Benedict Speaks Out

Benedict XVI has published a letter dealing with the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. Surprisingly, it has turned out to be controversial.

I have long believed Benedict is the brightest mortal alive. I agree with his basic analysis. I am amazed and alarmed that his letter has met with much opposition, instead of being embraced by all Catholics.

Here’s the best part:

“A world without God can only be a world without meaning. For where, then, does everything that is come from? In any case, it has no spiritual purpose. It is somehow simply there and has neither any goal nor any sense. Then there are no standards of good or evil. Then only what is stronger than the other can assert itself. Power is then the only principle. Truth does not count, it actually does not exist. ...”

This is what we now face. He continues:

“But a God who would not express Himself at all, who would not make Himself known, would remain a presumption and could thus not determine the form [Gestalt] of our life. For God to be really God in this deliberate creation, we must look to Him to express Himself in some way. He has done so in many ways, but decisively in the call that went to Abraham and gave people in search of God the orientation that leads beyond all expectation: God Himself becomes creature, speaks as man with us human beings….”

I think this is the essential objection to the common modern position that one can be “spiritual” without being “religious.” To accept that God exists has certain inevitable consequences in how you live your life.

“A society without God — a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent — is a society that loses its measure. In our day, the catchphrase of God's death was coined. When God does die in a society, it becomes free, we were assured. In reality, the death of God in a society also means the end of freedom, because what dies is the purpose that provides orientation. And because the compass disappears that points us in the right direction by teaching us to distinguish good from evil. Western society is a society in which God is absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At individual points it becomes suddenly apparent that what is evil and destroys man has become a matter of course.”

Welcome to the 20th century and the continuing era of genocides.

I would quibble myself on a few points. I think Benedict dates the problem too readily to the 1960s and by implication to Vatican II. It goes back before that. Benedict himself refers to the “God is dead” idea. That was big in the 1960s, true, but dates to Nietzsche in 1882. What we call the “sexual revolution” dates not to the 1960s, but to the “Playboy philosophy” and Kinsey reports of the 1950s. Kinsey’s first report was published in 1948. Playboy launched in 1953. The Sixties was a popularization and exploration of the implications of this earlier shift, not a break from it. Vatican II was an effect, not a cause.

What sort of man reads Pope Benedict?

I also do not grasp what Benedict is referring to in seeing a transition in the 1960s and after from a morality based on natural law to one based on the Bible. As far as I can see Catholic morality has always relied on both, and this has not changed. Nor can I see how a morality based on the Bible would sanction homosexuality, pedophilia, and so forth.

He is certainly right to say that pedophilia was very close to being generally considered fine and good during the sexual revolution. How has this one made it down Orwell’s memory hole?

One might also fault Benedict for offering no practical suggestions. But that would be presumptuous. He has no administrative position now in the church. That’s Francis’s role. To give his own ideas would be stomping on the latter’s holy toes.

Dealing with the various dissents:

Fr. James Martin is a leading spokesman for accepting homosexual practices within the church. He objects:

“The idea that the sexual mores of the 1960s were to blame (a common refrain in many of Pope Benedict’s earlier writings) neglects the fact that sex abuse happened in the church during the 1940s and 1950s, and far earlier.”

This is necessarily literally true. Sex abuse has obviously been with us through history. Nevertheless, studies, notably the Jay Report, suggest that it was very rare up until about the 1950s. Fr. Martin is surely aware of this, and is deliberately suppressing that finding here. Benedict is not quite spot on, by my watch; but he is simply a decade late, and that may be due to his own experience focusing on Germany. The sexual revolution started in the US, and no doubt took a while to get to Europe.

Martin:

“Finally, it blames the sex abuse crisis on the culture, not the church. It focuses on the outside rather than the inside, failing to look at the deep structural flaws and sins within the church (specifically, a clericalism that privileged the word of the priest over the victim.”

This is blatantly untrue. Benedict states plainly that one part of the problem was a judicial attitude and procedure within the church that favoured the accused to the extent that it was impossible to convict anyone. Martin is lying about Benedict’s position.

