Bishop Mishap

A meeting last week between Pope Benedict XVI and leaders of the global Jewish community served to ease the tension between the two religions, caused by the Pope’s decision to reinstate four previously excommunicated bishops back into the Roman Catholic Church. In particular, the reinstatement of Bishop Richard Williamson has outraged Jewish leaders, who point to his public skepticism of the Holocaust as evidence of anti-Semitism. Many have called for the Pope to re-excommunicate Williamson from the church. While the Pope’s efforts to meet with Jewish leaders in order to explain his decision and improve communications between the two religious bodies are admirable, they are not adequate.

The Pope’s decision is especially troubling considering his own involvement with the Hitler Youth in his teens. Although his membership within the organization was involuntary and unenthusiastic, Pope Benedict XVI has, nonetheless, faced criticisms surrounding this association since his election in 2005. As such, he should take the public perception of his actions into consideration before executing them. In this case, while the Pope may have meant for the reinstatement to help heal the growing rifts within the Catholic Church, it led to an unforeseen result: a serious objection by the international community. The Pope should have vetted Williamson more extensively, understanding the great weight of his decision to reinstate him and taking into account the offense to the Jewish community that such a choice would cause.

Another troubling aspect of the Pope’s recent course of action is how it reflects a greater rightward movement of the church since Pope Benedict XVI’s election four years ago. While the Pope has made it a priority of his office to heal the schisms within the church, in doing so he has also brought an increased focus on fundamentalist beliefs and hostility toward other religions back to the Catholic Church. His desire to reunite the modern Roman Catholic Church with several more conservative factions, such as the Society of St. Pius X, of which Williamson is a member, along with his steadfast condemnation of birth control and homosexuality, reveals a troubling pattern of conservatism during his reign.

While the reunification of the Catholic Church is a commendable goal, Pope Benedict XVI must be more prudent in his actions in the future. He needs to show good faith toward the global community and in the future should be far more thorough in picking his appointments within the church. Though his involvement in the Hitler Youth is certainly not an indicator of his current beliefs, the Pope must nonetheless be conscious of interfaith relations and how his past history colors the global perception of his actions. Though creating a united Roman Catholic Church is a worthy objective, it is hardly worth it if all other religions are alienated in the process.