SSPX chief: Catholic Church shows "excessive sensibility" toward Jews

The head of the dissident ultra-conservative Catholic brotherhood ‘Society of Saint Pius X’ (SSPX) has attacked the Vatican for the "excessive sensibility" toward the Jewish world. Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the SSPX, told the Italian news agency ‘Apcom’ that he felt "embarrassed" about the Holy See's behavior when it emerged last January that Bishop Richard Williamson, then a leading member of the sect, denied that millions of Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps.

Fellay also said Jews should not concern themselves with internal church matters, referring to an outcry over a prayer that called for their conversion to Roman Catholicism. In a wide-ranging interview, he said: "It is not their religion. Leave us alone. They are matters which concern the Catholic church. 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 that this is their problem."

Fellay played down the Williamson furor. "He is a completely marginal problem. What he said has no relation whatsoever with the crisis of the church, the core issue with which we have dealt for 30 years, it is a historical matter. The question of knowing how many and in what way the Jews were killed is not a matter of faith, it is not even a religious matter, it is a historical matter." He said Williamson's removal from the SSPX was temporary. "It is not to be exaggerated … at the moment, I see no grounds for expulsion. It depends on him, on the situation in which he placed himself … he has seriously damaged his reputation. He has already been sufficiently punished, pushed to the margin, with no position."