Bishop Williamson urges faithful to pray for “heroic” Holocaust denier

In a recent email newsletter, Bishop Richard Williamson urged his traditionalist Catholic followers to pray for Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, whom he describes as a “powerful defender of truth.” In Bishop Williamson’s email message, he said that belief in the Holocaust is a “lay religion” and “the main rival” to Catholicism in the modern world. Quoting Faurisson who says that the Holocaust is “a major instrument…of the godless New World Order,” Williamson says that Faurisson deserves “divine reward…for the heroic services which he has rendered to the truth.”

Bishop Williamson considers himself a leader of a popular “resistance” to Society of St. Pius X (which he believes is not sufficiently doctrinaire). This is not the first time he has promoted Holocaust denial to his followers. In fact, he has admitted that he uses some of the money he raises from them to defray the legal fees he accrues defending himself from charges of denying the Holocaust in places where doing so is against the law.

Posted in Holocaust denial, Richard Williamson, SSPX, St. Marcel Initiative | 3 Comments

Bishop Williamson addressed Right-Wing Extremist Group

Last month (Nov. 9-10), Bishop Richard Williamson was a featured speaker at a conference sponsored by the American Free Press (AFP), a right-wing extremist publication founded by Willis Carto. Williamson is a strong believer in the type of New World Order-conspiracy theories that are fundamental to the worldview of AFP’s core readership. The AFP’s own write-up of Williamson’s speech had the bishop saying that the New World Order is “laying the foundation for the rise of globalism under the anti-Christ” (AFP Nov. 25, 2013). In his most recent internet newsletter, Williamson reiterated his belief that “internment camps have been prepared all over the USA for any ‘rebels’ who will seriously oppose the New World Order” (Eleison Comments, Dec. 7, 2013).

Williamson fit right in at the conference, which featured such other notable anti-Semites as Willis Carto, Mark Dankof, Paul Fromm, and Texe Marrs. Also present at the conference was Andrea Hernandez, a High School student who unsuccessfully sued a Texas school district for requiring students to wear ID badges. Hernandez argued that because the badges included a microchip, they were tantamount to forcing students to wear a “Mark of the Beast” described in the Book of Revelations.

Posted in American Free Press, Mark Dankof, Paul Fromm, Richard Williamson, Willis Carto | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Bishop Williamson thinks you can walk on stars

Seriously. I don’t know how else to interpret this. In a confirmation sermon at the traditionalist Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, he was trying to explain that the truth of the Catholic church, as he and his compatriots see it, does not change. He reached for the following analogy:

“It’s obvious to common sense. You can go to the other end of the universe, you can find the most distant star from earth, and maybe it’s got a few stones scattered around on the ground — which it may well have if it’s not a burning star like the sun, it’s got a a surface which you can sort of walk on and pick up some stones [emphasis added]. On the other end of the universe you can pick up two stones here, and two stones there, and they would make four stones. You might change the word four, and make it five, and then of course two and two would make five, because you have changed the word. But you can fool around with words, you are not going to fool around with reality. Modern man seriously thinks that he can fool around with reality.”

Some traditionalist Catholics have other problems with basic astronomy, but this is a new one I have not heard before.

Posted in Richard Williamson | 1 Comment

Doug Christie’s unsent letter to Desmond Tutu

If there were any doubts about recently-deceased Doug Christie’s personal motivations, they have been swept aside by Bradley Smith, who in the latest issue of his newsletter shares the draft of a letter that Doug Christie wanted to send to Bishop Desmond Tutu in 2012. Christie’s goal was to get Bishop Tutu to publicly advocate that the Holocaust should be “debated” on the international scene. (Smith thinks Christie never sent the letter.) It’s a sharp letter, somewhat overwritten, but with a couple of chilling images — such as Christie’s description of the evil golem that roams the world, day and night, spreading lies and hatred in the name of pro-Zionist Holocaust orthodoxy. Here is an excerpt from Christie’s letter:

“Unlike Santa Claus, this 24/7/365 myth monger brings not presents, but a congeries of lies and hatred whose purpose is to disguise and justify the doings of the evil juggernaut of Zionism, all the way back to 1948, the dark year in which both Apartheid and Israel were enacted. This impregnably entrenched golem of duplicity and depredation is, of course, the relentless campaign against historical revision—of Israel’s history, for one, but of paramount importance, the so-called “Holocaust” of the European Jews. It takes not just the form of denial and counter-propaganda, but also a covert but massive campaign of repression through reputational terrorism that has ruined careers and even lives in the media, in the academy, in government, and in ordinary lives. Its agents—sayanim in their own language—are placed high, low, and above all densely in the venues just named, including your own, religion.