More broadly, consider what Martin is saying here: the culture is virtuous, and the church is by comparison sinful. The church must change to conform to the culture. If this is true, then the church is a moral liability. It ought to be simply abolished. One no doubt has a right to such an opinion, but how can someone hold this opinion and honourably claim they are Catholic?

There is no way Martin avoids being convicted of dishonesty here.

Benedict addresses this attitude directly as well, in arguing that it is pure human presumption to declare that we need a “new” church built by us to replace one God gave us. Martin needs to address this argument, not ignore it.

Michael Sean Winters writes, in the National Catholic Reporter:

“On the whole, this is a regrettable text that will only harm the reputation of the former pontiff.

Towards the end of his life, I had a long interview with Cardinal Francis George. The diagnosis that his cancer was terminal was known to us both. It became quickly obvious to me that he was deeply depressed, as well he might be. His usually careful reasonings — we had spoken a number of times before, and he enjoyed talking to me about my columns — were replaced by extremely gloomy assertions and predictions. After a few minutes, I put down my pen. I was never going to use the words that were coming from his mouth because they were things he would not have said were he not in that condition. Reading this document from Pope Emeritus Benedict reminded me of that moment and raised this question: Was there no one who loves him enough to save him from the embarrassment that this will cause?”

This comment is truly despicable. Leave aside the fact that Cardinal George is no longer here to defend himself against the implied charge that he feared the hereafter. Instead of addressing Benedict’s points, Winters dismisses them ad hominem. This is profoundly dishonourable. And with a former pope!

One falsehood I have also read in reaction to Benedict’s letter is that he is endorsing the “right-wing” position that homosexuality is the problem against the “left-wing” position that the problem is with the bishops and “clericalism.” This is at least a partial lie. Benedict neither endorses the idea that homosexuality is the root problem, nor rejects the claim that clericalism is involved. Nor is supporting the bishops the right-wing position. The very traditionalist “Church Militant” media operation is very aggressive about blaming the bishops. I am too. The real right-wing position is that the problem is with a lack of sincere commitment to Church teaching at all levels; the left-wing position is that the Church teachings, like that of priestly celibacy and sexual continence, are themselves the problem. In that sense, it is true, Benedict’s views represent the “right wing.”

In sum, I’d say the different reaction to Benedict’s comments are a good indication of who the good guys and the bad guys really are.

I am heartened, therefore, to hear they were apparently approved by Pope Francis.

Why the Traditional Media Are Dying

News reports surrounding the resignation of Pope Benedict have been predictably horrid. The profound ignorance of all things religious among the journalists is one thing, but why do they not have editors to check even basic facts? This looks not just like incompetence, but idiocy.

Watching Al-Jazeera English service; in announcing the resignation, they refer to Benedict’s pontificate, gratuitously, as “one of the shortest and most turbulent in history.”

One of the shortest? He’s been pope for almost eight years. Average reign of all popes: 7.2 years.

One of the most turbulent? Try the popes of the Great Schism, the Avignon Captivity, or the Reformation. Benedict’s reign was not even one of the more turbulent of the last century, which has seen two world wars, Nazism, Communism, Vatican II and the SSPX.

More such media failures here. I especially love the NYT's cited evidence that Benedict's reign was "contentious":

When he took office, Pope Benedict’s well-known stands included the assertion that Catholicism is “true” and other religions are “deficient;” that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam.

Pope Benedict Resigns--First Thoughts

My first reaction to Pope Benedict's resignation was to be very unhappy. I believe Benedict is probably the smartest man alive today, certainly the smartest in any position of prominence. It is a sign to the world that such a man is pope.

On the other hand, I deeply sympathize with his personal position. For a man who is so intelligent, the Papacy must have always been torture. Too much time taken away from thinking for mere administration. And the constant need to hold his tongue because of the PR requirements of the job.

This being so, it may not only be best for Benedict personally, but best for the world, if this mind and this voice is unleashed from the demands of the Papacy.

The first thing I hear now from non-Catholic colleagues is, "So I hear now there may be a black pope."

