Realize that the goal here of the New York Times is not to report news on religion but to (1) make readers think the believers are strange, superstitious, goofy, and not to taken seriously or given access to the public square and (2) to makereaders who themselves are people of faith feel embarrassed, defensive, and marginalized.
It's always fascinating to read how fascinated the New York Times reporters are with expressions of religious faith. Here's the latest quaint dispatch from the Times on those Catholics.
New York Times: Bishops’ Reinstatement a Relief for Some Catholics
A Roman Catholic Mass was held Sunday in Midtown Manhattan that seemed to be from another time. The women covered their heads with delicate lace veils and the priest said the Mass in Latin with his back to the congregation.
Their missals, or booklets, were dated 1962, the year that the Second Vatican Council began ushering modernization and openness into the Catholic Church, changes that the worshipers at Sunday’s Mass reject.
Catholic Culture: Vatican Lifts Decree of Excommunication of SSPX Bishops
In a letter to SSPX members announcing the decree, Bishop Fellay described the Pope's decision to lift the excommunications as "unilateral, benevolent, and courageous."
SSPX views and Vatican views on Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate remain irreconcilable.
Bishop Richard Williamson is being reconciled to the Catholic Church. He was in schism by being ordained a bishop without the permission of the Pope in the Society of Pope St. Pius X.
Reuters: Pope rehabilitates Holocaust denier
This is the sort of the thing the Vatican ought to anticipate -- that Williamson has been speaking in public minimizing the Holocaust and endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- and apart from the schism -- he would be required to repudiate those views.
There are few things that I consider beyond discussion and these are two of them. The Protocols are a ridiculous fiction originally targeted at Napoleon III and the French. (Wikipedia) and silly notion that a mere 300,000 Jews died at the hands of Nazi genocide. There seems to be no popular conspiracy theory that Bp Williamson doesn't believe.
I have a genuine concern on two levels when a person who not only holds these views privately but discusses them publicly. First, the pulpit of a Catholic bishop in fill communion with the Church is the wrong place to give to someone to propagate these views. Adding the authority of a bishop to these views helps the promoters of anti-Semitism spread these lies.
Secondly, and this is the one that gets the 20 point headlines. It is ammunition for everyone who sees that the Catholic Church is anti-Semitic. And this time, they have a point. The dismissal of these charges by the media people in the Vatican is insulting.
Asked about Williamson's comments, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said they were "totally extraneous" to the lifting of the excommunications.
"This act regards the lifting of the excommunications, period," Lombardi told reporters.
"It has nothing to do with the personal opinions of a person, which are open to criticism, but are not pertinent to this decree."
