* That's missal as in prayerbook. I know how to spell "missile."
Pope Benedict XV was acting to heal a rift in the Roman Catholic Church when he revoked the excommunications of four extremely right-wing bishops associated with French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, reinstating these members of the 38-year-old Society of St. Pius X although they reject the modern reforms of Pope John XXIII's Vatican Council II.
While understandable, the conservative pope's move is being viewed with dismay by Jews. One of the bishops has views on the Holocaust that differ little from those of neo-Nazis and those of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. British-born Bishop Richard Williamson said in a recently broadcast interview on Swedish television that the "historical evidence" was strongly against the conclusion that millions of Jews had been "deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."
So what were all those deaths -- accidents?
Williamson has also said in interviews that the U.S. government staged the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for invading Afghanistan.
It's no surprise, then, that Williamson, who headed a seminary in Connecticut in the 1990s, later moved to a seminary in friendly Argentina. That's where Nazis including Adolf Eichmann, Martin Bormann and Josef Mengele slithered off to after World War II.
What twist of mind would make somebody such a noxious fascist? And why would the pope legitimize a sick guy like Williamson?
Benedict can be allowed the three other fundamentalist bishops. In a basically conservative church, there should be room for views on the far right. But Williamson's views go too far. He should stay excommunicated as a strong message to the Holocaust deniers that their blind irrationality will not be tolerated by intelligent religious leaders.
