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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 4, 2009 11:56:39 GMT
I am not sure where Christopher Pryor stands re: the SSPX these days, but he was a long time adherent of the movement. He belongs to a group of SSPX supporters who recognised traditional Catholicism uncomplicated by right wing ideology or conspiracy theories - much of which was, as stated elsewhere on this forum by Hibernicus, was neo-paganism with a Catholic veneer (my paraphrase). Christopher Pryor has been very brave in the stands he has taken and in naming names around Mgr Williamson as he has done, often incurring attacks from SSPX adherents, some of whom are of the basic persuasion of himself. Mr Pryor is doing, and from what I see of the blog, is continuing to do very valuable work. He took down an earlier blog at the request of the SSPX US District a couple of years ago in the interests of harmony. But sometimes harmony is better served by going out on a limb. Of course, he will be accusing of infringing the Eight Commandment. But I have read Christopher Pryor's post for sometime now, and I know he has a background as a criminal lawyer and he is extremely careful in what he says. Just shouting 'calumny' is not enough - if the charges are rebutted, they will be withdrawn.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 7, 2009 16:40:12 GMT
It should be borne in mind that US libel laws are different from those in force here - you can say what you like about a public figure (defined very broadly) so long as they can't prove malice.
Over on Ignis Ardens, by the way, the members are debating the refusal of the Anglican Church commissioners to sell a disused church in Manchester to the SSPX. This is partly because of objections from the Jewish community because of Bishop Williamson's statements, and the English SSPX leadership have been trying to counter this by stating that Williamson does not speak for them. It says much about the sort of people who post on Ignis Ardens that several posts denounce the leadership for distancing themselves from Williamson, while others treat the Jews' opposition as reflecting sheer malevolence, as if there was nothing in recent history to make Jews legitimately disquieted by groups whose leaders utter such poison against them as Williamson has done.
IMHO the SSPX should be allowed to buy the church , but this refusal is a natural consequence of the wretched career and usurped orders of Bishop Williamson, that master of the spiritual life as the HIBERNIAN was wont to call him. A bad tree bears bad fruit.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 7, 2009 17:02:31 GMT
Depends how anti-semitism is defined. Williamson goes beyond the Papal record on this matter (which does indeed contain much that is shameful). The man is basically a Nazi.
Before Ezigbotutu starts priding himself on anti-semitism being a purely religious phenomenon, I would remind him that there is a long tradition of secularist anti-semitism which denounces the Jews as a pack of Oriental savages whose worst crime was the invention of Christianity. Voltaire had it very badly; Karl Marx's witterings on the Jewish Question in which he equates Judaism with usury are rightly despised, and quite a few European and American secularists before the Holocaust loved to denounce Jews for remaining Jews and not assimilating. This sort of mindset went underground after the Holocaust, but there are traces of it in the claim of certain "New atheist" thinkers that those Jews who chose death rather than apostasy were the victims of their own religious bigotry and thus another example of the evil effects of religion.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 11, 2009 9:29:46 GMT
The discussion deals with a specific problem among traditional Catholics. I would not address points raised which either show no understanding of that current problem within its context. If they are refuted in the course of the discussion, well and good, but no one need trouble themselves unduly when ill-informed red herrings are tossed in.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Aug 12, 2009 15:32:29 GMT
To return to the original point, it appears that Bishop Williamson is only maintaining a semblance of silence and his opinions are being disseminated by Stephen Heiner, who has been a constant supporter over the years. This is the view of those SSPX supporters who oppose Bishop Williamson.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 13, 2009 13:28:03 GMT
Sometimes it appears there is a Williamson supporter around every corner. Thankfully, they aren't that powerful.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 17, 2009 10:46:35 GMT
Perhaps Ezigbotutu is unfamiliar with the history of aggressive pagan anti-semitism in Classical Alexandria, which preceded the Christian era (at a later date Josephus wrote AGAINST APION in response to it), or the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to forcibly suppress Jewish worship, which led to the Maccabean Revolt.
BTW I remember Christopher Hitchens publishing an article last year in which he expressed regret that the Maccabees were not defeated on the grounds that this would have led to the suppression of Abrahamic monotheism, which he opined as an atheist would have been an inestimable blessing.
