Dawn Eden has published a further update on the use of the work of Marcelo Gonzalez, a Holocaust denier, by Rorate Caeli to criticize Pope Francis. I have also called out RC for the hypocritical arguments it uses in order to cloak the lack of charity going on over there.
Gonzalez has posted a clarification of his original piece on the Holocaust in order to reply to Dawn’s objections. Dawn’s response is excellent. So is the article to which she links at the bottom by Jeannette Pryor, which describes by way of personal experience the extremes of ideological thinking to which traditionalism can lead. Jeannette’s piece is a must read.
New Catholic at RC claims to be free of ideological thinking, and also claims that I have some kind of personal vendetta against him. That simply is not the case. My problem with Rad Trad propaganda has nothing to do with RC in the first place. It is only that RC has made itself the premier traditionalist blog and is a clearing house for all things Rad Trad, and the same time protects itself from criticism in a “passive-aggressive” manner. (See also this.)
From Dawn:
Gonzalez has issued a “clarification,” and has appended an English translation to his original article.
When I have time (which may not be for a while, owing to school responsibilities), I will post more thoughts on the matter. Here is my initial reaction to the “clarification”:
Gonzalez says in his non-apology apology, “For this reason, I clarify, or rather I reiterate that I am convinced that the Holocaust (that is, the death of millions of Jews in concentration camps or on their way to them during the Second World War) is a fact of uncontested historicity. Other aspects – of which I cannot speak, because I am no historian – remain in the academic sphere.”
Note what he is not saying–that there was a systematic, state-sponsored plan of extermination. In his article, he in fact denies such a plan, offers other reasons why Jews died, and claims that one who accepts that there was a Holocaust “may incur in an historical error of judgment.”
So he is a Holocaust denier–because the Holocaust was nothing if not “a program of systematic state-sponsored murder” of Jews, to use Wikipedia’s current and very apt wording. It is true that the Nazis also targeted millions of others for extermination because of their race, Catholic or Orthodox religion, disability, homosexual behavior, or political affiliation, and it may be legitimately argued that the killing of these populations should be included in the term “Holocaust.” But to cast doubt in any way upon the Nazis’ systematically murdering Jews is outrageous.
RECOMMENDED READING: Jeannette Pryor, a mother of five, writes about the toxic education she received as a nun in the SSPX.
Mary Victrix 
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frangelo on April 9, 2013 at 5:40 pm said:
…
Perhaps we should all take our fingers off the trigger.
God bless.
That comment would be here. The context is kinda important.
I am all for accuracy in these matters. It’s a simple rule of engagement. Just a little detail.
In case someone wants to read the English version that Ms. Eden DID NOT understand can do it following this link.
[deleted: see next comment below]
Marcelo,
I deleted the link because, I don’t want anyone to think that it was not provided by Dawn Eden and me. The link is above in Dawn’s quote with the words: “appended an English translation to his original article.”
So you do not dispute the numbers, but you do have some question as to what extent the Holocaust was a planned and systematic extermination of the Jews.
So what did Dawn misunderstand?
Can’t people read the text for themselves and come to their own conclusions? I thougth America was the land of liberty and of opinion…
They most certainly can and it most certainly is, though I currently reside in the UK. The link is right above, and I will give it here again.
Like I said, I just did not want your comment to be taken as evidence that we had not already provided the link.
Well, thank you. And, please, try and be a bit more subtle when reading Holocaust and Holonarrative. You don’t really get the point..
You are welcome.
And we are all eyes. What point am I not getting?
Frankly, I never heard anyone suggest that Holocaust denial or minimization was a heresy. It’s news to me that this is a significant misconception.
But when it comes to the essential point that the Holocaust was the planned and systematic extermination of six million Jews, what exactly needs to be left up to academics, as if this were not already indisputably established?
As I said, we are all eyes.
The point of the article is that Holocaust is not an article of Faith. In either way you may look at it. It’s a historical fact. This is the core that many have skipped.
I still don’t see how you have been misunderstood. You didn’t answer my question.
Well, then. You think that denying Holocaust is not a heresy. Have I understood you?
No one ever suggested that it was. That has never been the dispute here and you know it. You still have not answered my question. It’s not that hard, Marcelo.
