VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org): A Vatican spokesman says an apology from formerly ex-communicated Society of St Pius X Bishop Richard Williamson is not enough.
The Lefebvrite prelate released a statement on February 26 regarding his declarations aired in January about the Holocaust.
The prelate denied the gassing of 6 million Jews in an interview that aired on Swiss television about the same time as he and three other Lefebvrite bishops had their 20-year ex-communication lifted.
In his statement on February 26, Bishop Williamson said that observing the consequences of his interview, “I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them. … To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise.”
Director of the Vatican press office Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said in a verbal statement on February 27 that the apology was lacking.
He told journalists that the statement “does not seem to respect the conditions established in the February 4 note from the (Vatican) Secretariat of State, which stated that (Bishop Williamson) must distance himself in an absolute, unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah”.
Bishop Williamson’s personal views of the Holocaust are unrelated to the larger issue of the Society of St Pius X and that group’s lack of full communion with the Church.
The Vatican Secretariat of State note from February 4 clarified the position of the society in relation to the lifting of the ex-communication: “The remission of the ex-communication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of St Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church.
“The four bishops, even though they have been released from ex-communication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.
“A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of St Pius X.”