Bishop Williamson is IMHO a true heir of Apion and Antiochus, and Hitchens is a striking example of how some forms of atheism justify religious persecution, including of observant Jews.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 18, 2009 11:47:11 GMT
As Sceilg on his IRISH BULLETIN blog and the kooks of the HIBERNIAN used to promote John Sharpe and his IHS Press (publications include a reprint of GK Chesterton's IRISH IMPRESSIONS and a two-volume collection of essays opposed to the IRaq war entitled NEOCONNED) as authentic voices of Catholic social teaching, this post on the Fringe Watch blog may be of interest. A judge dismissing a defamation suit brought by Sharpe against his critics, outlines how Sharpe's interpretation of Catholic social doctrine rests on the belief that there is a worldwide Jewish conspiracy which directs the worldwide financial system for the purpose of enriching its own members: With respect to the particular public controversy inquiry, the Court finds that Sharpe, writing from the perspective of an advocate of his personal interpretations of the very conservative Catholic Social Doctrine, frequently writes or compiles, re-publishes, or endorses the writings of others that criticize the alleged role of Jews and their perceived conspiratorial efforts to dominate the United States Government, world financial markets, the media, and world events, including but not limited to, the September 11, 2001 attacks by Islamic extremists in the United States and the resultant United States’ and other western nations’ involvement in armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. While relatively broad in their scope, Sharpe’s writings and those which he otherwise published or endorsed on the websites of the Legion of St. Louis or the IHS Press (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Sharpe’s writings” or “his writings”) coalesce around one common denominator, that is, suspicion and criticism of the role of Jews in world events, including the perceived cause and effect of such Jewish efforts on the downfall on western Christendom and, in particular, Catholicism. Sharpe’s writings take a macro view of perceived Jewish influence, variously referring to it in such ways as “Judeo-Masonry”, the “Jewish Nation”, “World Judaism”, “World Jewry”, and “depending upon who is asked, what makes someone Jewish, is anything from their religious persuasion to their ethnicity, to their nationality, to the religion or ethnicity of their maternal parent.” Special Feature: WTC and the Pentagon Attacked. Part III, a writing authored by Sharpe and published circa October 16, 2001, on the website of the Legion of St. Louis. [...] In paragraph three of the March 15, 2007 editorial the defendants state that, “Sharpe’s views aren’t dangerous because they are openly racist and anti-Semitic, though that would be bad enough. His ideas are dangerous because they’re crazy, and when uttered by a commissioned officer, they take on the aura of authority”. Although one might argue that the defendants uttered only opinion in stating that Sharpe’s views are “openly racist and anti-Semitic”, Sharpe claims that the defendants therein make factual assertions and defamed him by doing so. Complaint, paragraphs 6 and 20. Viewed as allegedly defamatory factual statements respecting Sharpe’s views, the Court grants the defendants summary judgment. The Court, having thoroughly reviewed the corpus of Sharpe’s writings, and especially those selections personally authored by him, concludes as a matter of law that the writings do espouse anti-Semitic and racist views. [...] Sharpe’s views, as expressed in his personally authored writings, align almost perfectly with both the traditional and more modern expanded definitions of the term “anti-Semitism”. Indeed, on one occasion, Sharpe admitted, in effect, that a hypothetical enlisted member of his command might well have considered his writings to be anti-Semitism. [...] No reasonable person can read Sharpe’s individual writings and conclude that he espouses anything other than a deep, abiding and pervasive suspicion of and hostility toward Jews, whether considered as a collective people, religion, nation or ethnic group. From his perspective as an advocate of the Catholic Social Doctrine, he considers Jews to be in direct competition with western Christendom, in fact, seeking to bring about its end, and also responsible in whole or in part for nefarious and self-centered domination of the United States Government, one or more of its former Presidents, the media, the world financial markets, and, bearing responsibility for such events as the terrorist attacks on United States soil occurring on September 11, 2001. fringewatcher.blogspot.com/2009/08/judge-issues-ruling-on-john-sharpe.html
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 18, 2009 11:54:42 GMT
I might add that many (not all) American sovereigntists (i.e. exponents of the view that the US should leave all international bodies, abandon its overseas commitments, and pursue a policy of isolationism and autarky) hold explicit or implicit anti-semitic beliefs (e.g. that no American interests were at stake in the Second World War and that the US was unnecessarily dragged into that conflict at the behest of influential Jews in order to save Jewish interests at the cost of American Gentile lives; that economic globalisation confers no real financial benefits but is simply an example of Jewish financial speculation at the cost of others' lives and well-being; that American foreign policy, including overseas alliances and troop deployments is simply driven by the desire of Jews and their accomplices to protect Israel and confers no real benefit on America). I also suspect that some Irish ultra-sovereigntists have uncritically adopted these conspiracy theories without realising the darker implications which their authors have in mind.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 18, 2009 13:52:48 GMT
I think there is a substantial feed between these groups and our own right wing fringe.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2010 18:57:24 GMT
Lest we forget - yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Feb 2, 2010 12:31:28 GMT
Not to change the subject - there is plenty of awareness of the Jewish Holocaust and the likes of Dickie Williamson and ex Maria Duce just highlight this. How many people know when Armenian Holocaust Rememberance Day is?