While the Nazis did systematically plan and attempt to exterminate all Jews over whom they had power, some fraction of the Jews killed in WWII were simply the victims of war and wartime conditions. But since the Nazis started the war and their exceptional ferocity was largely responsible for the conditions, they are morally accountable for these as well.
Well, it’s not that hard, is it? I mean, to say plainly that denying Holocaust is not a heresy, May be stupid, prejudicial, ignorant, whatever. Not a heresy. Do you agree?
That is not the issue Marcelo. No it is not a heresy. No one said it is. Don’t suggest that Dawn or I ever said it was. Don’t deflect, Marcelo.
But you still can’t answer my question, because Dawn understood exactly what you were saying.
I would not call Holocaust denial or minimization a heresy. That is not the correct term. But it has a strong correlation with rejection of certain other teachings of the Church.
For an analogy, consider someone who denies the Fatima apparitions. The Church has declared that these are worthy of belief. She has also declared that they are private revelations and not part of the deposit of faith, so denial of Fatima would not constitute heresy per se. But the contemporaneous testimonies, subsequent fruits, etc., argue strongly in favor of its historical fact. So if someone Catholic claims that the Blessed Virgin Mary did not appear at Fatima, Lourdes, etc., despite the Church’s recognition of these, they had better produce a good explanation for that claim or else it is only natural to suspect that they likely do so out of a general disbelief in the communion of saints. At least there is a strong correlation (cf. Reformed Protestantism) between disbelief in the communion of saints and disbelief in private revelations.
Completing the thought: There are Church declarations that certain private revelations are worthy of belief. But those are decidedly not of higher authority than the ecumenical council’s declaration which said:
“…what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. …. the Church … decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”
So, Mr. Gonzalez, do you reject that excerpted statement?
Now we come to an understanding. It’s not a heresy, you can deny Holocaust without going against any article of Faith. Well, that’s the point of may article. I used both words, Holocaust and Holonarrative, because they are the words that use the two parts in the discussion. And I have said I’m sick of hearing those (there are many, no matter you have never heard about it) who try to invent a new dogma, as well as those who affirm that you cannot be a Catholic if you accept the fact that millions (number, circunstances, intentions are in the field of academic research) were killed because they were jews. Even emphasising the crude fact that it was race and not even religion the cause of persecution. Because many Catholic jews were ruthlessly killed, like St. Edith Stein. I even compared how US acted in the case of Japanese people in America distinguishing what could be a true reason of State and a fierce persecution caused by hatred. I hope my English is clear enough to take this discussion to the point and stop nonsense.
No, Marcelo, we have no understanding. You are just digging yourself deeper. Dawn understood exactly what you were saying, and you just confirmed it. It really isn’t that complicated, Marcelo. I gave you multiple chances to answer a simple question, and you couldn’t do it.
I don’t know how Ms. Eden could understand a text plenty of subtleties wihout knowing Spanish just with the help of Google translation. What you ask is already answered in the article, and in the clarification that I published yesterday due to this turmoil. There I have made distinctions on the historical matter that is not necessary to repeat here, because the reader can find them by himself. May this considerations be wrong? Maybe. In such a case, my mistakes concern historical facts and are not matter of Faith. Isn’t that enough?
Are you so scared of media pressure so as to renounce to your own reason? I hope not. I’m not. Just worried about confusion. I think I have done all I could to clarify my position.
By the way, wasn’t the subjet that triggered all this fuss my criticism on the way Card. Bergoglio managed the TLM question? Go back to Ms. Eden’s first article and see how she tortured things to discredit me.
Thank you for your kindness.
Marcelo González
I wouldn’t say you have clarified anything, only that you cannot clearly say that the Holocaust was a planned and systematic extermination of six million Jews. And that simply is a confirmation that Dawn was right. It is not a subtle matter.