It's not going to happen. The press always says this. They said it after Paul VI died, they said it after JP I died, and they said it after JP II died. The press wants a black pope, because they see this as having the maximum news value. Bunch of racists.

The men selecting the new pope are old men, and old men are conservative by nature. They are in charge of a ship that has two thousand years of tradition. They are not interested in news value. They are most concerned with a steady, reliable hand at the helm.

In addition, the current cardinals were mostly chosen by the present pope. They will reflect his theological point of view. Moreover, with the present pope still around, they are not going to choose anyone else who will disagree with the current pope on any substantial matter. That would be inconsiderate, in the first place, and might cause scandal.

 They will no doubt choose an African if one best fits this description. I wouldn't give odds.

CTV Says Catholic-Bashing Can Be Justified for Journalists

The headline over at CTV today reads, in big blue type,

"Pope says condoms can be justified for male prostitutes"

The full relevant excerpt from a new book actually reads:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

Seems to me obvious dishonesty to change "first step in the direction of moralization" to "justified." By that reading, if one were to point out that when Himmler started killing Jews with gas, invisibly, instead of shooting them, this was at least a first step towards revealing an awakening conscience, the accurate headline would be

"Blogger Steve Roney Says Gassing Jews Can Be Justified for Nazis." 

I can't believe the journalists are simply too stupid to be able to read properly. No, malice must be aforethought.

Child Abuse: Some Stats

I'm sorry Pope Benedict wrote his letter of apology to the Irish. It tends to imply acceptance of the false charge that this problem of child sexual abuse in the Irish schools and orphanages is somehow the Church's fault. The bottom line is that abuse is less common among the Catholic clergy than in the wider society, less common than among clergy of other denominations, and apparently much less common than among schoolteachers--so it necessarily has nothing to do with the Church, its organization, or the bishops; or rather, the raw data suggests they are doing something remarkably right. But I suppose if it makes any of the victims feel better, it is perhaps worth the self-sacrifice on the Church's part.

Why did he send it when he did? St. Patrick's Day.

Almost all the headlines since have been along the lines of “Pope's apoligy fails to satisfy some victims.” Of course. That will always, inevitably, be true, and you knew that, no matter what he said, this would be the lede of the stories that ran in the next edition of most major newspapers. Which is one reason I fear he should not have done it. Pearls before swine. But then, as I say, maybe it helped the victims.

The "Irish Survivors of Child Abuse," the largest such organization, has publicly welcomed the Pope's letter. Oddly, this does not get reported outside Ireland.

The Catholic Church, as an organization, hase been widely accused of “cover-up.” But this is ironic. The Catholic Church insists on openness. No secret doctrines; everything must be accessible to everyone. This is why Catholics are not allowed to join secret societies; why Freemasonry is held to be incompatible with Catholic morals. This has been the basis of the struggle between Catholicism and Gnosticism for the last two thousand years. Nobody knows better, or cares more, historically, about the dangers of lack of transparency.

The Irish government's Ryan Report, specifically, notes that the Irish boshops' actions at times had to do in some part with a desire to protect the reputation of the Church as institution.

But why shouldn't the bishops be concerned with protecting the reputation of the institution? This is obviously of value, so long as you believe in the first place that the institution is of value. It only seems wrong if you do not.

And, of course, almost nobody, back in those days, would have thought to turn in a pedophile to the police. I speak from personal experience.

In part, nobody thought then much real harm had been done to the child. And that is still, frankly, arguable, though it is now dangerous to say so. In any case, the Church holds the Christian obligation to forgive the penitent, and to assume we all have free will. It follows, therefore, that it must, ethically, assume a pedophile is able, if willing, to reform and to cease and desist. And, in fact, this is perfectly true, according to studies--recidivism among pedophiles, contrary to popular belief, is low.

Some, of course, are trying to implicate the Pope himself. He “stands accused,” as one pseudo-news story puts it, “of approving the transfer of an accused priest for treatment rather than informing German police during his 1977-82 term as Munich archbishop,...”

Indeed. He stands accused, to be precise, of giving an accused priest a place to stay and medical treatment.

Doesn't anyone outside the Catholic Church read the Bible?

