"Why Do the Nations So Furiously Rage Together, and Why do the People Imagine a Vain Thing?"

The temerity of those false friends of the Church, inside and outside her ranks, is truly breathtaking.  Forgive the long post, but this is important, and it is time to connect the dots here.

This story, from Breitbart.com, tells of calls for the Holy Father to resign.  It is bad enough that the media misstates and distorts the facts of the lifting of the excommunications--through ignorance or malice-- but even worse is the cowardly opportunism of priests and prelates who hesitate not to sell their master for 30 pieces of silver:

Call for pope to step down over Holocaust denier

Attacks on Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier escalated Monday, with one theologian calling on him to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Criticism following the pope's January 24 announcement has been particularly cutting in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable with a jail sentence.

"If the pope wants to do some good for the Church, he should leave his job," eminent liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering told the German daily Tageszeitung.

"That would not be a scandal, a bishop has to relinquish his position at 75 years, a cardinal loses his rights at 80 years," he said. Pope Benedict is 81.

Meanwhile, a senior Vatican official acknowledged the Vatican administration may have made "management errors" with the decision to lift excommunication against four bishops, including Richard Williamson, whose comments sparked the controversy.

"I observe the debate with great concern. There were misunderstandings and management errors in the Curia," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is in charge of the Vatican department that deals with Jewish relations.

"The Pope wanted to open the debate because he wanted unity inside and outside," the German cardinal told Vatican Radio.

He also noted that "these bishops are still suspended."

An international uproar followed the decision to rehabilitate Williamson, an English bishop who has dismissed as "lies" historical evidence that six million Jews were gassed by the Nazis during World War II. Jews and Catholics alike have produced widespread criticism.

"A pardon that tastes of poison," wrote Franco Garelli, an expert in religious history, in Italy's daily La Stampa Monday.

"The trouble caused by this complicated affair is evident not only outside the Church but within it," wrote the academic, who spoke of the "profound discomfort stirred up by the lifting of the excommunication in numerous Catholic circles."

Back in Germany, high-ranking Catholic officials said the pope risked losing vital support.

"There is obviously a loss of confidence" in the pope and "rehabilitating a denier is always a bad idea," the bishop of Hamburg, Werner Thissen, told the daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday.

The bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Gebhard Furst, meanwhile spoke of his "uncertainty, incomprehension and deception" in the national Bild.

In France, home to Europe's largest Jewish population, chief rabbi Gilles Bernheim denounced Williamson's remarks as "despicable" in an interview with Le Monde.

Williamson claimed that only between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews died before and during World War II, and none in the gas chambers.

French government spokesman Luc Chatel called Williamson's remarks "unacceptable, abject and intolerable."

In Austria, where Pope Benedict last week named a controversial ultra-conservative priest as auxiliary bishop in Linz, criticism also came from within the Church.

Vienna's cardinal and archbishop, Christoph Schoenborn, on Sunday lashed out at the decision to bring Williamson back into the fold, saying that "he who denies the Holocaust cannot be rehabilitated within the Church."

Belgian daily La Libre Belgique slammed the Vatican's "blindness" and "deafness," drawing links between Williamson and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Apparently no one can make the Iranian president and his henchman see reason" when they deny the "truth" of the Holocaust, and it is the same with the "bishop recently anointed by the highest authority of the Catholic Church," it said.

For the pope, the "blunder is extraordinary, especially given that his willingness for a dialogue with Judaism is indisputable," said French daily Liberation.

Now comes word in the Italian press that all of this plotting may have been intentionally done and planned MONTHS AGO to purposely embarrass the Holy Father in the Williamson matter.   From Rorate Caeli:

A Plot against the Pope?

Several Italian religious journalists (including Rodari, for Il Riformista, Tornielli, forIl Giornale) are reporting today on a dossier circulating within the Vatican which could reveal that a plot was planned for several months to embarrass the Pope in the "Williamson affair".

We had received the main accusation a few days ago, but had considered that it should be made public by other means.

Here is the text received by us:

"Msgr. Williamson was interviewed on Nov. 1st 2008 on religious matters (tradition and Vatican II) in the Bavarian seminary of SSPX (this in order to let Msgr. Williamson be accused for negationism in that country). Suddenly the journalist Ali Fegan of the program Uppgrad Granskning (Mission Research) asked him about a quote of one speech that took place in Canada some years ago on the gas chamber during the WWII. We all know the trap in which the bishop put himself in a very ingenious way, too confident in the opportunity to diffuse his niche ideas on holocaust than to protect the Church from the evil. This trap was indeed prepared for His Holiness Benedict XVI.

