Ephraim, and with Tom. First off, it is a big country. Second, while I’m sure there are benefits to making people feel all nice and important (especially in societies barely removed from the same reverence for nobility that brought you feudalism, socialism and noblesse oblige), when it comes at the expense of political, intellectual and social expression – and it will – you should thank the Lord that Americans are in a stronger position than those poor Europeans. Froylein may not be in a good position to understand (or at least to accept) that the horrors of Europe’s history is a big part of what causes them to think that if they don’t do a good enough job of blowing sunshine up each other’s asses, then they’re one utterance away from the brink of catastrophe. But as an admittedly, occasionally crude American, allow me the liberty to say that I have good reason to believe that I am. Now granted, there’s something to be said for tact and the art of diplomacy. But there’s also something to be said for an ability to engage someone else’s words without mistaking them for your own thoughts, no matter how much you don’t like hearing them.

    Eleanor Roosevelt put it best by saying, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. Sadly, the Arabs seem not to grasp this. And those sad Europeans, victims of history at least as often as they took to shaping it, with all their emphasis on such ridiculous abstractions as pomp and “dignity”, seem to be falling prey to the pitfalls of the same faulty and potentially disastrous mindset. And we are sadly witnessing it here in her (and others’) impotent soft gloves approach to the retrograde Ratzinger’s counter-revolutionary theological putsch.

    That ocean may indeed be pretty wide, Ephraim. But the consequences for Europe’s unwillingness to clean up the copious piss in their side of it is going to cause a hell of a lot of problems for both us and the rest of the world – and very soon. Sorry if that wasn’t the most polite way of phrasing things. But I’m sure you understood and the last thing to worry about in a fight is if one’s hair is parted nicely. We must keep fighting now so that the Europeans don’t continue dragging us further down the road to hell with their masturbatory stroking of the enemies’ egos. It’s a road paved with good intentions, I’m sure. But one with the forces of intolerance and barbarism waiting at the end of it with open arms. I do hope they’ll welcome gladly those who continue to skip so blithely along its path.

  • MUL, politeness is not what brought about the horrors of European history or feudalism; that’s just factually wrong.
    Tom’s point is also not that the US is a big country, but that I should visit him in Boston (an inside quibble that has been going on off the blog).
    I can exercize freedom of speech without behaving as if straight out of the gutter.
    I’ve explained in the post why the assumption that Ratzinger is theologically reactionary is incorrect; anybody who claims so is, by any means, ignorant of Catholic theology, the declarations of the Second Vatican Council and the decisive role Ratzinger played – as an expert to the Council in matters of dogma – in drafting the constitutions / declarations that eventually brought about these changes and that for the most part are his original work, as well as of what is currently going on re: that excommunication (the Pope was asked by those priests to lift the excommunication, and then, by Catholic law and understanding of mercy, has to start the process; he explicitly named the conditions, i.e. that they must abide by the Second Vatican Council – they’d have to sign an agreement – which includes the dogmatic declaration that accepts the concept of freedom of religion; unless the conditions are fulfilled, there’s no excommunication).

  • Froylein:

    Could you please address Ephraim’s basic thesis?

    How is free political and cultural expression to be preserved if the government can step in, declare an opinion “potentially offensive”, and silence it?

    The essence of free speech is the right to offend. Especially to offend the government.

    The answer to such speech is more speech – not silencing those you disagree with.

    This really, REALLY is fundamental to Western Democracy – the notion of the rights of the individual, that the government is limited in what it can to do individual citizens.

    It really, REALLY doesn’t get more basic than this.

    Please stop jerking around with nonsense about how much more polite you Europeans are.

    More test cases:

    – Do you think newspapers should have printed the Muhammed caricatures, or was it correct for them to self-censor or be censored?

    If you answer is yes – do you not see how that guts any objective protection of individual free speech? Do you see how this leaves any opinion open to censure?

