Rorate Caeli’s Pope-Basher, Marcelo González: Holocaust Revisionist

I keep being told these people are a tiny minority in real life.  I have no reason to doubt it since I almost never meet them in my parish, just as I–living in the least-Churched city in America never meet militant atheists in real life either.  Something about face to face encounter almost always guarantees that socially unskilled people just don’t act out their social and emotional cluelessness–until they get on line and are no longer hindered by normal human interactions and are encouraged to behave like Dwight Schrute by their fellow socially unskilled dogmatists writing from their mom’s basements.

When that happens, you suddenly find that a group who constitute a tiny, sullen percentage of people in real life suddenly dominate conversations in great excess of their numbers and suck all the oxygen out of the room with their anger, paranoia and supremely un-self-aware tantrums.  And so we find that bitter SuperTrads (what one sane and healthy Traditionalist calls the “Urine and Vinegar Wing”) occupy a vastly bigger amount of time and space on the Internet than they do in real life since normal Trads are busy with, you know, Life and Happiness and Being Normal while these guys continue to cling to rage about their obsessions.  One such guy was busy in my comboxes last week, repeating variations of stuff I have had flung at me a thousand time in cyberspace.

Mainstream “traditionalist” Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger, F. I., writing (4-8-13) in the combox of Dawn Eden’s article (see below) thinks it is a little bit more prevalent than that:

The problem in the SSPX is not just Bishop Williamson. In December, Bishop Fellay said Vatican II was a not a Council of the Church but one of the Jews, Masons and Modernists. In its literature the SSPX draws a hard line between prejudice against Jews because of their race and that against their religion, and excuses their conspiracy theories on that basis. By the way, Michael Voris takes the same line. Antisemitism has been a problem among traditionalists for a long time and it goes largely unchecked from within.Dawn has been pretty charitable in this regard–more than I am inclined to be. Those attached to the EF need to clean house, so that others don’t have to do it for them. And yes, this is indeed one of the reasons there many bishops who want nothing to do with EF. There is a whole political and social side to traditionalism that needs to be purged once for all.

Perhaps the word “purge” is to easily misunderstood. My comment spoke of the political and social aspects that need to be changed. I was not talking about shunning people. The problem needs to be first of all acknowledged frankly.

This is an opportunity for traditionalists to denounce the problem. I did not say it was everyone. I say the EF everyday for our sisters in Cornwall. I have been saying the EF since 1995 (not everyday). I know what goes on in the traditionalist movement from the inside. There is a serious problem and anytime anyone brings it up, this is what you get. And so the problem will go on unabated. I hope you [Kevin Tierney] are right that the younger generation of traditionalists are improving.

. . . refuting the political and social aberrations; a little self-criticism; a bit of honesty that not all critiques of the trad movement are rooted in heterodoxy.

The present story goes back to an article posted at Rorate Caeli, by “New Catholic” (one of the moderators and webmasters) on 13 March 2013: the very day that Pope Francis was elected. It’s called, The Horror! A Buenos Aires journalist describes Bergoglio. It starts out:

We have many friends around the world, including in the dear Argentine Republic. And we asked a cherished friend Marcelo González, of Panorama Católico Internacional, who knows the Church of Argentina as well as the palm of his hand to send us a report on the new pope.

González proceeds to rip the new Holy Father to shreds, with the usual ultra-judgmental, uncharitable, pharisaical RadCathR boilerplate:

Of all the unthinkable candidates, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is perhaps the worst. . . . he openly professes doctrines against the faith and morals . . . A Sworn enemy of the Traditional Mass . . . he does not shine for his sanctity, he is loose in doctrine and liturgy, he has not fought against abortion and only very weakly against homosexual “marriage” . . . the future terrifies us.

“New Catholic” then ends the disgraceful, dissident / modernist / theological liberal-type  tirade with the obligatory disclaimer, in the long tradition of RadCathR doublespeak and equivocation:

The above is a personal assessment by the author and does not indicate any opinion of this blog or its contributors.

Yes, of course! [choke] And I have some beautiful oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you, too, if you believe that.

