2.26.2009

Dept. of Forced Apologies

Surprise, surprise. From the Times:
A bishop whose recent rehabilitation by Pope Benedict XVI provoked global outrage has apologized for remarks in which he denied the Holocaust, a Catholic news agency reported on Thursday.

The bishop, Richard Williamson, was one of four traditionalist bishops whose excommunications Benedict revoked last month. In an interview broadcast on Swedish television several days before that, Bishop Williamson, a Briton, denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers and the scope of the Holocaust.

In a statement published by the Zenit news agency on Thursday, Bishop Williamson said: “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.”
I've already written about this, so perhaps I'm a bit biased. But it seems a bit vague. Let's try to be a bit more concise, shall we?

"Wow! Whoa! Hey, world! Didn't expect that you'd be paying attention! Those are some horribly offensive views of mine, aren't they? Bet the Vatican didn't see that coming, huh? Anyhow, now I have to feign surprise that the world's Jews are offended by my saying something horribly offensive, and knit my brows and pretend I had NO IDEA they took that whole Holocaust thing so seriously. So, um... I totally had no clue you'd all be so upset. Or that it would make the Church look bad. And I don't get back in the Vatican's good graces until a say so, and look really sad. If I had known the huge [excrement] [weather pattern] that this would cause, I wouldn't have made those comments on the record. Whoopsie!"

No comments:

Post a Comment