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed
by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you
invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you
looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry
and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see
you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When
did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of
the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Note that, as in Germany or in Canada, the Irish government study in fact found problems in schools and orphanages throughout Ireland, not just those run by the Church. Oddly, but predictably, this is not commonly reported. The Irish Prime Minister publicly apologised for the State's conduct of the schools back in 1999, and the Minister of Education has also apologized. The Church is a major part of this, in Ireland as elsewhere, because, to its eternal credit, it is so active in charity work.

To put this in some perspective, the Vatican is aware of 3,000 plausible accusations of sexual abuse of minors of some sort over the last ten years, albeit these cover incidents over the last 50. Since bishops are obliged to forward all plausible accusations to the Vatican, this should be the whole lot, worldwide. For comparison, there are currently 400,000 priests in the world. This suggests an offense rate of less than 1%, if and only if all are in fact guilty; though the Church generously estimates it might really be as high as 5%. Dr. Thomas Plante of Stanford writes that "available research suggests that approximately 2 to 5% of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor."

How common is pedophilia in society as a whole?

Dr. Plante estimates the equivalent figure for the general adult male population “to be closer to 8%."

http://www.psychwww.com/psyrelig/plante.html

Two different Canadian studies found that 32% of all women and 15.6% of all men had been molested as minors, in a random sampling of the general population. A US study found the same for 31% of females, and 16% of males. That's starting to look consistent. On this basis, one has to conclude that Catholic priests are just not a significant factor. There are over one billion Catholics in the world. Thirty-one percent of 500,000,000 females would mean 155,000,000 Catholic women, plus 80,000,000 men. 235,000,000 Catholics worldwide today have presumably been assaulted as minors. Yet only 3,000 incidents involving priests.

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full

According to the author of a recent study commissioned by the US Department of Education, child sexual abuse among teachers at the public schools is much higher--"likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/24/opinion/main1933687.shtml
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/4/5/01552.shtml

Studies suggest the rate of child molestation among clergy of other denominations is about 14%.

But the most likely perpetrators by far are still members of a child's immediate family.

Obviously, anyone who sees child molestation as a serious problem is not going to go after the Catholic Church; and anyone who is going after the Catholic Church is not doing so because they are concerned about child abuse.

Of course, the Catholic Church can no more guarantee that none of its employees is a pedophile than can any other human institution. Miracles we do, but people are given free will. That's basic. That said, the best way yet known to reduce the incidence of pedophilia in society generally is clearly to convert everyone to Catholicism. This is not accomplished by slandering the Church.

The very low rate of child molestation in the Catholic clergy is all the more impressive when you factor in that there are apparently far more homosexuals in the Catholic clergy than in the general population, and homosexuals account for the great majority of abuse cases.

Attempting again to implicate the Pope, a nes item says “While a cardinal at the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope, wrote a 2001 letter instructing bishops worldwide to report all cases of abuse to his office and keep church investigations secret under threat of excommunication.” Other publications make similar accusations. This is pure malicious fabrication. The text of the actual letter is available online, and in English translation. It says nothing about keeping the charges secret. You are invited to read it for yourself:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/churchdocs/EpistulaEnglish.htm

Should the bishops have turned in all suspected pedophiles? From the Church's perspective, there is no obligation ever to report another's crime. Were there, Judas Iscariot would have been the only righteous apostle. This automatically verges on the sin of calumny. One should report if one is reasonably certain that by doing so one can prevent a greater moral evil from occurring. This is always hard to do, because the evil of the thing comes with the intent, not the action. And even this is not true of anything learned in the confessional. If, say, someone confesses he wants to murder someone else, the priest must say nothing, to anyone.

Interestingly, Benedict actually pinpoints what he considers the main cause of the problem of child abuse in the Church, such as it is, and this part of his letter just never seems to get reported. Funny, that. He writes that, in the wake of Vatican II, "there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations."

I was there, and have to agree. It was part of the overall mood of the Sixties; of course; you were there too. So was Roman Polanski.

I think you could actually make a decent case for blaming the Sixties entirely on us Catholics. Not the Catholic Church, itself, mind, but on the Catholic subculture in America. But that's a tangent here.