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 2, 2010 15:24:37 GMT
I don't, I'm afraid - when is it? I would point out however that this thread is not about genocide in general but about the specific problem of Catholic antisemitism. The perpetrators of the Armenian genocide did not draw on Catholicism for a partial justification of their actions. (I know quite well that the Nazis were pagans, but there was certainly an element among the perpatrators who drew on Catholic antisemitism to justify their actions, or who were "sensitised" by Catholic antisemites before going further). I agree we ought to know more about the Armenians - they seem a very interesting people. Perhaps in the Eastern Rite thread on the liturgy forum?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2010 13:04:39 GMT
Here is an interesting article by Fabio Barbieri about relations between the popes and the Jews of Rome. (Lest anyone think he's a onesided apologist, I should add I have seen him make some very critical remarks about aspects of Papal resistance to the Risorgimento). community.livejournal.com/fpb_de_fide/1203.htmlThis point about the danger of equating christianity with national identity is very well taken, in light of some of the stuff formerly posted by Sceilg on this thread. This unexpected, subterranean solidarity between Popes and Jews, hardly excluding mutual dislike and even hostility, but enduring nevertheless, seems to me to mirror a similar status both have in the world at large. Proverbs about them - Qui mange du Pape, en meurt; "The Jews have stood by the graves of all their persecutors" - are so similar in content that they might as well be reversed - "He who eats Jew, dies of it; the Popes have stood by the graves of all their persecutors" - without losing sting or truth. And the reason, I think, is in a similar position vis-a-vis the powers of this world. Both the Jewish nation and the institution of the Papacy exist in this world as a very definite and visible power, which is however justified not in purely political or ethnic terms, but by reference to a religious law that makes them what they are and that justifies their independence or separation. Both, too, tend to have their importance wildly exaggerated by their enemies. It has well been said that "Anti-Catholicism is the Anti-Semitism of the polite classes," and The Da Vinci Code is the exact parallel, not only of Titus Oates and Maria Monk frauds of centuries past, but also of the infamous Jew-baiting novels of the nineteenth century and of such stories as Chaucer's Tale of the Abbess. In a sense, the Papacy is the institution that makes Christianity MOST like Judaism; without it, it tends to revert to a mere state institution. But the intuition, or half-formed thesis, that started this article, is that not only are the Church and the Jewish people similar, but that it is extremely necessary to the Church that the Jewish people should continue to exist. Watching Jewish prayers being offered on that memorable occasion, I had a strong feeling that it was for the good of the Church and of Christianity that prayer should continue to be offered in the ancient Jewish form somewhere in the world. And I think I can argue that there is a reason - to do with our mental health, and ultimately our moral welfare. The existence of the Jews means the existence of a group who, whatever THEY think of US, claim, in OUR eyes, the same God, most of the same Scriptures - including many of the most beloved books - and the same Commandments, and who yet draw from it conclusions utterly alien to ours. Jewish sects have believed in reincarnation and numerology, or else denied eternal life altogether; always keeping faith with the Law and the Prophets. And yet, as St.Thomas said, theirs is the first Revelation. It is valid; Jesus, our Lord, said that Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but His word shall not pass away, and that until the end of the world not a jot or a tittle of the law shall be changed. This is one of the many riddles at the heart of Christianity. The Church has never, to the best of my knowledge, approved of "replacement theology", the notion, that is, that the New Community not only has a fuller revelation than the Old, but replaces it altogether in God's favour, leaving out "outside where is weeping and gnashing of teeth"; it is hard for us to believe that the Word of God can be revoked, that "dispensations" - as the Left Behind crowd calls them - can be