"No Holocaust denial -- which is a new injustice to the victims -- can be allowed or permitted ... "It's absolutely clear that a Holocaust denier can't have a room, a space in the Catholic church,"''
Top Vatican liaison to Jews rededicates Massachusetts menorah in memory of Holocaust victims
March 25, 2009
Michael Paulson - Boston Globe
BRAINTREE _ With a touch of flickering flame to the top of a bronze candelabrum, a key Vatican official today sought to reassure the Jewish community that there is no room in the Catholic church for anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is Pope Benedict XVI's top advisor on Catholic-Jewish relations, yesterday visited the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Boston and took several steps to calm the controversy that has erupted since the pope lifted the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, one of whom denies that the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews. Over a salmon lunch with 50 Jewish community leaders, Kasper fielded a series of tough questions about the Vatican's actions; he then joined a ceremony to rededicate a Holocaust memorial, originally located at the former archdiocesan headquarters in Brighton, which depicts six men and women holding torches to represent the six million Jews killed during World War II.
"The memory of what happened, now 65 years ago, can not be forgotten,'' Kasper told a crowd of about 200 at the rededication ceremony, including multiple priests and rabbis, several Holocaust survivors, and the consuls-general of Israel and Germany. "No Holocaust denial -- which is a new injustice to the victims -- can be allowed or permitted.''
But the raw emotions exposed by the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X were clear. Israel Arbeiter, the president of the Boston chapter of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, recounted the deaths of his parents and brother in concentration camps, and his own witnessing of the remains of Jews killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, before addressing Kasper and saying, "Your Eminence, pain and suffering have been inflicted again on the Holocaust survivors by a representative of the church, namely, Bishop Williamson, and by the action and inaction by Pope Benedict XVI.''
Arbeiter also praised the Catholic church, calling the visit of Kasper "deeply meaningful,'' referring to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston as a friend, and saying that the pope has taken a number of constructive steps in recent weeks to address the controversy. But he said he would like to hear the pope directly refute the claim by Williamson that gas chambers were not used by the Nazis.
"Sixty-nine years after the liberation of Auschwitz, with all the available documentation, confirmation by the German government, testimony by the perpetrators, Bishop Williamson still denies the truth, the fact of the Holocaust,'' he said. "...I will never understand that he denies that there were ever gas chambers, that Jewish people were gassed and murdered...I wonder whether Bishop Williamson knows where my parents and my brother are.''
Local Jewish and Catholic community leaders said they viewed Kasper's visit as a significant development, in that it affirmed the high priority the Vatican places on Catholic-Jewish relations.
"Words are helpful, but actions like today's re-dedication are more powerful, more meaningful, and more enduring,'' said Derrek L. Shulman, New England regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. "We welcome and celebrate this day as a major step forward for strengthening relations between Jews and Catholics in the Boston area."
O'Malley, who organized the event, called the Holocaust "the greatest act of inhumanity ever perpetrated on this planet,'' and said yesterday's event was intended "to assure the entire community of the Holy Father and the church's commitment to furthering these wonderful relationships that have been cultivated the last decades." O'Malley noted that Catholic-Jewish relations in Boston have been strong since the days of Cardinal Richard J. Cushing, who in the 1960s helped draft a pivotal document at the Second Vatican Council that repudiated the basis for Christian anti-Semitism.
Kasper said that the outcry from Catholics irate over Williamson's remarks, and over the Vatican's action, was evidence that Catholics have internalized the importance of Catholic-Jewish relations. And Nancy K. Kaufman, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said that the response to the uproar had provided evidence of the overall strength of the Jewish-Catholic relationship, noting the speed and candor with which local leaders had been able to meet and talk.
"It speaks to the power of the relationship that we have worked on so hard in this community over 40 or 50 years,'' Kaufman said. "Some of us here today can remember a time when relations between Catholics and Jews in Boston were not so good, and we didn't have the ability to have an honest and open dialogue among and between each other, and I think the ability to raise difficult issues like this one, and to have the discussion...speaks to the strength of the relationship."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/03/kasper_in_brain.html
Top Vatican liaison to Jews rededicates Massachusetts menorah in memory of Holocaust victims
JAY LINDSAY - Associated Press - BRAINTREE, Mass.
March 25, 2009
... Cardinal Walter Kasper joined Holocaust survivors and local Roman Catholic leaders at the ceremony for the Yom Hashoah Menorah at the Boston Archdiocese's Braintree offices.
Kasper said the ceremony was a reminder of "the most atrocious event of the last century."
"No Holocaust denial, which is a new injustice to the victims, can be allowed or permitted," Kasper said. "The memory must be a ... memory for the future we hand down to future generations."
The menorah was dedicated in 2002 at the archdiocese's former campus in Brighton, but the archdiocese recently moved to Braintree after selling its land to neighboring Boston College to relieve debt. Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Boston archbishop, suggested the rededication ceremony in Braintree after meeting with local Jewish leaders angered by the Vatican's January decision to lift the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson ...
At a press conference after the ceremony, Kasper emphasized that though Williamson's excommunication was lifted, he can't be fully restored into the church unless he renounces his views.
"It's absolutely clear that a Holocaust denier can't have a room, a space in the Catholic church," Kasper said ...
Auschwitz survivor Israel Arbeiter on Wednesday called on the pope to emphatically state that millions of people died in gas chambers. Arbeiter said that his parents were murdered in the chambers in the Treblinka death camp and that he saw thousands led into Auschwitz's chambers, leaving behind "only their clothing, their ashes and crushed bones."
"We stand together against those who today conspire to repeat history even as they deny that very history," said Arbeiter, president of the Boston area chapter of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
Arbeiter was joined by his son and grandson as he lit one of six candles on the menorah, representing the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The menorah depicts six people holding torches on a base of a cracked Star of David. A holy man with a prayer book stands in front of them, with a child to the side.
The original Yom Hashoah Menorah was placed at the North American College in Vatican City in 1999. At the time, Pope John Paul II backed a proposal to place replicas of these menorahs in Catholic centers as a sign of reconciliation and to spur Holocaust study programs.
The menorahs have since been placed in cities around the country, including Dallas, Miami and Baltimore.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/apArticle/id/D975ADOG0/
See also:
Xavier University Gets Even More Kosher
Bishop Rhoades Observed "Yom HaShoah"
Vatican to Move Rabbinic Subversion Beyond the Clergy and Into the Pews
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