‘Leave us in peace,’ SSPX head urges Jews
By Will Heaven

7 August 2009

The Vatican has an "an excessive sensibility regarding the expectations of the Jewish world", according to the head of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX).

Bishop Bernard Fellay told the Italian news agency Apcom last Friday that he was "embarrassed" by the Holy See's response to the "Williamson affair", which began after the SSPX bishop made Holocaust-denying remarks last year.

Bishop Williamson's comments appeared in a Swedish television interview filmed in November 2008. He denied that six million Jews had been killed during the Holocaust and said that gas chambers did not exist at Nazi concentration camps.

The interview was broadcast days before Pope Benedict's lifting of the excommunication on Williamson and three other SSPX bishops. Pope Benedict was heavily criticised by the secular media, as well as the Israeli press, for allowing a Holocaust-denier back into the Church.

Bishop Fellay told Apcom that Williamson "is a completely marginal problem". He said the bishop's remarks about the Holocaust have "no relation whatsoever with the crisis of the Church, the core issue with which we have dealt with for 30 years; it is a historical matter."

Bishop Fellay, who is the superior general of the SSPX, also argued that Jews should keep out of Catholic matters. He said: "When I see Jews who concern themselves with matters of the Catholic Church, it is not their religion. Leave us in peace. They are matters which concern the Catholic Church."

Referring to the controversial Good Friday prayers for the Jewish people, he added: "If we wish to pray for the Jews, we will pray for the Jews in the manner we see fit. I do not know if they pray for us, but I would say this is their problem."

Bishop Fellay's comments are unlikely to please Pope Benedict, who is currently attempting to bring the SSPX back into full communion with the Catholic Church.