Does the Pope Need a Lesson in P.R.?

The announcement on January 24 that the Holy See had lifted the excommunications of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) was greeted with joy in many circles, but with horror in others. The primary cause of the distress is found in numerous public pronouncements by one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, denying the Holocaust and expressing views that are hard to characterize as anything other than antisemitic.

The distress deepened when it was revealed that, on January 21, the very day the decree lifting the excommunications was signed, Swedish television had broadcast an interview with Bishop Williamson, in which, in the words of John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter, "he denied that the Nazis had used gas chambers and asserted that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews had died during the Second World War."

Even many of those who supported Pope Benedict's move began to wonder whether he had fully considered the ramifications of his actions. They shouldn't have. The lifting of the excommunications is the first step toward the full reconciliation of the schismatic SSPX with the Holy See, but it is also the result of over 20 years of consideration and negotiation. And, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict has been at the very center of that process all along.

Some Catholic critics of the move, such as Andrew Sullivan, fundamentally misunderstood the dynamics of this process. Williamson and the three other bishops--Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, and Alfonso de Galarreta--did not incur excommunication for their views on any particular topic, historical or dogmatic. They were automatically excommunicated on canon law for accepting episcopal ordination at the hands of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without the approval of Pope John Paul II.

While acknowledging that fact, Sullivan argued that Pope Benedict should have refused to lift the excommunication of Williamson, even though he, along with the other three bishops, had petitioned the Vatican for the lifting of the excommunication and expressed sorrow for his action. Sullivan's reason?

I argued that rescinding excommunication when the man still holds this kind of dark Vatican I view of the world and the church is a provocation - to the Jewish people, civilized people everywhere and to Catholics who thought we had left this kind of poison behind in the 1960s.

But if Williamson was not excommunicated for holding such views, then holding such views now is not grounds for refusing to lift the excommunication.

It's a simple point, really, and Sullivan's refusal to acknowledge it even when confronted with clear explanations of the matter by John Schwenkler and Damian Thompson says more about his ongoing blind anger at Pope Benedict for refusing to reconsider the Church's teaching on homosexuality than it does about this particular issue.

Setting aside Sullivan's vendetta, is there a lesson that the Vatican can learn from the reaction to the lifting of the excommunications? Ross Douthat thinks so:

If the Pope de-excommunicates a Holocaust denier, the Vatican press office should be working around the clock, with press releases flying, to provide context and do damage control. What's more, if the Pope de-excommunicates a Holocaust denier, the Pope himself needs to say something about it, and not just obliquely nod to the decision in his latest homily. Yes, the Church's primary business is saving souls, not public relations - but in this day and age, public relations is part of the business of saving souls. And nobody in Rome, from Benedict on down, seems to have figured that out.

On one level, that seems entirely reasonable--until one asks: Would it have made a difference? In the wake of the uproar, Pope Benedict made a statement at his weekly audience on January 28, commemorating the Holocaust. Since an annual memorial of the Holocaust occurred earlier in the week, the statement was likely planned well before the excommunications were lifted. Indeed, Benedict has made such statements in previous years.

Yet Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo declared that the remarks were "an effort to stem the nightmare of perception born from his lifting of the excommunications," while Andrew Sullivan provided an excerpt of the remarks under the headline "Damage Control."

The lifting of the excommunications is an internal matter for the Church, under the direction of Pope Benedict XVI, who clearly has a long-term plan in mind. Subordinating that decision to the demands of short-term public relations would do more harm than good in the long run. What decision would be next? Should the Church no longer take stands on moral issues, such as homosexuality, contraception, and abortion, until such dissenters as Andrew Sullivan are satisfied with the Church's explanation for those positions?

Almost lost in all the controversy is the remarkable fruit that's already been borne of the lifting of the excommunications. Bishop Williamson has been a loose cannon within SSPX for years, but now Bishop Fellay, the Superior General of the Society, has "forbidden Bishop Williamson to issue any public opinion on any political or historical matter until further notice." Fr. Franz Schmidberger, the district superior for Germany of SSPX, issued his own statement, declaring that:

The banalization of the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime and of its horror are unacceptable for us.

The persecution and murder of an incalculable number of Jews under the Third Reich touches us painfully and they also violate the Christian commandment of love for neighbor which does not distinguish ethnicities.

I must apologize for this behavior and dissociate myself from such a view.

Such dissociation is also necessary for us because the father of Archbishop Lefebvre died in a KZ [concentration camp] and because numerous Catholic priests lost their lives in Hitler's concentration camps.

Meanwhile, Rorate Caeli notes that the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera reports that, in discussion with the Pontifical Council Ecclesia Dei, "Bishop Fellay recognized the Second Vatican Council, he recognized it theologically. Only a few difficulties remain . . . " And in an interview with the French Catholic magazine Monde & Vie (also noted on Rorate Caeli), Bishop Fellay declared that SSPX's relationship with Rome changed "From the accession of the current pope. I first evoked the Holy Virgin but, at a human level, there should be no fear of ascribing to Benedict XVI what has just taken place."

And finally, the traditionalist Catholic paper The Remnant, long supportive of SSPX and critical of Rome, is reporting that "full regularization" of SSPX "may occur as early as February 2, 2009"--next Monday, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the traditional end of the Christmas season.

If the Vatican had more concern for public relations, might this controversy have been avoided? Certainly--but it is hard to imagine how it could have been avoided without continuing the schism in the Body of Christ.