Blessedly, mainstream “traditionalist” Dr. Taylor Marshall spoke out strongly and quickly against this sewer scum garbage and other similar expressions. He exclaimed:

Way to go, trads! We have been working so hard under the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI to demonstrate that we are not an inbred subculture of angry, hateful, quasi-schismatic, Jansenistic, holier-than-the-Pope Catholics. Everyone thinks that we who attend the 1962 liturgy are judgmental, Pharisaical, and rude (click here for details). And guess what. You just amplified that terrible reputation one hundredfold. It seems that their contrarian words were spoken in the heat of passion – and the stirred up passions are the devils’ playground.

Now, fast-forward almost a month (remember cassettes and videotapes?), to Catholic writer and speaker Dawn Eden’s article, Traditionalists’ “expert” on Pope Francis is a Holocaust denier (7 April 2013, with several updates added). She wrote:

Being that I am a Jewish convert to Catholicism who attends Mass in the Extraordinary Form (the traditional Latin Mass), and am all too familiar with the antisemitism that Father Angelo Mary Geiger calls the “soft white underbelly of the Rad Trad movement,” I had a bad feeling about Gonzalez. Pope Francis was known in Buenos Aires as a friend to the Jewish community, even co-writing a book with a leading rabbi of the city, and I sadly wouldn’t put it past certain trads to harbor special resentment for him on that account. So, on a hunch, I looked to see what (if anything) Gonzalez had to say about Jews and the Holocaust.

It wasn’t hard to find.

What Dawn found was González’ despicable and outrageous article, “Holocaust and Hollowcaust” (Google Translation version; see original Spanish; dated 11-14-12). González has now provided his English translation. Another had already been given by “Bayou Ben” (4-9-13) in a combox at Rorate Caeli:

Sick of [or “Fed up with”] seeing how certain persons are manipulating and how others remain silent, one does not know whether [they do this] out of personal conviction or of fear of going against what is “politically correct” in certain settings, I decided to fix/cement my position on this topic.

The so-called “Holocaust,” which means in this case the death of an undetermined number of Jews in German prison camps during the Second World War, has been manipulated with [such] sickening frequency as to have become disingenuous concerning the truth of the facts.

We know that there are political, economic, and propagandistic interests [at play] in this [topic] [which are seeking] to establish figures of victims in the millions and, above all, to ignore the other victims that were not Jews. The first point, how many there were, I will not dispute/discuss, because I have neither the desire nor the historical authority to enter into said polemic. It seems to me licit/valid that others do so, as long as they provide proofs of their case and do not squawk when they suffer the consequences.

History, which is a subject in which I take great interest, does not permit me to accept the thesis that in said camps there were only Jews. There were also other prisoners. And, there were also Catholics, certainly many were priests, who resisted the Hitler regime for doctrinal or patriotic reasons. We should remember that Hitler’s doctrine/teaching is condemned by the Church on many of its points.

The laws concerning race in Germany, as well as those nations allied to or subject to Germany, although they were applied with various grades of enthusiasm, were clearly unjust [against the right]. If there had been any motive to isolate a [particular] community, such motive never could have been race. And, if it were not race [as some argue], I ask myself why Jews who had converted to Catholicism were included in the above-mentioned detention [camps].

In the United States, the Japanese community was forced into prison camps in California during the time that the war lasted. Was this measure necessary? The North American State understood that yes, for reasons of security, [it was necessary]. Okay, up to that point I can agree in theory with a measure of such type.

I can also understand that the conditions of life were very different in a country that was not affected by the war in its own territory, rich in food and fuel, and for that reason not rationing these things, as the Axis powers were forced to do, in particular in the final years.

What I mean is that perhaps many of the prisoners [could be said to have] died because of hunger or the poor sanitary conditions and that these deaths were not necessarily a product of the will of those who directed these camps, at least, not all of them.

However, it remains evident, proven by documentation that the Holy See as been declassifying in these last few years, in which Pius XII (whom some stupidly call “Hitler’s Pope”) actively protested against these persecutions and did what was possible to alleviate them [those in the camps] by means of diplomatic action and concrete material helps. Not everyone knows that Pope Pacelli received an emotional expression of gratitude from a great number of Jews who had emigrated with the help of the Holy See, as even Golda Meir recognized.

