Bishop Williamson - Have Men About Me Who Are Fat

This past month, Catholics and non-Catholics have been considering the question of Holocaust Denial and other similar conspiracy theories. This is due to the most recent public statements made by Bishop Richard N. Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X, (SSPX). Many have come to the Bishop’s defense, claiming that questioning the actual number of the Jewish victims of the Nazis does not make one an Anti-Semite. This defense, posited by Bishop Williamson’s followers, shows an inherent lack of understanding of what conspiracy theories are and how they are used. Conspiracy theories are not just disagreements about historical facts, they are political tools used to move people to action.

Imagine a discussion between a history professor and a first year college student. The teacher asks, “When was the Battle of Hastings?” The freshman has no idea, and guesses “1492.” The teacher then informs the student that the battle actually took place in 1066. The professor might then recommend some resources for future study. The student would leave class, slightly embarrassed, and that would be the end of it.

Conspiracy theorists are not concerned with obscure facts of history that have little or no consequence. Reducing the number of Hitler’s victims from 6,000,000 to 200,000 is a totally different thing than innocently believing the battle of Hastings occurred 426 years after it actually did. Holocaust deniers are impassioned about a “world view,” a world view that requires that fascism be exculpated from wonton genocide. Conspiracy theorists take all sensory data, and twist it so it supports their personal theory. They do not do this because of some abstract intellectual devotion to denying reality, but to further their political agenda and “world view.”

The method of presenting a conspiracy to a new follower, or an “unbeliever” is rather straightforward. First a crisis, usually unsolvable, is presented to the new inductee. The conspiracy theorist presents real or falsified facts to the inductee, in order to provide the cause of the crisis. Then the follower is intellectually directed to accept, on his or her own, the logical consequence of the conspiracy theorist’s “world view.” This logical conclusion is very often revolutionary in nature, and calls for a practical application the new follower would never have made before accepting the conspiracy theory.

One example, which perfectly describes how a conspiracy theory is presented to a new recruit, and how the conspiracy alters that recruit, is found in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. In the beginning of this play, Shakespeare acquaints the reader with the Roman Senator, Brutus, close friend and admirer of the Emperor, Julius Caesar. Cassius, another Senator, is plotting to kill Caesar, and wishes to enlist Brutus in the scheme.

The technique used by Cassius to convince Brutus of the necessity of killing Caesar, replicates the tactics of the conspiracy theorists. Cassius first attempts to move Brutus’ mind to believe that there is a crisis. He tries to implant the idea that Caesar will become king and destroy the Roman Republic. Cassius does this by taking actual events witnessed by Brutus, which cause Brutus great concern, and exaggerating the interpretation of them. This is done so Brutus would have a heightened sense of urgency and feel the necessity to act.

One way Cassius altered Brutus’ understanding of reality can be found in Act I, Scene II. Here, Cassius and Brutus can hear the crowd shouting to Caesar. Brutus says, “I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king.” In fact, they later learn from Casca that Marc Anthony offered Caesar a crown, which he refused three times. Caesar’s selfless act caused the people to cheer. During this scene, Cassius begins to chip away at Brutus’ respect for Caesar by describing Caesar’s seizures, and other physical infirmities. Cassius describes how Caesar nearly drowned, and had to cry to Cassius for aid.

In this scene, it is clear that Cassius has the political goal of removing Caesar, and that he wants Brutus to participate in the planned assassination. Since Brutus loved Caesar, this would not be accomplished unless Cassius had first altered Brutus’s interpretation of reality. Instead of Brutus honoring Caesar for refusing the crown, Cassius warped Brutus’ interpretation of this event, so that he would see it, not as a noble act, but an evil deception on the part of Caesar in order to gain absolute power. Once Brutus’ mind was twisted by Cassius’ conspiracy theory, Brutus had taken the first step towards accepting the need to kill Cesar and actually leading the attack against his friend.

What is to be thought of Bishop Williamson’s conspiracy theories? Is his situation akin to that of the first year history student, who is just in need of a few primary and secondary sources to rectify his confusion of historical facts? Or is Bishop Williamson a modern day Cassius, who has a political agenda and manipulates facts and reality, in order to persuade his audience to adopt his “world view?”

We cannot read minds. However, we do have, in Bishop Williamson’s writings, a practical soliloquy, as clear and straightforward as Cassius’ at the end of Act I, Scene II.

One of the first clues we have as to whether Bishop Williamson is mistaken by one historical fact, or whether he has an agenda, can be found in his October, 2001 letter written in Winona Minnesota. In this letter, the bishop discusses the 9-11 Terror Attacks, which had just happened.

If ever there was a sign of the times, surely it was the cloud of smoke choking Manhattan after the terrorist attack of September 11th, and rising slowly into the New York sky from the ruins of the World Trade Center. Everything modern man believes in— capitalism, materialism, globalism—struck down and reduced to a lethal pile of smoking rubble! …

...Politically, behind the Arab terrorists are most likely the would-be architects of the New World Order, who have long been using the United States as an instrument to achieve their control of the world. Long ago they planned three World Wars to achieve their aim. It is they who provoked the sinking of the "Lusitania" and the attack on Pearl Harbor to bring the USA into the first two. Now they seem to be using the Arabs also. Humanly, they are clever. They are even diabolically clever…

…For the last fourteen hundred years Mohammedans, whether Saracens or Arabs or Moors or Turks, have served God as a scourge to punish faithless Christians, or slack Christendom.…

…The Jews are a similar case. As early as 200 the Church author Tertullian remarked that as Catholic faith goes up, so Jewish power goes down, while as Catholic faith goes down, so Jewish power goes up. In the Catholic Middle Ages the Jews were relatively impotent to harm Christendom, but as Catholics have grown over the centuries since then weaker and weaker in the faith, especially since Vatican II, so the Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion.