“The targets of this vicious initiative encompass not only good, honest, hardworking people (many of them Jews), but political integrity, academic freedom, and truth itself—values equivalent to the spilling of untold gallons of human blood and the stuff, as your actions thus far against Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine eloquently demonstrate you know, that makes the lives of humans, human.

“Could you see your way to directing your massive moral authority explicitly and vigorously against this hideous handmaiden of Israeli apartheid, whose shadow falls not merely on the Middle East, but across the entire world, inciting neighbor against neighbor, race against race, army against army, and nation against nation, the while murdering truth, honesty and freedom?”

Note that in this letter, Christie makes no attempt to provide Bishop Tutu with any evidence that the Holocaust is a lie. The strength of his argument depends, on the contrary, on his passionate belief that anything benefiting Israel and Zionism is inherently suspect. It is as if Christie is motivated not by his belief in Holocaust denial, but by his hatred of Israel. He may have been playing on what he thought would motivate Bishop Tutu, but the passion of Christie’s prose makes that hard to believe.

In fact, this is a line that many Holocaust deniers walk. Only a tiny fraction of anti-Zionists are Holocaust deniers, but a huge proportion of Holocaust deniers are anti-Zionists. It is actually getting harder these days to find Holocaust deniers who stick with “pure” denialist work without getting sidetracked by anti-Zionist causes. Carlo Matogno and Jürgen Graf are still at work, I guess. But I can’t think of any active U.S.-based Holocaust deniers of significance who aren’t bound up in the anti-Zionist cause.

Posted in Anti-Zionism, Bradley Smith, Desmond Tutu, Doug Christie, Holocaust denial | 2 Comments

The Missourian celebrates anti-Semitic pastor Herman Otten

Otten

Herman Otten, editor of Christian News

An editorial in a recent edition of The Missourian, a regional newspaper in Missouri, lauded Pastor Herman Otten of Trinity Lutheran Church in most impressive terms (“Dedicated to God, Church” in the May 3, 2013 edition). After a long list of superlatives, the editor praises Otten, who is now retiring from his church, as a “dedicated shepherd of his congregation,” who taught, counseled, and made house visits to his flock of worshipers. The editor also reveals that Otten’s newspaper, Christian News, is in fact published by The Missourian.

This is shameful. Herman Otten may have been a devoted pastor, but he is also a devout anti-Semite. He has publicly stated that the Holocaust is a hoax, and has defamed Jewish religious texts. In the pages of Christian News, he reprints vile columns from other anti-Semites, who allege that Judaism condones pedophilia, and who claim that contemporary Jews are threatening our country. We now know that The Missourian is responsible for enabling this material to enter the homes of its readers.

Otten’s obsession with Jews has persisted throughout the years since his infamous speech at the Institute for Historical Review. He has published articles demonizing Judaism and its holy books in his Christian News Encyclopedia, which he frequently cites in his newspaper. In 2013 alone, he has denied the Holocaust in almost every issue of Christian News. A good example is the March 18, 2013 issue, in which he devoted several pages to the life and work of Doug Christie, the lawyer who defended Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and other anti-Semites in Canadian courts. Otten’s coverage of Christie’s death was shot through with Holocaust denial, including his contention that “the vast majority of Protestant churchmen, professors and pastors…lost their credibility because they insist that some six million Jews were exterminated, most of them in gas chambers, by the Germans during World War II.” In that issue he also championed the cause of Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the Holocaust.

Otten also continues to publish columns by anti-Semites like Michael A. Hoffman II and Ted Pike. In the January 21, 2013 edition of Christian News he reproduced a column by Pike which stated that the threat of Arab or Muslim terrorism “pales compared to the threat of Talmudic Judaism and Jewish supremacism.” Pike says that Jews “facilitated communism, media domination, control of international banking and the U.S. Congress, as well as the proven ability to plunge America into multiple Mideast wars (sic).” He concludes with a call to “restrain [the Jews who] attempt to destroy everything and everybody standing in their way as they move relentlessly toward world empire.”

