Catholic Bishop Giacomo Babini suggests that Jews are behind the current criticism of the Catholic church’s record on tackling clerical sex abuse.
Oh man this one’s just simply bizarre and deeply unhelpful at best and has absolutely errupted:
An Italian website, which quoted an Italian bishop as saying Jews were behind the criticism of the Catholic Church over sex abuse claims, has upheld the quotes.
The Catholic website Pontifex published comments from Bishop Giacomo Babini, 81, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, Tuscany, in which he said he believed the current attacks raging against the Catholic Church were a “Zionist attack”, proven by the “powerful and refined” nature of the criticisms.
He reportedly said: “They do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.”
The American Jewish Committee, which spotted the comments, described them as “slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to World War II.”
But the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) denied the bishop had ever given the interview. Bishop Babini said: “Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me.”
However, Pontifex later published a statement, standing by its story and declaring that for “men of the church”, denying previous statements was “a habit”.
It also claimed that Bishop Babini had made other antisemitic statements earlier this year which he had never denied, and said it wanted to “refresh the memory” of the CEI.
It quoted the Bishop as saying on January 25 that “The Jews are not our closest brothers, they overslept on the arrival of Christ and the Old Testament; in doing so, they then chose not to be our closest brothers.”
It also quoted the bishop as saying that Jews use the Holocaust “like a club”.
Further links:
Guardian – Bishop ‘blames Jews’ for criticism of Catholic church record on abuse – Notice how this article comes complete with a nice piccy of the Pope….implication complete.
The Tablet – Bishop Blames Criticism on Zionists
Times Online – Bishop Giacomo Babini blames Jews for attacks on Pope
Haaretz – Report: Church abuse claims are ‘Zionist attack’, bishop says
That’s just a few of many online links as this news has gone viral and is absolutely everywhere.
Hopefully the Pope and Vatican will swiftly distance themselves from the comments made by this batty old Bishop.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse….
Tags: Church Life, Israel
April 13th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
The battle lines are being drawn.
Israel Will Prevail.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
We the jews are not guilty of persuing the Catholic Church, but we may guilty of protect all the children against any kind of abuse incluiding sex abuse.
So the question may be, why this Bishop instead of help to correct the behavior of a little part of their piests, wants to blame us for those things we have not commited?
Is it a new way of persuing jews?
Think twice, because Jesus of Nazareth was a jew, and what today is the Catholic Church began as a jewish group, and the first Pope was a jew from Galil named Peter, like it or not.
So withouth the jewish culture there will not be a Catholic Church, so please Bishop connect your mouth to your brain or whatever you have between your ears.
Besides this, eht Bishop is claiming against a document called NOSTRAE AETATE which is a fundamental document from Council Vatican 2, that every catholic shall read.
Shalom