    – Why aren’t the anti-Semitic Muslim rioters being tried under the same law? Are there any explanations for this double standard other than the biases of left-wing political correctness and/or creeping dhimmitude?

    You really do have to get this straight. European democracy is going down the tubes.

  • Time and again, history shows that the people who are most concerned about being offended by one’s speech are those who have an emotional attachment to their position which they can’t defend intellectually. And what constitutes a gutter is obviously subjective. One person’s gutter (of morality or civility) is another person’s playpen. The stronger mind is the one which can see through boundaries and make their case and see the merit of another’s regardless of their own cultural, social, emotional biases.

    As for the Vatican… Read. Andrew. Sullivan. If he’s not hoity toity enough for you I can find links for his “betters” that he quotes.

    Three against one so far. If this was a democracy, guess whose case would have just lost? Well, when prestige and dignity is more important than being convincing, why worry about being right?

    Europe has clearly lost its claim to civilization. No matter how unsophisticated we American plebians and nouveau riche are in the eyes of our supposed European superiors, far fewer of us would be so willing to make use of the watered-down tools of prestige protection in our discourse. That’s for people on the wrong side of history.

    But feel free to concede my point by protesting: “But I don’t like what you just said!” Such a convincing way to lose an argument.

  • Alright, in case none of you has understood this yet: there will be a court trial for Wilders. The court will then come up with a sentence.

    And what’s your basis for assuming that Muslilm aggressors are not getting persecuted? That’s a pretty generalizing statement.

    As for the Mohammed caricatures, they were just as stupid and off-base as anti-Jewish caricatures in Der Stürmer and in many Arabic publications, but lowering oneself to that level of discourse displays nothing but stupidity.

    As for Andrew Sullivan, he hardly qualifies as an expert on ecclesiastical law and structures.

    I could only lose an argument if you had any basis for your claims, but the “I know better cause I’m American even though I have displayed sufficient ignorance of the matter in question” is anything but convincing.

  • I could only lose an argument if you had any basis for your claims, but the “I know better cause I’m American even though I have displayed sufficient ignorance of the matter in question” is anything but convincing.

    Or you could lose one by lying and claiming something was said that wasn’t said. That’s pretty unconvincing. That’s also your speciality.

    As an American I know better than to rely on appeals to emotion, convention and authority, even if it’s the supposed authority of froylein’s need to feel, in Cartman-like fashion, that she’s in charge of all knowledge in the universe. But what do I know? I’m just the convert to Judaism that Torquemada above exposed me as. Or something like that. Whatever.

  • Insinuating what hasn’t been said is your speciality, MUL. And I would assume that any alleged lies by me could be addressed and not be answered by insults and sentiments based on gut feeling. Also, I don’t claim to be an authority on all knowledge in the universe, but I do bother to read a lot in general, read up on specific topics and call / see qualified experts. In addition, I’ve bothered to learn a few foreign languages to at least be able to get the basic ideas of what is said in foreign sources.

  • MUL, I’d be careful about relying on the Beagle Blogger for my Vatican commentary. He’s not going to forgive any pope or church leader for opposing gay marriage. And always keep in mind that the Catholic lefties who rail against papal authoritarianism want the very same employed against their enemies. If Benedict announced today that the church sanctioned gay relationships and excommunicated Williamson and the rest of the hard, schismatic right, Sullivan would be shouting himself hoarse with glee in St. Peter’s Square.

  • Lies, and other misapprehensions, are only worth addressing insofar as the person telling and believeing them is open to reason and not assuming their own form of papal infallability.

    I know better than to rely on AS, Tom, as anything other than a good starting point for further investigation. He’s obviously not a lefty and I don’t understand who’s advocating authoritarianism against whose “enemies”. Besides, Sullivan made pretty good headway arguing for gay marriage on his own, without worrying about Rome’s stance. If you’d read him, you’d have known it was largely a civil/governmental matter for him. I haven’t heard him railing against the church per se until now. And given his concerns with Gibson and, before that, the pornographic Passion of the Christ, I think it’s fair to say his current concern about the church’s coddling of Holocaust deniers, anti-semites, (and the other weirdos who feel betrayed by Vatican II) is genuine and felt toward the church in an institutional capacity that wasn’t the case before. Except when it came to the pedophiles.