And [Yet?] it is said that to say that everything done by the Axis [powers] was a cruel plan of systematic extermination is as unacceptable as to affirm that those who were detained in the said-camps lived in a recreation/resort facility. That is, the Holocaust Story comes in two versions: the Jewish and the anti-Jewish. And the truth of the facts is the most conspicuous victim [of all]. Moreover, it will continue being so, because it is well known that this topic may not be discussed, because the authors of one version, the most profit-making version (that of the pro-Jewish Holocaust Story), have many ways to silence an open and rational debate.

Nonetheless, passing on to the part that really matters to Catholics in their Faith, given that the other is an historical discussion, it is much more important to consider, and [it is] inacceptable, that some high-up hierarchs of the Church [simply] accept as correct [only] one version, the politically correct one, with the added irritant of assigning it—and this is worse—a theological value: “one cannot be Catholic and deny the holocaust.” This is an absurdity, a heresy, and a stupidity. No historical fact/happening can become a truth of the Catholic Faith. The truths of the Faith that have an historical fulfillment have already been defined and in good measure [already] accomplished. The Incarnation, the Redemption, and in the future the Judgment of the Nations preceded by the reign of the Antichrist.

Dawn, of course, was then subjected to an avalanche of hate-filled rhetoric at her own site (that continues unabated to this time; please pray for her). She observed:

Rorate Caeli commenters have shown their true colors with viciously antisemitic comments to this post. I have allowed some to appear in the comments section here for the record, but the more vicious ones I have forwarded to other concerned bloggers, as I am occupied with schoolwork and do not wish to continue to engage the soft white underbelly of the rad-trad world. You may look for them on Mary Victrix, the blog of Father Angelo Mary Geiger, F.I., who has already written about this post.

Mark Shea was among those who took up the mantle. His post about it,  Why Would a Catholic from a Jewish Background Feel Unwelcome (4-9-13) has generated 167 comments, as of this writing, including more from the loudmouthed RadCathR anti-Semitic wingnuts. He added a second post the next day (4-10-13), reiterating:

The truth is that, on the Internet, Jew-hatred and self-identified Traditionalist Catholics are like peas and carrots and it is leaching out into the bloodstream of Internet Catholicism.

Again, not all Traditionalists subscribe to this filth. But on the internet, if you meet a Jew-hating Catholic, odds are in the high 90th percentile that he will tell you he is a Traditionalist. Odds are also very high that he is a warmly welcomed (“cherished” is the word Rorate Coeli used to describe their Holocaust Denier) contributor to a Traditionalist web.community. You constantly run into it all over the place all the time. And the absolutely worst way to deal with it is to shout “Stop talking about it” at their opponents when these people invade your comboxes, or get mainstreamed by puff piece interviews conducted by massively-popular-with-Traditionalists Real Catholics[TM] . . .

I put up my own link to her article and Mark’s first one on my Facebook page last night, and made several observations of my own on what I felt were necessary and important distinctions to keep in mind:

The issue for Dawn was not that Rorate Caeli was itself a Holocaust-denying outfit, but that it used a lousy source (those are two entirely different claims).

***

Some things are dealbreakers, in terms of whether someone can be considered a reliable source or not. Holocaust denial or Holocaust “minimizing” is one such thing, I would contend. Such a person loses credibility and shouldn’t be a source. That remains true whatever the facts are about the EF Mass in Argentina.

That was Dawn’s point, far as I can tell. She said she was willing to apologize if Google translated the article incorrectly.

***

People can reasonably disagree on the “implementation” issue, I suppose. Dawn was basing her assessment on info. she got from Fr. Z and other posts, such as this one.

***

I don’t know what the facts are about the EF [Extraordinary Form, or Tridentine] Mass in Argentina. Folks are arguing about it. But I’m pointing out that it is a separate issue here that has to be argued separately: whether this source denied or minimized the Holocaust or not.

If he did, he should not be used as any sort of reliable source by anyone (even if he got this reputed fact right). If he didn’t, then that needs to be shown by a native Spanish speaker, in an analysis of his article, since he himself claims there are language subtleties in it that were missed.

***

[referring to anti-Semitism among commenters at Rorate Caeli] Toleration of truly hateful, bigoted material does suggest some sort of agreement with them; otherwise, they wouldn’t be allowed.

