The other Catholic scandal: Bishop Williamson loses his case and a shameful misuse of the symbol of David

Judy Mandelbaum has a really interesting blog. I thought you'd rather see a picture of her than a picture of Bishop Williamson. Here's her latest:

APRIL 16, 2010
The other Catholic scandal: Bishop Williamson loses his case
Open Salon
Judy's World

Today a district court in the German town of Regensburg sentenced British traditionalist Catholic bishop Richard Williamson to a 10,000 Euro fine for denying the mass extermination of Jews under the Nazi regime, which is a punishable offence in Germany. Williamson was not present for the proceedings.

Williamson, a member of the ultra-reactionary Society of St. Pius X, an organisation founded by renegade French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to protest the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council, had been excommunicated for his activities and was then rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI in early 2009, despite a range of blatantly heretical and distasteful statements on his part, including public Holocaust denial. The Pope’s decision – supposedly out of ignorance – led to one of the most serious crises in his papacy before it was supplanted by the pedophile scandal later in 2009.

Williamson was born an Anglican in 1940 and joined the Catholic Church in 1971. He immediately gravitated towards the Church’s most reactionary doctrines. Bishop Lefebvre ordained him a priest in 1976 and consecrated him as bishop in 1988. Since this consecration had no legal standing, the Church formally excommunicated him within a matter of days.

In an interview for Swedish TV, which Williamson taped in Regensburg in November of 2008, Williamson stated among other things: “I believe there were no gas chambers... I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers... There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies!” ...


I recently was surprised to learn (even though it makes perfect sense, doesn't it?) that Palestinians are descended from Jewish farmers and herders of the biblical era. So the story below is not just about religion. It's about that pesky brother versus brother problem that humans everywhere seem to be burdened by.



ANOTHER STORY PROVIDED BY JUDY

Apr 15, 2010
Is the Star of David the new swastika?
In a disturbing reversal of symbolism, Israeli extremists are defacing Palestinian property with the Jewish symbol
By Judy Mandelbaum

Time was when Nazis used to slather swastikas on synagogues and Jewish businesses to prepare the local population for expulsion or much worse. It's sad that this sort of behavior persists around the world, as a new study by Tel Aviv University shows. But it's even sadder to see Israelis regularly defacing Palestinian property with Stars of David with equal glee and with what appears to be the same brain-dead mindset.

Your local paper might not have covered it, but in the wee hours of Wednesday morning a gang of Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank village of Hawara. "Palestinians reported two torched cars on the village’s central road early yesterday," Haaretz writes. "A small village mosque, used only on the weekend, had the word 'Muhammad' sprayed in Hebrew and a Star of David. Haaretz also found graffiti with the Jewish prayer 'Praise be onto him for not making me a gentile.'" The attackers also took the opportunity to destroy some three hundred olive trees, a major source of local income...