  • Oh, and in case I forgot, nice tu quoque above.

    Someone needs a primer on basic logic.

  • MUL, if only you had the slightest idea of what “Papal infallibility” means… If not buying into propaganda soaking of ignorance and choosing to rather gather bits of quality information available equalled to not being reasonable, then I’d gladly ditch reason.

  • MUL, I didn’t and don’t assert AS’s criticisms of the Vatican entirely lack merit. However, he tends to lay everything at the feet of papal authoritarianism, and this I take with a considerable grain of salt.

    I do not think AS can be convicted of being a conservative, under any definition of that term rooted in contemporary social reality (as opposed to Andy’s reading of Burke). AS has, however, done a fruitful business in convincing liberals he’s conservative.

    His current notion that conservatives are in no position to oppose the massive pork in the ‘stimulus’ bill because of their past fiscal misdeeds– that they should simply roll over and vote for the bill because, as the president reasons, he ‘won’– typifies the cynicism of his conservative posing.

  • Froylein, let us agree, just for the sake of argument, that “the Mohammed caricatures were just as stupid and off-base as anti-Jewish caricatures in Der Stürmer and in many Arabic publications, but lowering oneself to that level of discourse displays nothing but stupidity”.

    I don’t actually agree, though, since while Jews are actually not vampires who drink the blood of gentile children, Muslims actually do carry around bombs in their turbans and blow people up with them. So, you know, actual truth is just a bit different than demented racist fantasies. But whatever.

    The only question here is not whether you think it was impolite or stupid to publish the cartoons or whether you think Wilders should be nicer and not offend delicate Muslim sensibilites. Again, let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that it was stupid and impolite and that Wilders should show better manners.

    The question here is whether you believe that Jyllands Posten had the right to publish those caroons and whether Wilders has the right to express his opinion. That’s it. Does the government have the right to censor people? Yes or no? It appears that the government of Holland does indeed have that right. Do you think this is just? Yes or no?

    And judging from the insane Muslim reaction to the cartoons, it is obvious that the gist of what the cartoons were trying to express is actually true. But true or not, the right to express such views must be safeguarded. I don’t know about Europe, but in America, if someone was arrested for assaulting someone because what the victim said hurt the feelings of the attacker, and the attacker tried to defend his actions by saying “what that guy said really pissed me off, so I beat him up”, he would be laughed out of court straight into a jail cell where he belonged.

    I mean, in France, France 2 and Charles Enderlin sued Philippe Karsenty for “bringing them into disrepute” for having the unmitigated gall to present solid evidence that they had fabricated the Mohammed al Dura “murder”. (It seems almost certain that this is exactly what they did.) Yet, in France, a private citizen of no standing can be hauled up on charges for having the chutzpah to “insult the honor” of a public figure like Endlerin, even if Enderlin is an obvious liar.

    I am sure you will say “I just don’t understand Europe and European values”. If “European values” means that it is OK for the government to silence someone for expressing an opinion that the power brokers don’t like, then I don’t want to understand them.

    The whole idea of America is based upon the chutzpah that Karsenty displayed. I guess that is why we are such unmannered lumpenmenschen.

  • Insofar as it can be assumed that I don’t actually believe that froylein is the pope, I think one can safely determine that I can use a term sarcastically as a way to make a point, and not to challenge froylein’s vaunted superior knowledge of Catholic doctrine, for which she has already received her due recognition. Bravo!