On my page I have a zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. When I caught wind that one of my FB friends was a Holocaust denier, he was gone in a heartbeat.

Allowing that sort of rotgut to be posted on a site is itself highly suspect.

My [Facebook] page is an example of a place where those three things are not tolerated in the slightest, and are grounds for immediate blocking.

***

This guy is a typical RadCathR: he talks out of both sides of his mouth. It’s sort of “Clinton-speak” or Orwellian doublespeak: the ability to say contradictory things simultaneously, so that if ever called on the bad stuff, one can say, “oh but you’re wrong, cuz over here I said x . . . “

***

I have agreed all along that this has no direct bearing on the state of affairs in Argentina regarding the EF and what Pope Francis did in relation to it (or on Rorate Caeli being anti-Semitic in terms of policy or at the highest levels).

To me it is simply a matter of a source being discredited and the responsibility now of Rorate Caeli to admit this and to stop the diversionary tactic of objecting to the messenger (Dawn Eden). The stakes are high, though. They may dig in.

It’s always better in these sorts of things to quickly admit the wrong and move on. If a cover-up or rationalization is attempted, it makes it 100 times worse.

***

For me (and I think for Dawn), the main issue is using a source who engages in Holocaust revisionism. I just read the entire translation from “Bayou Ben” and I think it’s outrageous. It’s true he doesn’t outright deny the whole thing, but he denies that the Nazis had a “final solution” and compares it to Japanese detention camps and other such things. I don’t see how a positive slant can be put on it.

To me he has lost all credibility as a source. Granted, perhaps Rorate Caeli didn’t know this when they used him as a source (I sure hope they didn’t know), but now they do, so they should denounce his views and him as a source.

If the blog itself is not anti-Semitic [as a source who knows a bit about it told me], all the more reason to denounce Gonzalez’ thinking on this. If it’s not done, then it’s almost as bad, since a venue that denounces anti-Semitism generally, won’t do it in a particular case.

Curious, I did some searching, myself, regarding González and the Holocaust, and his views on Jews. I found an article, dated 25 February 2009, entitled, “Holocaust Denying Bishop Storms Out of Argentina.” Guess who shows up in it? It was about the schismatic, anti-Semitic SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson, who is so extreme that he was actually expelled from the SSPX in October 2012. But here is González defending him in February 2009:

Marcelo Gonzalez, a journalist and church-goer, said Williamson had overstepped his bounds as a bishop, but objects to his expulsion.

[Marcelo Gonzalez, Journalist]:

“I agree that what he said was imprudent. It’s beyond the responsibilities of a bishop. A bishop shouldn’t express opinions. His responsibilities are exclusively religious and spiritual. But it doesn’t warrant kicking him out of the country. What he did in the country must be considered.”

Argentina is home to one of the world’s largest Jewish communities outside of Israel.

Williamson had said he believed that no more than three hundred thousand Jews died in Germany’s Nazi concentration camps rather than the widely accepted figure of six million.

In justifying his expulsion, the Argentine government cited irregularities in his immigration application and condemned his remarks on the Holocaust as “deeply offensive to Argentine society, the Jewish people and humanity.”

From the Wikipedia article on Williamson:

Citing the Leuchter report,^[52] Williamson has denied that millions of Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps and the existence of Nazi gas chambers^[13][55][56] and praised Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.^{[45][46][49][50]} During an interview on Swedish television recorded in November 2008, he stated: “I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler”,^[56] and “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers.”^[13][55][57]

Here’s an article about the gas chambers at Auschwitz (not for the faint of heart).

I then found an ultra-anti-Semitic comment that was posted on González site on on 9 February 2009 [apparently originally in English], which means it has been there for over four years (since I found it in a search). The name of the post it appears under, is “El Comentario del Día” (2-8-09) [paragraph breaks added]:

alguien que sabe

Transcribo un artículo en referencia al tema que “sacude al dogma católico”: tener duda razonable sobre eventos históricos; Lamento que esté en inglés: “The tenor of this article from the untrustworthy German-Zionist press ( Deutsche-Welle | Feb. 7, 2009 http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4010109,00.html) is that Bishop Williamson is about to recant and intends to recant unless new revisionist evidence convinces him otherwise. 