This letter is a window into Bishop Williamson’s mind. Before the smoke had even cleared from the ruins in New York, Bishop Williamson already believed that the Jews probably had a hand in it, and that the American people were likely being lied to by the New World Order.

Another letter of Bishop Williamson’s which sheds light on his political ideology was published on Angelqueen, a Traditional Catholic internet forum. In this letter, A Few Thoughts For November 2005, Bishop Williamson is speaking of another crisis, the Muslim riots in Paris. While discussing the cause of the crisis, he expresses his belief that white men were created by God to lead women, the bond races, and Jews. In modern day Europe, he argues, the “white men” are not fulfilling their role. In his argument, the bishop uses a very interesting technique to get his Catholic readers able to swallow this incredible idea.

Notice how in each of these quotations, St Paul frames the equality of different human races, classes and sexes within Christ. In other words the equality is before God, and will only be fulfilled in Heaven. St Paul would never have dreamt of denying or wiping out the inequality of human differences before men. As to the inequality in this life between Jew and Greek, see Romans and Galatians; between bond and free, see Philemon; between man and woman, see Ephesians and Colossians. The will of God for men on earth is that Catholic save Jew, that the man free look after the bondsman and that the man be head of the woman. So when the white men give up on saving Jews, looking after other races and leading their womenfolk, it is altogether normal for them to be punished respectively by the domination of Jewish finance, by the refusal to follow of the non-white races and by rampant feminism. (emphasis added)

Bishop Williamson begins this paragraph by implicitly arguing that the writings of St. Paul are the basis for the ensuing sentences. In the first highlighted sentence above, Bishop Williamson places Catholics as saving Jews. Then in the next sentence, which is supposed to logically follow from the first, he switches from speaking about “Catholics”, and replaces that term with “white men.” By the end of this paragraph we are left with a “world view” by which God wills that whites act as the leaders of Jews and non-whites. The bishop has reinterpreted St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, (Col. III, 10,11) from meaning that God wants Catholics to stop comparing each other as Jew, Gentile, freeman etc…, to arguing that St. Paul and God want the “white man” to lead the Jews and “non whites.”

Bishop Williamson has displayed all the ideation of an intelligent and willful conspiracy theorist. He addresses his followers from the perspective of a real or imagined crisis. Just as Cassius led Brutus to believe that Caesar wanted to take over the Republic, so Bishop Williamson leads his followers to believe that the Jews wish to take over the world.

Bishop Williamson also distorts reality in order to further his conspiracy theory. Just as Cassius moved Brutus to ignore the fact Caesar rejected the crown, Bishop Williamson argues that radical Muslims were not the cause of 9-11, in spite of blatant evidence to the contrary. Both Cassius and Bishop Williamson ignore objective evidence and eyewitness reports in order to advance their conspiracy theories. Bishop Williamson clearly distorts facts and events to bolster his conclusion that the Jews are the cause of the crisis in the modern world.

Unlike our hypothetical college freshman who is mistaken about obscure points of history, Bishop Williamson distorts evidence in order to move his followers to embrace his political “world view.” This world view is not compatible with a reality in which six million Jews were deliberately murdered by fascists. It is not consistent with a reality in which radical Muslims and not Jews, attacked the United States of America in 2001. The use of the conspiracy theory, is not about legitimate examining of history, but a necessary method to cause others to see every event in the world in light of the conspiracy. This is not to suggest that Bishop Williamson has a specific and evil plot, as Cassius did. But they both embrace a political agenda, and use a conspiracy theory to further that agenda.

Bishop Williamson has been officially rebuked and silenced by Rome and the SSPX for his Holocaust Denial. Rome has demanded a retraction. The SSPX, on the other hand, has given Bishop Williamson the opportunity to study the matter further. In effect, the SSPX is treating Bishop Williamson more like the confused college freshman, mistaken about a few statistics, than like Cassius, a man who has clearly used the tactics of the conspiracy theory to move his followers.

The SSPX has inhibited from public mass. He has been forced to recant. He has been removed from his teaching position in Argentina, which was as close as he had to a see. His statements have been condemned, and Satan, the modernists, the anti-Catholics and the Latin-Mass obstructionists have all had their opportunity to be drunk with glee. So what’s going on here?

The part I liked best was about exculpating fascism from Won-Ton genocide. Is that a reference to the Japanese Rape of Nanking or what?

I guess that would be the rape of Chung-King in this case. Sorry, not a laughing matter but I couldn’t resist.

4 posted on 02/24/2009 5:55:42 AM PST by ichabod1 (I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet (GOP Poet))

The irony is that the author is guilty of the very same holocaust denial that Williamson is. He states that Hitler killed six million. Not “six million Jews.” Just six million.

Well, Hitler killed 30 million, including 18 million Catholics. But Catholic lives don’t count, Mr. Pryor?

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