    It’s not “liberals” that Sullivan’s convinced he’s a conservative. It’s anyone who takes political philosophy more seriously than Rush Limbaugh does. It’s anyone who thinks political philosophy didn’t begin and end with Reagan’s oversimplification of it, and Newt Gingrich’s opportunistic caricaturing of it. Read this and tell me if you disagree – AND WHY. And if you prefer, I’ll post it here.

    Some people actually take their philosophies seriously and don’t just maintain them to advance their political careers, you know Tom. That this is finally becoming painfully obvious to way too many on the right should tell you something. The rest will suffer the same fate as those on the left who didn’t understand the fact that, by 1970, the sixties had ended.

  • Tom, I see you mention Burke above. What makes you so sure that you can junk every conservative political philosopher’s understanding of conservatism and just cherry pick whatever definition fits into it according to your understanding of “contemporary social reality”? That sounds too arbitrary to be realistic in itself.

  • And Sullivan doesn’t think they shouldn’t oppose bills because of their profligate spending. He thinks they shouldn’t oppose bills when they lack the credibility to give anyone the impression that they understand the principles at stake, and the consequences at hand. Come on. Is that really cynical posturing? If you think so, then Sullivan’s contention – that so-called movement “conservatism” is cannabalizing itself – is pretty well vindicated. The job of conservatism isn’t to make itself an irrelevant and obsolete caricature of what it once really stood for.

  • MUL, if like Andrew you reject ‘Christianism’ and, now, fiscal conservatism, you’re not left with a conservatism that has much relevance to governance. We can view Hobbes as a conservative, too, but he’s not going to help us decide whether the NEA deserves pork to ‘stimulate’ the economy, for example.

    Agree with them or not, Congressional Republicans are raising substantive concerns with the bill, and that puts a faux conservative like Sullivan on the spot.

  • MUL, you can only use the term properly sarcastically if you know what it implies.

    Ephraim, there also / were are caricatures portraying Jews as money-grubbing, and there indeed were Jewish bankers back when, but that doesn’t make those caricatures any less despicable.

    I do agree that the reaction to the caricatures in the Muslim world was extreme, and it reflected what nobody had doubted (as far as I can tell), namely that Islam is in dire need of something comparable to the Enlightment to be on eye-level with Westerners in matters of discourse. The reactions to a statement, which was quoted out of the context, itself being a quotation from a medieval source, made by Benedict XVI, provoked similar reactions as I’m sure you recall.

    Now, I think there’s a difference between being provocative and possibly offensive yet stating the truth or getting insulting through lies; generalisations might qualify as lies. (That is what the courts in the Netherlands are going to establish in Wilders’ case, yet he has chosen to adopt a victimology that insinuates he was already suffering from the verdict, and as far as I could find, there hasn’t even a restraining order been issued.) It would also be an unfair assessment to claim the wrongdoings of, e.g. the Rubashkins or those tznius forces attacking women were reflective of the entire Orthodox movement even if their actions might find a higher degree of approval among that group.

    Should a state’s legislative be able to interfere with possible demagoguery? It might be a case-to-case matter (case as in country), but there should definitely be the possibility for either side to appeal to a state’s judiciary. There are plenty of severe critics of Islam and Islamism over here. As long as they’re reasonable, the state should protect their right to voice their criticism. The state should, however, not act as an enabler to non-democratic views.

    We do have issues with Muslim immigrants in Europe, but despite the popularity of that claim, there is no general jihad. And attempts at polarizing between Muslims and non-Muslims won’t solve those issues. If anything, we need to show that moderate Muslims that are respectful of Westerns norms and values are welcome and thus strengthen their positions against those of the extremists instead of pushing them into the extremists’ corner.
    And the problems aren’t just political / religious extremism, but also crime in general, but not every immigrant is a criminal.

  • This is the nub:

    As long as they’re reasonable, the state should protect their right to voice their criticism.

    Who defines “reasonable”? The State? If so, then again, this is just a matter of caprice. If the government can define what is “reasonable” and what is not, we are in trouble.