This is not the case. His intentions are pure. He is only keeping an open mind. He has made no decision to recant and he is not disposed to recant unless the exterminationists can prove their case. As Robert Faurisson, Arthur R. Butz, Carlo Mattogno, Samuel Crowell, Paul Grubach, Fred Leutchter, Richard Widmann, Brian Renk and many other competent and courageous revisionist scholars have shown, the case for the execution gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau has never been more flimsy. 

For myself (I am not speaking for Bishop Williamson!) St. Paul gave us the warrant to doubt in Titus 1:14: “Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” If the whole media were tomorrow to confront me and say I must believe that the moon is made of green chesse, it is not incumbent on me to prove that it is not made of green cheese! The obligation is on those who assert the proposition. This writer is forever absolved from having to believe in the homicidal gas chambers of Auschwitz. 

I was a reporter at the first show trial of publisher Ernst Zundel in Toronto in 1985. I reported it from the press gallery in the courtroom, as an accredited member of the media. I observed as the “infallible” Judaic “eyewitnesses” to the gassings were finally cross-examined instead of pampered and worshipped, in this case the cross-examination was conducted by the skilled defense attorney Doug Christie, guided by Prof. Faurisson, who led the Zundel defense team. Under cross-examination it was these Judaic “infallible eyewitnesses” who we are commanded by the Vatican to believe as if they were the angels of heaven–it was they who recanted, including the famous War Refugee Board “eyewitness” Rudolf Vrba. According to the pope, the Vatican, the media, the blood-drenched killers of the Israeli regime and all the planet’s leading moralists, it is some kind of mortal sin not to believe these liars. 

Sorry. I was there. I saw them confess their lies. Dr. Raul Hilberg testified at the same trial, also for the prosecution. He was the “dean of American ‘Holocaust’ historians.” Under cross examination he could produce not one autopsy report showing that anyone had ever been gassed at Auschwitz. Not one. Burn me at the stake, but I do not believe that anyone was ever gassed to death at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the words of Prof. Arthur R. Butz in his classic treatise, this notion is “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.” And what of the German eyewitnesses like agronomist Thies Christophersen who were stationed in Auschwitz and testify that there were never any homicidal gassings? He gave this testimony in spite of it being, under modern German law, illegal for him to do so. 

If the modern Catholic Church makes this execution gas chamber fable a litmus test for fitness to hold church office, as Pope Benedict XVI seems to have done, it is the end of the credibility of modern Catholicism. Benedict’s move is an extension of the rabbinic Shoah theology pioneered by Pope John Paul II, who “infallibly” declared as part of the canonization process of Edith Stein, who became a Catholic nun and died tragically in Auschwitz, that her cause of death was “gassing.” 

Revisionist skepticism — toward Auschwitz-Birkenau gassings or any statement of any Orthodox rabbi on any point of Scripture, theology or history –such skepticism is divinely warranted by Titus 1:14. No Orwellian rewrite or Talmudic-Vatican nullification will every overthrow what the Apostle Paul declared to be the right of every Christian. I’ll take the Apostle Paul over the modern Vatican Saul any day. If Pope Benedict really did act as the Vicar of Christ and the heir of St. Peter, he would tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the disgusting jailer of writers and scientists, and the Israeli rabbinate, the depraved purveyors of lies and hatred for Jesus Christ, to butt out of the affairs of the Church! 

 Instead, we see the usual servile Machiavellian gamesmanship. A few years ago Bishop Williamson made an analogy between cutting deals with the Vatican and the famous cautionary poem by Mary Howitt, whose signature line is, “Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.” May God grant the bishop the grace and tenacity to recall that wisdom now, in this great crisis, when the eyes of the world are upon him, so that he will cut no deals and recant no doubts about “commandments of men that turn from the truth.” 

By so doing he will earn the thanks and admiration of every sincere truth-seeker, and what is more by far, He will glorify the Name of Yahweh our God, and His Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Michael Hoffman 

(Hoffman is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and the author of “Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit)” http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/
Enviado por Anónimo el Lun, 02/09/2009 – 10:42.

