The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Last week I blogged about the backlash against the Pope's refrocking of an excommunicated Bishop, Richard Williamson, who just happens to be a Holocaust denier. The Pope has asked/ordered Williamson to recant his denial, which has led him to promise to read up a bit, at least.

But the understandable furor over the Holocaust denial has led most folks to overlook Williamson's other loony beliefs (outside the garden variety Catholic woo, of course). These have come to light after a Canadian website for his order, the Society of Saint Pius X, tried to disappear some of his older letters down the memory hole. Guess they don't teach their charges about Google's cache!

For one thing, he's a grand master conspiracy theorist, seeing vast plots in everything from the sinking of the Maine to the attack on Pearl Harbor to the 9/11 attacks. Of course, that dovetails nicely with the the anti-Semitism of the Holocaust denial and comments like:

In the same letter, the Bishop wrote that both Muslims and Jews were 'a scourge to punish faithless Christians” and that 'the United States is now caught precisely between these two scourges of God.'

Seeing as how the Jews were here first, it's impressive that they're a scourge of the Johnny Come Lately Christians!

But, as they say on TV, that's not all. Williamson doesn't much like women, either:

In one letter from 2001, addressed to his 'friends and benefactors' in Canada, Bishop Williamson came down firmly against college education for women, arguing that 'women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature which characterizes our times,' and concluding: 'True universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.' In the same letter the Bishop also asserted that for women, wearing trousers was another violation against nature and should be discouraged.

Oh, noes! The girlfriend has ideas! Real ideas of her own, not even ones that I tell her to have! Is she not a “true girl?” Since I’m in love with her, am I not a “real boy?” Do I need to go track down the Blue Fairy? Wait a sec – am I a blue fairy?!? Fuck!