The church, mind, never wavered; canon law did not change. But how it was implemented by individuals did.

Note that the Christian Brothers and the Irish Church were obliged to turn over truckloads of documents to the Irish commission, and the full resources of the Irish government were set upon them. And what have we heard about what they countained? Essentially, nothing. You can be sure, if they contained a smidgeon of anything incriminating in the least, we would all have heard it by now, given the demonstrable press bias. That we have heard nothing more than a morsel or two of smoked herring in the fine print is as striking as Conan Doyle's dog that did not bark.

What is most needed right now, in Ireland as in Canada, is a "Good Samaritan" law protecting charitable instutitions like the Catholic Church from lawsuits by victims of their employees. Without it, we have a classic case of Pharisees-trial lawyers-living high by picking the pockets of widows and orphans.

Of course, since priests themselves have very little money, this would leave victims without any significant financial compensation. Perhaps a government fund might accomplish this, taken from the general tax revenues. Or perhaps it would be yet more fair to tax the media and the law societies to create the fund, as they represent the interests who chiefly profit from such scandals.

Pedophilia in Germany

Okay, time to comment on the current "scandal" involving the Catholic Church in Germany. A few points:

1. Why are things that happened thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty years ago and were mostly publicly reported at the time suddenly "news"? Would it be news in any other context? Or is this an editorial attack on the Catholic Church and the Papacy, and a pogrom against Catholic clergy, masquerading in cowardly fashion as news reporting?

2. Why does the press demand Pope Benedict speak out on the matter? What does it have to do with him? There are daily stories of sexual abuse by public school teachers; is there a similar demand for the Minister of Education to comment publicly whenever a new one surfaces? Or the Minister of Health, whenever a doctor or psychiatrist is caught in flagrante? Isn't the implication here that the Church is responsible, while the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Health is not? Why the double standard?

3. Why does sexual abuse by Catholic priests supposedly call Catholicism or even religion into question, but sexual abuse by public school teachers does not call education into question? And sexual abuse by doctors, psychiatrists, and nurses does not call medicine into question? Why the double standard?

4. Note that the great majority of the cases uncovered, in Germany and elsewhere, seem to involve, specifically, homosexual sex. So why is this always implied or openly declared to be a reflection on Catholicism and celibacy, yet never on homosexuality? Why does the press complain that the Church should do more to prevent such things, yet raise merry hell at the slightest move towards the most obvious preventative measure, of banning homosexuals from the priesthood? Why the double standard?

5. Why fixate on celibacy, or Catholicism, as the supposed cause, when the statistical evidence (backed by simple logic) is clear: that celibate Catholic clergy offend at no higher rate than the general average of clergy, regardless of denomination, or of other helping/caring occupations. Why the double standard?

6. Why _not_ harp on homosexuality, when there is clear statistical evidence (backed by simple logic) that homosexuals are significantly more prone to pedophilic acts than the general population? Why the double standard?

7. If those who attack the church are really motivated by concern to prevent child sex abuse, why are they working so systematically against the best interests of the child? We know that, far and away, the most likely person to assault any child is a close family member. And we know that mothers are more likely to assault a child than fathers. In other words, the greatest possible risk of sexual assault is produced by leaving a child alone with its mother. Yet the entire thrust of society, and of the church-bashers specifically, seems to be to accomplish this very aim: cutting off children systematically from fathers, extended families, and the support network of a faith community. Perfect, if your plan is to promote child abuse.

8. Abuse by a close family member is not just the most common, but obviously the most damaging form of abuse. If a given priest is abusive, a child can almost always easily escape the situation. If a single parent is abusive, there is no escape, and infinitely greater opportunity for abuse.

9. In such a case, of domestic abuse of a child, resort to the local priest might well be the child’s only hope. Why then are the enemies of the Church working feverishly now to prevent this?

10. If some priests genuinely are, inevitably, pedophiles, what is the point of urging the Church to end the rule of celibacy? How does this solve the problem—by having their own children? Brilliant!


Why the double standard?

