Vatican's Abu Ghraib

It's rather astounding. Here is the Pope rehabilitating a bishop, once ex-communicated, who is a blatant Holocaust-denier.

As Christopher Buckley reports on The Daily Beast:

"The running title of this blog is “What Fresh Hell.” This week’s heaping helping of fresh hell comes courtesy of Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four bishops whom Pope Benedict XVI has just un-excommunicated. A plainer way of putting it would be: rehabilitated.

The ecclesiastic quartet were elevated to Episcopal rank in 1988 by a whack-job (or “extreme right wing,” if you prefer) French archbishop named Marcel Lefebvre, as a means of protesting the modernist trends of the post-Vatican II church.

This repugnant episode is surely to the Vatican what Abu Ghraib was to the Pentagon. No, actually, worse.

Pope Benedict, the German cardinal formerly known as Josef Alois Ratzinger, lifted the excommunication in the interests of bringing the Lefebvre contingent back into the church. Mother Church is understandably sensitive when it comes to schisms.

This come-to-il Papa moment would almost certainly have gone unnoticed, even on a slow news days, were it not for the interview that Bishop Williamson had just given to Swedish TV. You really must view it for yourself."

Indeed! Go here to view the video clip.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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