As I have said before, I understand that people may appreciate Herman Otten for the good work he has done in their lives, but religious leaders must be called to account when they disseminate hatred and bigotry. Otten’s legacy must record that for decades he has pumped anti-Semitism into the homes of all the readers of Christian News. Shame on The Missourian for publishing it. By continuing to do so, the editors facilitate the spread of hatred of Jews. As responsible community members they should cease doing so, and repudiate Otten’s views.

[Note: The Missourian should not be mistaken for the Columbia Missourian, which is published by the Missouri School of Journalism.]

Posted in Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Christian News, Herman Otten, Holocaust denial, The Missourian | 2 Comments

Bishop Williamson to visit NY and NJ

Bishop Richard Williamson

Bishop Richard Williamson

Bishop Richard Williamson will be conducting Mass and presiding over a conference on the “Crisis of Tradition” in Brewster, NY, on April 1. The focus will be on “the ramifications of the gradual movement of Tradition towards Modernist Rome.” Brewster is about an hour north of NYC.

On April 2, Bishop Williamson will conduct a Mass and another conference somewhere in NJ.

These visits appear to be sponsored by Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, in Boston, KY.

Over the past several months, Bishop Williamson has made many visits to traditionalist chapels scattered across the US and Canada. He has also reaffirmed his Holocaust denial. More on the latter in a future post.

Posted in Holocaust denial, Richard Williamson, SSPX, Traditionalist Catholicism | 3 Comments

Doug Christie, defender of anti-Semites, has died

doug_christie

Doug Christie

Doug Christie, the Canadian lawyer who represented most of the Canadian anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers who ended up in court over the past thirty years, has died at the age of 66.

Christie was not a disinterested, ACLU-type who defended his clients out of principle. His celebrity appearances at extremist events over the years suggest a comfort with their ideology – if not a positive adherence to it – that I found troubling. I am not the only one: In a 2000 expose of Christie in NOW Magazine, it was revealed that in 1993, several top officials of Canada’s Law Society expressed their concern over Christie’s ideological identification with his defendants. Harvey Strosberg, the discipline chair of the society, said that Christie’s comments at a trial in which he defended an accused Nazi war criminal “clearly disclose that he has crossed the line separating counsel from client: he has made common cause with a small, lunatic, anti-Semitic fringe element in our society.” Indeed. Christie spoke at the Seventh International Revisionist Conference of the Institute for Historical Review in 1986 and at Holocaust denier David Irving’s third “Real History Conference” in 2001; he also sent a taped presentation to Australian extremist Fredrick Toben’s 1998 Adelaide Institute Conference.

Most fascinating to me is a report from Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman II that I had previously overlooked, which stated that in 1988 now-disgraced Bishop Richard Williamson brought Christie to speak to the seminarians at the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, where he was rector. According to Hoffman, Bishop Williamson then told the National Catholic Reporter that in his view, Christie was fighting a “heroic battle” for the truth in his defense of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. (Hoffman’s report appeared in vol. 2 no. 6 of his newsletter in 1988. I cannot verify his quote from the National Catholic Reporter.)

In addition to Christie’s activities on behalf of Holocaust deniers and other extremists, he was also the leader of the Western Block Party, which advocated that Western Canada secede from the central government. He had a personal homepage and a YouTube channel.

Needless to say, many anti-Semites are mourning Christie. Paul Fromm eulogized him at his funeral. Canadian extremist Marc Lemire seems particularly bereft, having  documented Christie’s funeral and having compiled a list of encomiums to him by the likes of Barbara Kulaszka, Ezra Levant, and Mark Weber. Ingrid Rimland Zundel has reposted some of that on her Zundelsite. Michael A. Hoffman II has also chimed in, and sundry mourners can be found over at Stormfront and CODOH. No word yet on whether we’ll hear from Bishop Williamson.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, David Irving, Doug Christie, Fredrick Toben, Holocaust denial, Institute for Historical Review, Mark Weber, Michael A. Hoffman II, Paul Fromm, Richard Williamson, SSPX | 3 Comments