Because it's a pogrom. It’s a pogrom against the Catholic Church, and at the same time a pogrom against children.

Up to now, the Vatican, and individual bishops, have invariably turned the other cheek, responded with Christian humility, and quietly accepted the criticism, however unjust. I suspect this is about to change. Turning the other cheek only works if the other party has a conscience to which to appeal. When this approach does not succeed, one is justified in moving on to countering the attack squarely and in kind.

John Paul II was a conciliator and a diplomat, by nature and by experience. He did everything the Church could in turning the other cheek in the culture wars, up to and including elaborate public apologies. I think the media and the irreligious are mistaken in assuming the Catholic leadership will always feel a Christian obligation to sit there and take it. I think that Benedict was elected by the College of Cardinals precisely because his style and his instinct is more combative and more ready to call a spade a spade. He used to be known, after all, as “God’s Rottweiler.” Benedict is on public record as not caring if sticking to the truth reduces the membership of the Catholic Church to a fraction of what it is today—nor should he care, if that is what is in the balance.

Benedict has himself taken a lot of garbage without striking back; but with him you sense there is a limit. Now they are going after his own brother, and to some extent Benedict himself. They think they can destroy him; I think they are grossly misjudging him. He is a fighter by instinct, and he is probably the brightest man alive.

I also think they are grossly underestimating the support he will have within the Church, if he raises the middle finger at last. I note with some pleasure that Cardinal Brady in Ireland has also struck a combative note, refusing the calls for him to resign over the "scandals" there, on the very sensible grounds that
he has done nothing wrong.

Too many good men have suffered in this pogrom. We are at war. It is time for us to go out and buy swords, then head to the ramparts.

On Excommunicating Holocaust Deniers

There is currently great controversy over Pope Benedict’s lifting of the excommunication on four bishops of the St. Pius X Society (SSPX); because one of them, Richard Williamson, is quite recently on record as believing the Holocaust has been overstated. Williamson holds that, on best historical evidence, only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis, not the common figure of 6 million.

This has Jewish groups in an uproar, amid charges of anti-Semitism.

I don’t agree.

Why is it up to the Catholic Church, in the first place, to decide and pronounce on a matter for scholars of history? Surely those who want this would also have to condone the Church pronouncing on matters of science, and can no longer object to the prosecution of Galileo. (Even if you accept that Galileo was prosecuted on his scientific, and not his theological, views). And, even if Williamson is demonstrably wrong on his history, why is this a matter for excommunication?

Perhaps the opponents of Mr. Williamson wish to claim that the historical evidence is so overwhelming that no one could in good conscience believe what he believes. It cannot be so—there are of course no detailed records of who died in the Holocaust, and any figure we arrive at is an estimate. But what if it were certain? If so, it would still be perfectly possible to believe it—if one were insane. It is even perfectly possible to believe a historical falsehood without being insane, if one is sufficiently ignorant. And neither insanity nor ignorance, if it is not willful, is a sin.

In order to condemn Williamson, or indeed any “Holocaust denier,” the Church would have to determine that he is claiming to believe something he does not believe—i.e., that he is guilty of the sin of lying. Without a personal confession, how can they possibly do so? And even if so, is lying normally cause for excommunication?

Indeed, is such a lie likely? What could be the motive, in denying something everyone else believes to be true? This is never going to earn one respect, wealth, a comfortable life, or many new friends. It is only going to cause one problems, at a personal level. In fact, as Williamson himself pointed out, denying the conventional wisdom on the Holocaust can lead to prison.

What could be worth it? Williamson’s opponents would probably suggest hatred of the Jews is sufficient. But I doubt it. Suppose Williamson really did, for whatever reason, hate Jews to a point approaching infinity. Still, why would he suppose that expressing this historical opinion would be of any value? For, contrary to claims, his expressing his opinion on this matter is highly unlikely to do any harm to any Jew.

Indeed, for the opponents of Williamson, there is a Catch-22 here. If the true numbers of the Holocaust are so certain, Williamson’s remarks are necessarily harmless, as the ravings of a madman, because easily disproven. If, on the other hand, they have any credibility, they are legitimate comment, and may not be silenced.