"But who told the journalists of the SVT (Swedish Television Broadcast) about this speech of Msgr. Williamson? If you see all the program broadcasted on January 21st 2009 you will find out that the suggestions came from a french journalist: Fiammetta Venner. Who is she? She is a very well known french lesbian activist. She work together with her [partner] Ms. Caroline Fourest (see her profile here:http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiammetta_Venner). Together the lesbian couple gave to the press a new book on sept. 2008 (during the Pope's visit to France). The title of this book is: Les Nouveaux Soldats du pape. You can read more at their web site:http://nouveauxsoldatsdupape.wordpress.com/about/. In the interview, the lady accuses the SSPX of connection with far right parties in France, an opportune preamble to the accusation of Antisemitism.

"Now we found the people that suggested the plot. But who drove it in order to have ready the program up to the moment of the certain signature of the decree or removal of the excommunication of the SSPX bishops? Certainly someone in the Vatican that attempted to hit the Pope and his entourage and to weak the ambitions of the SSPX.

"Who is he? We have up to now some ideas of the personality. It has to be someone well affirmed in Rome, with good connections in France and a good relationship with Scandinavian church. The program was prepared in Sweden, a quite cold country for Catholicism, but why there? One answer can be the idea to launch a crusade for the reconversion to Catholicism of Sweden made by the SSPX (that for instance has only 30 people as Swedish faithful). In the program there is also an interview made by the bishop of Sweden Anders Arborelius OCD. He spoke about inclusivity as a principle of Christianity, instead of racism and intolerance (of which he seems to accuse the SSPX). ...

"So the people of which we are speaking as to be a Progressive high level Vatican officer that just few days in advance to the publication of the signed decree by the Commission of Legislative Text informed the journalist to come out with the incredible program. ..."

Even if there was a "plot", Bishop Williamson was not forced to say what he said at the interview...

Nonetheless, this falsely inflated media circus is not even the most important of this Pontificate! Or has it been forgotten that oversimplified or distorted reports of the Regensburg address caused actual deaths in areas with Muslim populations? And have the international news agencies apologized for that?

In a couple of weeks, this will be ancient history for the media - this story's news cycle, even in Catholic circles, is about to end...

Again, I think this editorial from Rorate Caeli hits the mark:

Shame on you, "Liberal Catholics", Pharisees of the "New Springtime"! You proclaim to tolerate all, and to respect diversity, but you loathe those whose only wish is to preserve the purity of what was always taught and of the prayers that were always offered, because their continued presence in the Church contradicts the new "house" you tried to build.

Shame on you, "Progressives", official Scribes of the "Spirit of the Council"! You build monuments to the "Good Pope John", but reject all that he stood for, in traditional doctrine and in liturgical beauty. You hail Paul VI, but have done all you could to ignore his greatest magisterial document, Humanae Vitae, and discredit him in the eyes of the world. You maligned John Paul II every single day of his pontificate, but now you praise him, for you have found your new scapegoat - Benedict XVI, a man who, as his last work on earth, has accepted the heavy burden of the Fisherman, trying to bring unity to the flock God entrusted him.

You crucify Peter in the global public square. You deliver him to the enemies of the Church of Christ. You hate him for his struggle to rehabilitate what the Church has always believed and the way the Church has always prayed. You persecute him for he removed the scarlet sign of "excommunication", which you used to despise, but which you now view as good!

You hypocrites! You are accommodating towards abortionists and you pander to politicians dedicated to the culture of death - but you misrepresent Peter's legitimate gesture of mercy as an act of uninformed weakness. Liberal serpents, pseudo-Conservative vipers, you are "witnesses against yourselves" for your relentless persecution of Peter. Yet, Peter will keep working for unity with charity, charity in Truth.

Those who love the Vicar of Christ will keep praying daily for him, so that he "will not flee for fear of the wolves", so that he may persevere in the mission he set out to accomplish. What about you? "Your house shall be left to you, desolate."

In my humble opinion, the best thing for the Pope to do is to enact the juridical structure for the SSPX and get the controversy over in one fell swoop.  After all, what good will it do to let the maelstrom die down for four months, and then have it sweep up again?

For those who wish, there is a petition being sent to Rome to express support for the decision of the Holy Father here.

Pray, pray for the Pope!