    I have no problem if an individual Muslim, who is offended by Wilders or whomever, decides to bring a libel or defamation suit against him. That’s what the courts are for. The legislative or the executive branches of government should have no right to impose what they think is “reasonable” based on political considerations, no matter what they are.

    there is no general jihad.

    That depends on how you define “jihad”. I think the trend to reshape European society by gaining acceptance of such things as plural marriage, or self-censorship out of an exaggerated fear of offending Muslim sensibilites is definitely a part of the “soft jihad”. Everywhere people muzzle themselves out of fear of Muslim reaction. This eventually becomes a habit, and foreign and detrimental customs become part and parcel of society. Nobody fears Jews and Christians in this way. You only need one Theo van Gogh to get people to shut up out of fear of their lives…..sorry, out of “politeness”.

    Jews might learn something from this. Apparently, if you kill people you don’t like, the ones that are left alive learn to fear and respect you.

    Oh, yeah, what about Oriana Fallaci? And Brigitte Bardot?

  • Reasonable is what can be justified by reason; gross generalizations cannot. It’s actually a matter of definition in psychology, and I think most philosophers would not argue that (though Muffti would be able to tell us more should he make some re-appearance for a change).

    If “jihad” is equalled to a “holy war”, there isn’t any. Religion is used to stimulate aggression in terrorist supporters and henchmen, but if you look at the string pullers, their motivations are personal / economic ones. Islam is a proselytizing religion, therefore efforts to adapt their surroundings to their religious “needs” are not surprising, but authorities over here have repeatedly made it a point that immigrants need not only tolerate but accept the norms and values that are “ours”. Still, in Yugoslavia, Albania etc. we’ve had Islam at our doorstep for a while. Due to the Crusades, the cultural influence of Islam on Europe triggered by cultural exchange between soldiers was vast. There are lots of Muslims in Germany that came here from Kazakhstan. Yet, I’ve never seen any of those rallying against Israel or heard any of them voicing anti-Semitic sentiments. Curiously enough, it appears that most aggressors stem from countries with low literacy rates but not necessarily a low HDI.

    So what about Oriana Fallaci (nihil nisi bene de mortuis, so I’ll give her credits for her journalistic achievements) and BB (who, BTW, opposes any kind of slaughtering including kosher one)?
    What about Peter Scholl-Latour?

  • One can only use a term like “implies” if they know that it doesn’t refer to every aspect of an extremely sophisticated, delicate and complicated concept, and can actually refer to any given meaning.

    But what do I know? I shudder at the authority of ego of Jewlicious’ very own Torquemada. My circumcised foreskin just reels its way forward, as if to ask for a legitimate (second!) bris that otherwise just might never have occurred. At least, it might never have occured in the mind of someone who didn’t even know it can’t be performed TWICE!

    Now getting back to Tom, who actually has some intelligent points to make and doesn’t mistake his point of view and preference for equally applied standards of civility for a one-sided infallability (oh, I must mean a secular kind here! Dear Heavens.):

    First off, fiscal conservatism is one thing. A cynical, politically motivated counter-revolutionary rejection of mainstream Keynesian economics – by the same group that wasn’t fiscally conservative when the Keynesian approach wasn’t necessary, is hardly acting on principles that conform to established norms. Keynesian economics was not a liberal, welfare-state effort to upset some long-held conservative principle. In fact, Adam Smith might have even written something in support of it.

    And although a provincial New England delegation might have protested it, the first amendment established a secular government. If you want Christian principles governing the land, there’s a long-standing tradition in Europe (which we fled) for you to embrace. If you want to be so conservative as to reach back in history beyond the signing of the first amendment, then gather the votes and change the damn thing. Good luck with that. My assumption, however, is that even American conservatives can appreciate the venerable Constitution and Bill of Rights as a conservative enough starting point. Perhaps I assume wrong, though.