For the sake of charity in argument, let us accept that translation is impeding this discussion. I notice you did not answer my earlier question, so I’ll repeat it, this time using the same excerpt in Spanish:
“… lo que en su Pasión se hizo, no puede ser imputado ni indistintamente a todos los judíos que entonces vivían, ni a los judíos de hoy. Y, si bien la Iglesia es el nuevo Pueblo de Dios, no se ha de señalar a los judíos como reprobados de Dios ni malditos, como si esto se dedujera de las Sagradas Escrituras. …la Iglesia … deplora los odios, persecuciones y manifestaciones de antisemitismo de cualquier tiempo y persona contra los judíos.”
Do you reject the Church’s statement here, yes or no?
DECLARATION ON
THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS
NOSTRA AETATE
PROCLAIMED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON OCTOBER 28, 1965
5. We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: “He who does not love does not know God” (1 John 4:8).
No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.
The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.(15)
Re Marcelo’s response to my question and that of craig @ April 11, 2013 at 8:41 pm:
Crickets.
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Marcelo, in a previous comment, you said this:
Unless you are being inconsistent, am I right to think that what you mean to say is not that the holocaust is historical fact, but that the holocaust as a systematic and governmental determination to exterminate the Jews is a matter of controversy for historians? I think the latter, in order not to insult you.
But this is the question: Do you refuse to accept as historical fact — regardless of others killed — that the holocaust of the Jews was a systematic and governmental determination to exterminate the Jews.
To deny that would seem to necessitate a certain level of insanity or a certain level of hatred for the Jewish people. So, perhaps you mean something else.
I hope we will hear more from you instead of the sound of of crickets in the background.
I mean, I don’t think all the evidence for a systematic and governmental determination to exterminate the Jews can be reasonably denied.
Surely one cannot seriously imagine, for instance, that millions of people died of old age, or by mere accident.
Surely one can discuss how many were run through with an ice-hook while still alive and dragged into the incinerators alive and burned alive.
And surely one can discuss how many were shot just to do it.
And surely one can discuss how many were starved to death or worked to death or tortured to death.
And surely one can discuss how many died in the trains, which just happened to have them packed in like sardines and, in winter, in temperatures which few if any could survive, so that they conveniently arrived at the camps already dead, ready to be bulldozed into pits, being alive or dead not mattering.
Blah, blah, blah. Millions and millions is not accidental, is it?
To be unreasonable is against charity. To be against charity is to be against the faith.
Crickets!
I have no idea that Americans were so imaginative. At least the ones that answer in this way. Or so conspirative. All in you is matter of “hunch” or “suspicion”. Then you fill in your minds blanks with the matter provided by your imagination.
I prefer a more realistic approach to things.
Killing millions of innocent people is a horrible crime, by all means condemnable. Hatred is condemned by Our Lord. Hating people no matter the cause, especially because they belong to a race or community (in Argentina we have no such a problem, thank God) is anti-Christian. Methodical persecution of a race is a mortal sin.
I donn’t need to read any Council declaration to know that. It was taught to me by Salesian fathers when I was a child, and I read it everey day in the Gospels.
Audistis quia dictum est antiquis: Non occides, qui autem occiderit, reus erit iudicio. Ego autem dico vobis, quia omnis qui irascitur fratri suo, reus est iudicio. Qui autem dixerit fratri suo, raca, reus erit concilio. Qui autem dixerit, fatue, reus erit gehenneae ignis.
Be careful!
I think the point, Marcelo, is not generalities, but whether or not you can answer a simple yes or no question: Did the holocaust involve a systematic and governmental determination to exterminate the Jews? Yes or no? It says something about journalistic credibility.
Your past writings show that you think the holocaust as a systematic and governmental determination to exterminate the Jews can be dismissed. This is plainly a denial. It is like saying that the one can, based on historical fact, perhaps come to the conclusion that the sky is not blue. It’s a denial of reason.
What is being done here is to give you a chance to state what you have not stated, which would be a change of mind. That’s an act of charity. Calling people to task is an act of charity. I’m not calling you insane, but I am stating that an effective denial of the holocaust does not accord with reason.
Perhaps later, elsewhere, we can discuss the what you said in that horrible article about the election of Pope Francis.
Prayers and blessings.
Consummatum est!
God bless you all.
Yes. Consummatum est. The Jewish people. Millions and millions of them.
And while you say it is evil to kill people, you still can’t admit that the holocaust was the systematic and governmental determination to eliminate the Jews.