Merkel: Pope must clarify Holocaust stance

[almaty 19]

BERLIN – German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Pope Benedict XVI to make a "very clear" rejection of Holocaust denials after a former bishop was rehabilitated by the Vatican.

Her rare and public demand came amid increasing outrage among Germany's Roman Catholic leaders over the pope's decision to lift the excommunication of British-born Richard Williamson, who questioned whether 6 million Jews were gassed during the Nazi Holocaust.

Merkel said she "does not believe" there has been adequate clarification of the Vatican's position on the Holocaust amid the firestorm of controversy that broke out after Williamson's rehabilitation by the German-born pope.

Benedict last week expressed "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews and warned against any denial of the horror of the Holocaust, but several leading German bishops have decried the German-born pope's decision and called for Williamson's rehabilitation to be revoked.

"I do not believe that sufficient clarification has been made," Merkel said.

The Vatican moved quickly to counter Merkel's suggestion.

"The pope's thinking on the subject of the Holocaust has been expressed very clearly," said Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi.

He cited Benedict's visit to a synagogue during his first visit to Germany as pope in 2005, a visit to Auschwitz in 2006 and his remarks during last week's general audience.

Lombardi quoted from what he called the pope's "unequivocal words" at that public audience. "I hope that the memory of the Shoah leads humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of men," he quoted the pope as saying. "May the Shoah be a warning for all against oblivion, against denial or reductionism."

Lombardi said that during the audience "the pope himself clearly explained the purpose of lifting the excommunication, which has nothing to do with any legitimization of positions denying the Holocaust, which were clearly condemned" by Benedict.

Merkel's stand was out of the ordinary, said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the New York-based American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.

"When the German Chancellor admonishes a German-born Pope it is an extraordinary message," Steinberg said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

"Together with the expressions of outrage emanating from German and Austrian bishops, these developments have ironically strengthened relations between Germany and the world Jewish community."

The issue is particularly sensitive in Germany, where denial of the Holocaust is a crime and Roman Catholic leaders have worked hard to restore relations with the Jewish community.

As a young man in Germany, Benedict, then called Joseph Ratzinger, served briefly in the Hitler Youth corps.

Earlier Tuesday, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the bishop of Mainz, called for an apology from "a high level."

"There must also be consequences for those who are responsible for this," Lehmann said in an interview with broadcaster Suedwestfunk of the decision to rehabilitate Williamson.

Williamson was consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent. The Holy See has said that removing the excommunication did not imply the Vatican shared his views.

Williamson, in an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, said that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

He cited what he called the estimates of the "most serious" revisionists that "between 200,000 and 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber

[Nagishkaw 510]

The Holy See apparently saw.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Good call by the German Chancellor...I imagine Ratzinger is frantically burning all his Nazi memorabilia right this moment.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Good call by the German Chancellor...I imagine Ratzinger is frantically burning all his Nazi memorabilia right this moment.

[GiGii 4]

Williamson, in an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, said that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

He cited what he called the estimates of the "most serious" revisionists that "between 200,000 and 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber

No one was gassed?! I guess all the vicitm's stories, the first hand accounts were all made up. And the list of millions of names that parished in Nazi concentration camps is made up too.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[one...two...tree 2,762]

[almaty 19]

Good call by the German Chancellor...I imagine Ratzinger is frantically burning all his Nazi memorabilia right this moment.

hmmm... the Holy see,,should have saw this coming

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Good call by the German Chancellor...I imagine Ratzinger is frantically burning all his Nazi memorabilia right this moment.

hmmm... the Holy see,,should have saw this coming

Ratzinger thought it was a game of hide and seek.

[Peikko 1,575]

It's just not something a religious figure can be seen to be ambivelant about - nor goverments for that matter.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Williamson, in an interview broadcast last month on Swedish state TV, said that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler."

He cited what he called the estimates of the "most serious" revisionists that "between 200,000 and 300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber

No one was gassed?! I guess all the vicitm's stories, the first hand accounts were all made up. And the list of millions of names that parished in Nazi concentration camps is made up too.

Essentially yes - that's exactly what Holocaust deniers promote.

The level of self-deception that goes on with that stuff is astounding.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

I want to protest that I am not allowed to post the really cool pics of Ratzinger transforming into Emperor Palpatine

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Is Merkel the Pope?

Is Len the Pope?

Or is the Pope the Pope?

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Is Merkel the Pope?

Is Len the Pope?

Or is the Pope the Pope?

Hell no --- those hypocrites excommunicated me a while back. Didn'tchaknow????

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Actually, I misrepresented Ratzinger's affiliation with the Nazi Party. From Wikipedia:

Following his fourteenth birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth, as membership was required for all 14-year old German boys after December 1939^[7], but was an unenthusiastic member and refused to attend meetings.^[8]His father was a bitter enemy of Nazism, believing it conflicted with the Catholic faith, according to biographer John L. Allen, Jr. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was killed by the Nazi regime in its campaign of eugenics.^[9] In 1943 while still in seminary, he was drafted at age 16 into the German anti-aircraft corps. Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry, but a subsequent illness precluded him from the usual rigours of military duty. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the War in summer 1945.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI

Sorry about that.