    Railing against the miniscule proportion of any bill that would go to the NEA, etc. is fine. Just don’t pretend it’s any more relevant than the miniscule proportion of the federal budget that goes to say, foreign aid for instance. It’s picking straws at that point. But if that’s all your side has, no biggie.

    And I’m not sure if you mean to make a serious point regarding Hobbes at this point or not. The fact is, if you want to rouse the sympathies of a bunch of nationalists with anti-libertarian sympathies, by all means, try to keep filling your once much-bigger tent with their hot air before it collapses further. But don’t kid yourself into thinking that your populist embrace of these rabble-rousers makes you any more conservative than the leaders of the French Revolution. It doesn’t.

  • Actually, that’s not what “imply” means. And the concept of Papal infallibility isn’t all that complicated; one just needs to bother to concern oneself with it.

  • Yeah, chicks with self-control issues are a huge turn-off.

  • And just for the sake of argument, didn’t I say “their own form of”… (insert whatever phrase put froylein’s panties in a bunch here). “Their own form of”. That construction seems to allow for some pretty wide latitude in the way of creative, metaphorical interpretation. But why decide whether or not to engage a substantive point when one can be a language Nazi? Why just let something go when your fragile ego is at stake and you can get some kind of vague, last word in?

    Alas. These are the many mysteries and unanswered questions left cluttered about by someone for whom politeness is a one-way street and who doesn’t realize that her obsessive-compulsive interest in insignificant and unexplained linguistic and theological details shouldn’t count against her after rattling off and revealing in post after post that she doesn’t know what a bris is. — Despite wanting to use that as an attempt to make a ridiculous point against someone else.

    Ephraim, Ben-David: Like I said, when someone is more interested in not feeling insulted and saving face, they are not interested in a substantive discussion so much as a tea party of the sort that monarchs love so. Just don’t be surprised when the emperor is shown to be wearing no clothes.

  • Despite the fact that your last reply is incoherent, and despite the fact that my last comment should put to rest your obsessive point-scoring need to one-up me on something so ridiculous as a metaphysical understanding of the definitions of words like “implies” and “infallibility”, I will note my disagreement with the contention (if I read you correctly) that an authoritarian personality makes it less likely that one has self-control issues – especially when it comes to morally defensible behavior.

  • A vague last word? What about: at least I prefer actually acquiring information over making up stuff, quoting Wiki or resorting to insults to cover up one’s apparent ignorance of the matters in question, even though people with not only little interest in but also little understanding of the subject at heart might consider them insignificant and unexplained.

  • I wonder how you try to apply metaphysics to the semantics of “imply” and “infallibility” as you could only do so, in the letter’s case, with a sound understanding of ecclesiastical law and history.

  • What about: Not coming up with a series of non-sequiturs as if they actually addressed what you stated in the previous clause?

    Once again, you make as many easily contested little points in each of these two remaining comments as you claim I did. But if I don’t keep my comments short and sweet, you will get confused, indignant and petulant (which is exactly the point I’m making). Listen, you blog here. My interest in, every now and then, posting comments in response to what you write, isn’t merely to insult you. It isn’t merely to make you feel less important than you somehow feel you should NEVER, EVER be made to feel. It’s because I actually might have a different, but legitimate, perspective on something you might have said. On something you, G-d forbid, might have missed.

    Now, most people who write don’t have a problem with that. They appreciate debate, they appreciate being challenged. They appreciate that the purpose of intelligent discourse isn’t to arbitrarily determine who has more authoritative standing in ever more and more academic fields under the sun. If you don’t, fine. Put a disclaimer with each post or something. But you can’t seriously pretend that these petty, and yes, often entirely irrelevant (and sometimes flat-out wrong) points you are making above would really do the same job more effectively, can you? I mean, at some point, doesn’t it come down to a different game than the one you think you’re playing? I ask this in all honesty because, although I try to do a good job distinguishing between I’m joking around, making a personal observation, and otherwise, I admit that it is downright impossible for me to know when (and if) you are doing the same.

