Maybe it was the tainted peanut butter. Maybe he was just tired of seeing Barak Obama grab all the headlines. There must be some explanation for the actions of Pope Benedict XVI beyond his being a crabby, miserable geriatrics who is drifting into irrelevancy. Whatever the reason, he has proven that no good deed does unpunished.
Dateline: Rome
Having already made every effort to offend the Muslims in 2006, The Vicar of Christ decided to take a page from the George W. Bush Isolationist Handbook and see if he couldn't stir up the Jews. One can imagine the Pope coming down to breakfast and announcing to his staff that he has had a great idea. "Let's reinstate Bishop Richard Williamson and the other three excommunicated dinosaurs who were consecrated by every body's favorite schismatic, Cardinal Marcel Lefebvre. Not only will we win points with the Society of Pius X (more later) but we will aggravate all the Jews and most of the Germans." (Actually the German people are probably sick of wearing a hair shirt over something that happened before most of them were born.)
Always the cut-up, Bishop Williamson repaid the Pope's kindness by proclaiming his assertion that the Holocaust was a radically overstated misunderstanding; actually something of a rounding error in the WWII death toll. According to him, a few Jews were killed (seemingly by accident) but not as part of any state-sponsored genocide. Certainly no gas chambers were used. Boy, wait until Steven Spielberg finds out. This bit of revisionist history has had the effect of making Benedict XVI look like a both a Jew-hater and a bad German, a rare two-fer.
The Vatican's public relations cleanup squad was quick to assert that the Pope was only trying to heal a rift with Cardinal Lefebvre and the Society of Pius X. The Society apparently believes that any attempt at liberalizing the Catholic Church is Godless and just a damn shame. They have exactly zero use for Vatican II and won't be happy until the Church returns to Latin Masses, unpadded kneelers and penances that involve whips with little knots. Think of the Bush administration but with cassocks. The Catholic Church seems to be up to their mitres in societies that favor "that old-time religion". (see also Opus Dei.)
This Papal tap dance may not have soothed the radical right in the Catholic Church but it sure frosted the good feelings with the Jews that Benedict's predecessor had tried to foster. Hopefully the Pope wasn't planning a trip to Jerusalem anytime soon, or to Germany either. People who disavow the Holocaust in der Fatherland end up in jail. Benedict now finds himself with: 1) an angry Germany, 2) angry Jews, 3) angry Church liberals and 4) a still unrepentant, off-the- reservation bishop. Talk about your diplomatic triumph. If Benedict could only find a way to annoy women, he'd have the quinella.
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