Again, I have no problem granting that Rorate Caeli (and/or, “New Catholic”) was probably unaware of this rotgut, posted (and allowed to remain) on the site of their “cherished friend,” Marcelo González. If they ever read this, now they do, and it’s a different ballgame altogether. We’ve seen more than enough for González to be discredited as any sort of “reliable” source: let alone one to bash and trash the pope, starting from Day One.

González feebly defended his remarks in an “addendum” article. Dawn Eden replied in a fifth update to her article (dated 4-10-13):

When I have time . . ., I will post more thoughts on the matter. Here is my initial reaction to the “clarification”:

Gonzalez says in his non-apology apology,

For this reason, I clarify, or rather I reiterate that I am convinced that the Holocaust (that is, the death of millions of Jews in concentration camps or on their way to them during the Second World War) is a fact of uncontested historicity. Other aspects – of which I cannot speak, because I am no historian – remain in the academic sphere.

Note what he is not saying–that there was a systematic, state-sponsored plan of extermination. In his article, he in fact denies such a plan, offers other reasons why Jews died, and claims that one who accepts that there was a Holocaust “may incur in an historical error of judgment.”

So he is a Holocaust denier–because the Holocaust was nothing if not “a program of systematic state-sponsored murder” of Jews, to use Wikipedia’s current and very apt wording. It is true that the Nazis also targeted millions of others for extermination because of their race, Catholic or Orthodox religion, disability, homosexual behavior, or political affiliation, and it may be legitimately argued that the killing of these populations should be included in the term “Holocaust.” But to cast doubt in any way upon the Nazis’ systematically murdering Jews is outrageous.

In Update #4, she had written:

Thanks to the relatively few lovers of the Extraordinary Form who have written with their support. [As of 4/10/13, many more have written. Thank you!] To those who love the traditional Mass and have not commented: If you don’t want the Extraordinary Form community to be dismissed as a bunch of hate-filled, antisemitic cranks, you need to raise your voice in the public square, and not be afraid of what the veils-and-brocade police say about you.

Lastly, we have the pathetic, patronizing, head-in-the-sand Rorate Caeli / “New Catholic” response to Dawn Eden’s article (4-8-13): that never mentions González himself (nice touch there, guys!). Here are some highlights:

Unfortunately, Miss Eden (just yesterday) bought into the myth that the traditional Latin Mass was offered in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, and wrapped that misconception around unrelated issues in an attempt to smear traditionalists and this blog. . . . 

Now, Miss Eden’s non sequitur will not make us back down, since the main matter discussed in her post is absolutely irrelevant to the reality that there was no diocesan 1962 Latin Mass in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires at the time of the election of the new Pope, and that is an absolute truth. . . . Too bad Miss Eden did not link to us or ever mention us (since this seems to be a matter of specific concern to her) when we presented the first-ever online English translation of the “70th anniversary of the Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of the Netherlands on the deportation of the Jewish population” in our special series on 1942 in the Netherlands. . . .

Catholicism demands from us to denude ourselves from all ideologies – but it seems some with highly ideological pasts and agendas (such as Miss Eden) have a hard time grasping that these ideological tests are not for us, that for Catholics the “test” to pass is a good confession, in the hands of a merciful God by way of the Priesthood of the New Testament, hoping and praying for final perseverance. We do not want to be “liked” or “accepted” or “deemed acceptable” or respectable by Miss Eden, but only by Our Lord in the Confessional and in particular judgment when time comes. . . .

We refused to be placed in a corner, but this is a matter we consider closed,. . .

Whatever the matter is, the very last thing it is, is “closed.” And Rorate Caeli will have a huge price to pay in “public relations” and credibility if this anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying sewer scum from the pit of hell, from Marcelo González (or his admirers on his site) is not thoroughly denounced, and by yesterday. Will they (in effect) wink at mass murder and the Holocaust or roundly, unequivocally condemn it, including denial of it even in “cherished friends” who are prominent sources utilized to trash the Holy Father? A word to the wise (or the unwise, as the case may be. . .).

So far, they appear far more concerned over at Rorate Caeli, with feet being washed by the pope (in imitation of our Lord) than with the feet of multiple millions of dead Jewish (and non-Jewish) corpses at Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. What would Jesus (or Pope St. Pius X) think about those priorities?