altered at whim like the strategy of a losing football team. No, we have to accept that "in you [Abraham] all nations shall be blessed;" and that "He who blesses you, him I shall bless, and he who curses you, him I shall curse". What the presence of Jews does is to pose a permanent, radical question to us about our identity, and to pose it in God's name. It is my view that historical study will show that all the worst bouts of anti-Judaism in European history have to do with a conscious or unconscious tendency to nationalize Christianity, to move it from being "The Church wandering upon the earth" to being the religious part of a complete and self-limited community. No wonder that the worst of them all took place in the most radically communitarian state in modern history, Nazi Germany, where the subjective sense of the national community was called to become the objective heart of all national life, leaving no common ground between one nation and another. Long ago, the philosopher Aurel Kolnai argued that Nazi hatred of Jews depended essentially on the Jewish notion of a Law that is not rooted in the tribe, but in the objective nature of the universe. Hitler, says Alan Bullock, regarded conscience as a self-inflicted "Jewish" blemish, "like circumcision". And this link between the nationalization of religion and the persecution of Jews becomes all the clearer when we realize that nothing like it took place (except for a shameful and nerveless attempt at imitating Hitler from 1938 onwards) in Italy, the one country in Europe where there was absolutely no coincidence between the national spirit and the national religion. Italy had been created, among other things, by destroying the Pope's ancient kingdom, bit by bit - one slice in 1859, two big slices in 1860, the last in 1870; and until the early days of Fascism, there was a painful split in most Italian minds between the national religion and the nation. Christianity must never become national, for the same reason why it must never become utopian - the Kingdom of God is not of this earth. The presence of Jews is a direct challenge to any tendency of Christians to constitute an exclusive community, a terrestrial nation; and a reminder that the ways of the Lord are infinite, and the mansions in His house many.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2010 13:10:37 GMT
Here isa more recent Barbieri post on a related topic fpb.livejournal.com/467816.htmlEXTRACT This is a passage from the introduction to Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question, by Lucien Wolf, written in 1919 for the use of the Versailles Peace Conference: ...[vi]This collection does not pretend to be complete. The aim has been only to illustrate adequately the main lines of the theme with a view to practical questions which may arise in connection with the Peace Conference. American documents have been only sparely quoted, for the reason that the American Jewish Historical Society has already published a very full collection of such documents. (Cyrus Adler: "Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States.") The many generous interventions of the Vatican on behalf of persecuted Jews have also been omitted partly for a similar reason (see Stern: "Urkundliche Beiträge über die Stellung der Päpste zu den Juden") and partly because they have very little direct bearing on the diplomatic activities of the Great Powers during the period under discussion. Guess what? There really does seem to be a tradition of "Hitler's Popes". I for one had never even heard that the Vatican had ever intervened in favour of Jews before and during the First World War (when the main butcher was Russia, not Germany). Guess there are things that are not mentioned in polite society. END OF EXTRACT I suspect the reference is to the announcement by the Vatican during some "blood libel" trials (i.e. where Jews were charged with sacrificially murdering Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals) that the Church had investigated such claims in the past and knew them to be without foundation. ( This went back to Benedict XIV in the C18- I regret to say some earlier Popes did give the libel credence, as with Sixtus V's canonisation of "little Simon" of Trent, whose cult has now been formally abolished, who was alleged to have been murdered in that manner. The counter-Reformation historian Po chi-Hsia wrote a book on the Simon cult some years ago.)
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