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.

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.

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.

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.

The Missourian celebrates anti-Semitic pastor Herman 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.]