Moreover, in the absence of any other plausible motive, it seems almost certain that anyone who openly denies the full extent of the Holocaust is doing so, in fact, out of genuine conviction, and therefore in good conscience. They are doing so, not against conscience, but in order to stay in conformity with it. They really must believe what they are saying.

Accordingly, therefore, though they may be objectively wrong, it follows that “Holocaust deniers” ought to be treated with deference, not condemned, by those of us who care about conscience. They are not bad people; at worst, they are good, but misguided, people.

This includes Ernst Zundel. A Jewish friend who knew him remotely was troubled to learn that Zundel would turn down contracts on moral grounds: he would not, for example, airbrush a scene for a client to hide pollution.

This, not incidentally, is the farthest thing from a real Nazi, the farthest thing from a Hitler. It is at the opposite extreme. Hitler was a perfect opportunist, a complete psychopath. He believed nothing.

We have met the Nazis, and they is us.

Benedict Silenced in Rome

The students of Rome’s La Sapienza University have apparently embarrassed themselves by forcing Pope Benedict XVI to cancel a planned speech. They planned to shout down the speech, Fascist-fashion, with loud rock music had he appeared. The speech was to be on the death penalty and the case to abolish it.

The students don't want to hear about the death penalty? No, that was not the problem. This was pure ad hominem—it was because it was the Pope who was saying it. Sadly, it seems their expensive education has not managed to get so far as to show that ad hominem arguments are worthless.

More: they have apparently not yet grasped the principle of academic freedom; nor of the free exchange of ideas as the essence of the university; nor of free enquiry. But no surprise here; many of their professors joined in the protest. If they too do not know these things, they are surely not capable, ever, of teaching them. Perhaps Adam Smith was right, when he argued, over two hundred years ago, that the real purpose of a university was not to promote and protect knowledge, as claimed, but to promote and protect the class interests of the faculty and staff. There be pharisees.

So much, too, for any smug claims that modern Western culture is any less inclined to censor than are Islamists—a point Iran’s President Ahmadinejad archly demonstrated by holding a competition for cartoons on the theme of the Holocaust. The postmodernist, politically correct left is at least as eager to censor as any Islamofascist. The two are natural and actual allies, and work eagerly together through Canada’s Orwellian-titled “Human Rights Commissions.” Everything we are now blaming the Islamists for, the “new left” did first.

Benedict cannot be permitted to speak, according to the radical students and faculty, because he "condemns centuries of scientific and cultural growth by affirming anachronistic dogmas such as Creationism, while attacking scientific free-thought and promoting mandatory heterosexuality."

The obvious example, I suppose, of the church’s attempt to prevent scientific and cultural growth was its founding of La Sapienza University back in 1303. At least, its current students seem determined to demonstrate that this is the ultimate result of that initiative.

These thoroughly modern academics are determined to demonstrate to the whole world that they do not want to learn any unfamiliar thoughts or ideas. And they demonstrate that they are currently quite ignorant of the key thoughts and ideas of Western culture. They do not even know, and cannot be bothered to check, that the Catholic Church has no dogma of Creationism. “Creationism,” as that term is commonly used, has never been the position of the Catholic Church, which has had no quarrel with Darwin.

Sadly, this general ignorance of our own religious heritage is everywhere; it is a testament to the failure of our entire education system. According to The Economist, less than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible, and only a third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Yet what could be more fundamental to Western culture?

The students, supposedly Italy’s intellectual elite, also claim that Benedict is against “scientific free-thought,” apparently on the basis of a speech he made in 1990 in which he quoted philosopher Paul Feyerabend’s opinion that the conviction of Galileo for heresy was “rational and just.”

But the students are displaying themselves to the world in dunce caps: can they not grasp that they are demonstrating exactly the dogmatism today of which they dubiously accuse the church four hundred years ago?

And have they never learned the difference between quoting and expressing one’s own views? This bodes ill for Italian scholarship; it is one scholarship’s most basic rule. One wonders how much plagiarism there must be at La Sapienza U.

Ironically, the one thing that might save universities from such sophistry is a return to their original religious sense of mission.