The Pope's Pardon

In regard to the controversy of Richard Williamson, the Holocaust-denying bishop, Professor Stephen Prothero has written an essay for USA Today.  On January 24, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI nullified the excommunication of four bishops, including Williamson.  The bishops are members of the Society of St. Pius X, which advocates the Latin Mass, less proselytizing, and other such conservative policies.  Prothero writes, "Benedict is eager to fold that organization's extensive network of schools, seminaries, priests and believers back into what the papacy has long regarded as the one true church," to which end the Pope has revived the Latin Mass and has allowed relations with left-wing Catholics and Jews to grow tense.  This tension, Prothero says, cannot be compensated for by the Vatican's verbal affirmation of "full and indisputable solidarity with our brothers and sisters (the Jews)."  

He lists the major eras of violence of the 20th century--interestingly enough, not seeing fit to include Communism--and advises that "one of the great challenges today is to reckon with that violence, and to wrestle with what religious beliefs and institutions have done to either quell or incite it."  By way of an example of an unsatisfactory response to human violence, he relates the story of his students who decided the Nazis weren't Christians based on Jesus's Judaism.  This tactic of self-exoneration, he says, like that of many Muslims after Sept. 11, forestalls any study of the "how their religious tradition might have contributed to these horrors."  He concludes with the argument that the Catholic church must be an active participant in the dissociation of religion and violence.

The Society of St. Pius X's traditionalism is a phenomenon William Martin observes throughout Christian movements in America.  Indeed, he often associates American anti-modernism with intolerance--in one case, specifically with "anti-Semitic and pro-fascist themes" (21).  This would indicate that there is a tendency in religious circles, regardless of time period or geography, to feel enmity towards other beliefs.  Indeed, Prothero asserts a "long-standing connection between religion and violence."

On the whole, I agree with Prothero, particularly in that religion has been at the root of historical violence in many cases.  I think he is particularly on point when he advocates distancing the Vatican from anyone who seeks to pardon the historical wrongs of the Nazis.  He sets out, however, to show that the Pope's pardon of the bishops is an act of sympathy, but he does not ever prove that.  There is no examination of the Pope's reasons for either excommunicating them or forgiving them.  Rather, the essay seems to ramble towards a more global look at the related topic of religious intolerance.