UPDATE #1 (4-10-13, 3:32 PM ET)  “New Catholic” has foolishly decided to ratchet up his polemical rhetoric, and to “dig in” even further: now descending, it seems, to the recourse of tired, 3rd-grade playground “mentally ill” and “filthy lucre” tactics. Replying to a commenter who stated, “many of the ‘Vatican II Catholics’ have gone out of their way to demonize traditional Catholics,” he replied (4-10-13):

True, as we have been personally reminded in the past few days. Much worse, of course, are those who have misgivings about post-conciliar events, but demonize traditional Catholics with even more vigorous hatred, either to sell books, or to ingratiate themselves with publishers, or with those who would despise them otherwise. It is impressive how they write and speak insane and violent words to earn “respect” from the wrong side, “that they may be honoured by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.”

Of course, the answer from us is the same we advise others to do: do not engage, never engage, we should not engage with those in need of a certain kind of help.

For starters, Rorate Caeli needs to renounce Marcelo Gonzalez as a source and utterly denounce his Holocaust denial. That seems straightforward enough. Instead, they are choosing to retrench. They don’t speak for “traditionalists.” Dawn dared to criticize them. She was entirely right to do so.

They’re gonna have hell to pay for this. The sooner it is dealt with, and the less cover-up, the better (as is the case in all scandals). It ain’t gonna go away and we are not gonna be intimidated and shut up about this, by 3rd-grade tactics and recourse to epithets. It’s too serious of an issue.

This sewer scum material reflects on all Catholics, and apologists like Mark and myself, who defend the faith, have to deal with it. It is Catholics, after all, who are spewing this garbage. None of us have denied that they are that. So it’s in our house, too (since it is one house and one Church), and we feel a responsibility to do something about it by speaking out and condemning it.

[my comments above were called “rhetorical scorched earth”]

I call it “tough talk against extremely serious sins.” There is a time for that. The prophets did it; Jesus did, the apostles and Fathers and Doctors of the Church all did. We need to do it today, too.

Any healthy movement is perfectly capable of self-policing and self-criticism. It’s only when a movement is too self-centered, self-important, and weak that it thinks it can never admit mistakes, that it refuses to do so. We see again and again the mentality that RadCathRs are above all criticism. If we dare to do it, it has to be motivated by either: 1) hatred, or 2) heterodoxy and disdain for Catholic tradition. None of that applies to me, nor does it apply to Dawn or Mark.

Some of the more pointed criticisms in this controversy have been made by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger, F. I., who has been “saying the EF since 1995.” So now he hates himself? He’s both orthodox and heterodox at the same time? We aren’t allowed, apparently to utter any criticism of RadCathRs — just like no one dares criticize Barack Obama for fear of being ridiculously tarred a racist, simply due to mere political criticism.

In the world of thinking adults, criticism implies exactly an underlying respect and an acknowledgment that the other can be persuaded by reason, because he is an equal and presumably a rational person (or group). But instead when we criticize RadCathRs we hear 1,508,208 times that it’s because of hatred or heterodoxy or absurd broad-brushing.

To me this proves that RadCathRs (as a broad generality) must greatly lack self-confidence or else they would be able and willing to have a normal, constructive discussion about issues that are brought up. Some can do that; many cannot. A long way to go there . . .

All of which is perfectly irrelevant and a matter of complete indifference to me. If I positively affect one person today — entirely by the grace of God, as are all good things — then I go to bed a happy man, content that I have done something good for the day, according to the lights God has chosen to grant me.
This is a terrible wrong, and I and others are denouncing it. I understood that Rorate Caeli was a prominent website and “voice.” Perhaps it isn’t. I don’t know; I’ve never followed it (this is what I’ve heard). But that’s a total non sequitur, too, as to whether it can or should be criticized when it is warranted.

In this instance, it is warranted, and it’s right, so we do it, whether one person or 10,000 read their site. Obviously, though, the more who read it, the more harm is done by their advocacy of a person who denies or outrageously revises the Holocaust.

Last updated on 13 April 2013. Terminology and classification of categories updated on 14 August 2013.