  • I appreciate intellectual discourse, but I also know said discourse requires knowledge that you have sufficiently proved not to possess and are not interested in acquiring. At that, your comments are pointless. They are not confusing at all, rather annoyingly resonanting of unsubstantiated opinions. I’ll gladly discuss the case of the lifting of the excommunication of the Pius Brotherhood priests with anybody who has taken a look into the matter; I’ll gladly share any additional information needed to understand the issue, and I will even, though this was somewhat off-topic, discuss why the Netherlands responded to Wilders the way they have based on the sources available, my experiences with Muslim immigrants to Central Europe and possibly also my opinion on such matters (that should not by any means be conflated by my trying to explain the Netherlands’ motivations in this case), I do, however, consider it a waste of time to be expected to respond to factually wrong information and false allegations provided by someone who cannot by any means compare to the many highly intellectual, educated, brilliant people I’ve had the pleasure encountering and partly befriending and learning from.

  • You can’t possibly be this stupid.

    Your entire comment is an exercise in self-contradiction.

    At least the deficiencies that contribute to the bad maneuvering that reifies the Vatican’s shitty P.R. appear to also be embraced by its defenders. When it comes to making yourself look like an ass, you’re in good company, Froylein. Ideologically speaking, of course. You do not know the difference between intelligent discourse and sophistry (“intellectual discourse”). Who, but a massive poseur, speaks like this? Feel free to revel in your pomposity and to expound upon matters that no one here has stated have made your “opinions” on the matter (if you even have any of your own) seem any more sensible. Feel free to continue mistaking the false pride you feel in keeping high intellectual company with the pride that comes from being able to tolerate or engage disagreement, or from making compelling arguments.

    Oh, and feel free to keep responding to things that you say, in your characteristic way, that there is no reason for you to respond to. Feel free to keep saying it’s a waste of your time to respond to something, and then responding to it. Feel free to say you’re going to provide a citation or source for some idea (defensible or outlandish) and then never provide it. Feel free to keep proving to everyone what a pathetic poseur you must be. Feel free to keep showing how much more important image is to you than substance.

    Well now! Does that give you enough of a reason to want to kill me? Exposing you like this? Poseur.

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” And apparently no one can make you feel superior to them without massive amounts of self-deception. I seriously have never read anyone as delusional in cyberspace that went to such lenths to make sure others took them so seriously. It’s really a Lewis Carroll novel caliber of ridiculous.

    Oh, and Ephraim and Ben-David: This is the reason Europe’s going down the tubes. Froylein may be too much of a snobby European to see it. But that’s just an illustration of the exact problem in different terms. It’s also why she refuses to recognize the larger implications you see in your disagreements with her, but she doesn’t.

  • …but you don’t. (Corrected typo from last sentence).

  • There’s a difference between intellectual and intelligent discourse, but it would either require basic knowledge of Latin or an etymological dictionary to comprehend either.

    I’ve just promised CK not to respond to you in kind. You’re not important or relevant enough for anybody on here to actually want to kill you. Now do yourself a favour and grace a blog with your commenting skills the average contributor to which does not own or have read any books.

  • “You’re not important or relevant enough for anybody on here to actually want to kill you.”

    Yeah, perhaps. But for some reason everything I say sure gets under your incredibly thin skin. I’m wondering if Ephraim or Ben David took your responses to them seriously. Do they qualify for your standard of cyber-scholarship? Doesn’t silence, according to you, imply agreement? Yes, it’s all starting to make sense.

    And regarding Latin, etymology, etc… Blah blah blah. It’s just your standard way of saying “I’m too smart to put up with you having an opinion that I still, for some reason, feel challenged to reject. Failing that I will reject the messenger.” Same response I’ve always heard.

    Shavua Tov and hope you find some time during the week to look up from all those books and grace your inferiors with your world-reknown intellect. (Despite wasting five comments disputing my religious identity before revealing that you didn’t even understand the concept of circumcision).