SSPX priest expelled due to remarks on the Holocaust

This is in from APCOM

The SSPX has expelled the priest, Fr. Florian Abrahamowicz (more here), who made statements which, like those of SSPX Bp. Williamson, reduced the extent of the massacre of Jews during WWII.

Lefebvriani; Fraternita’ italiana, espulso prete negazionista

Roma, 6 feb. (Apcom) – La Fraternità San Pio X annuncia l’espulsione di don Floriano Abrahamowicz, il prete responsabile della provincia del Nord-Est, che – come il vescovo Richard Williamson – ha negato la Shoah, dichiarando che le camere a gas sono servite solo per disinfettare. "Il provvedimento – si legge in una nota diffusa dal distretto italiano della Fraternità – ha effetto a partire da venerdì 6 febbraio ed è stato preso per gravi motivi di disciplina. Don Floriano Abrahamowicz da tempo esprimeva posizioni diverse da quelle ufficiali della Fraternità San Pio X. La decisione dell’espulsione, pur dolorosa – conclude la nota – si è resa necessaria per evitare che venga ulteriormente distorta l’immagine della Fraternità San Pio X e, di conseguenza, sia danneggiata la sua opera al servizio della Chiesa". Ssa

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29 Comments

  1. Paul says:

    I think it may have more to do with disobedience. Bishop Fellay likely ordered all priests not to comment on the matter.

  2. Jim says:

    Looks like the good bishop is on his own, unless there are a few other nutbars who will be joining him.

  3. Trevor says:

    If I recall, his comments weren’t nearly as inflammatory as the bishop’s. Does this mean the bishop will be expelled (me thinks no, since I doubt the Society wants a “rogue bishop”)?

  4. Steven says:

    What a mess!

  5. Just when it looked like the SSPX issue was going to be settled, some force has broken the good works of those involved, including His Holiness. Who would benefit from this conflict going unsettled? Well, guess who but the liar and the father of it. Pray for the Holy Father

  6. schoolman says:

    I hope things can be sorted out swiftly between Rome and the SSPX. Dragging this out may only add uneccesary pain and loss.

  7. Breier says:

    The priest is quoted in an AP report as having made further comments this week critizing Vatican II:

    “This week, he was quoted as saying on Italian TV that the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings which paved the way for liberal reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, was “worse than heresy.”

  8. jack says:

    Defenders of Williamson now must face it: The SSPX itself is against Williamson and Williamson’s defenders. These defenders now must choose to side with either Williamson or the SSPX. They can’t have it both ways.

  9. Shzilio says:

    Now if they could only get a certain German Cardinal and a Georgetown priest to shut their mouths we might enjoy some peace.

  10. Shzilio says:

    My question now is What happens to the priest? Where does he go? What will he do?

  11. A priest has already answered the call to serve God, and will find a way to continue that service. He needs our prayer, if that doesn’t seem too simple an answer.

  12. Corleone says:

    This is truly bizzare. For those who don’t read Italian, it says Fr Abrahamowicz said the gas chambers were only for dissinfecting. THAT is just bizzare in itself, but Abrahamowicz is a *VERY* Jewish name from Poland. I don’t know if he is a first or second (or maybe even a third) generation convert, but the mere fact that someone of Polish-Jewish ancestry, regardless of their current faith, denies there were gas chambers that killed people during the holocaust is just beyond real.

  13. Vincent says:

    Clearly the FSSPX is more seriously dedicated to preserving its organizational unity than the Maryknoll Fathers.

    I doubt Fellay would do this (the Fraternity’s constitutions give the Superior General almost unmitigated authority over it) if there had not been some ultimatum. I’m betting all of the Fraternity has been put on notice — clearly Mons. Williamson has (based on his public remarks).

  14. Bart says:

    Cardinal Schönbornen and Kasper started the criticism

    Maybe this explains it:

    http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/SiSiNoNo/2001_November/Cardinals_With_No_Faith.htm

    The holocaust thing is a diversion.

  15. Steven says:

    At least we know now who owns the media…

  16. paul says:

    Pope Pius x1 stated “spiritually we are semites”. Anti- Judaism makes no sense from the Catholic perspective. Admitting the reality and horror of 6 million Jews being killed during the holocaust as well as the reality of gas chambers makes us people who admit the reality of the truth- it doesn’t take anything away from us. Would that the world admit the present day horror of abortion- so far 50 million have died since roe v wade. Let us demand that the world admit the horror of both holocausts.

  17. Steve says:

    Why would bishop Williamson lie? Why?

    The media storm he caused, was in fact caused by others.

    It is easy to silence a priest. But this holocaust thing will not go away. It has always been used against the Church and against Pope Pius XII. And we and the world have been duped.

    Well, honestly, try to prove the 6 million and try to
    prove the gas chambers!

  18. Ryan says:

    Come on people, there is nothing Catholic about holocaust denial. It’s sinister and stupid and false. If these people would focus their attention on trying to convert Jews rather than deny their genocide the Traditionalist movement would be much better off. Instead they give fodder to the liberal Jewish element that equates preaching conversion to the Jews with hatred.

  19. Legisperitus says:

    If only 300,000 were killed, then where did the other 5,700,000 go?

  20. Mike Morrow says:

    It was asked (perhaps not seriously) “Why would bishop Williamson lie? Why?”

    Outside (possibly) his education in literature, Williamson is a very very dim bulb. His reasoning as stated in the notorius TV interview is clearly defective, illogical, and based on deep-seated prejudice against Judaism. He confidently and happily cites and accepts well-known, notorius, holocaust-denier frauds as the experts who have led him to an “enlightenment” that only he a few others are “gifted” to recognize. Williamson’s anti-semitic world view is personal, characteristic, intrinsic, and long-termed.

    That is why the words of Williamson are lies, regardless of his own intellectual inability to recognize them as such.

  21. Matt Q says:

    Jack wrote:

    “Defenders of Williamson now must face it: The SSPX itself is against Williamson and Williamson’s defenders. These defenders now must choose to side with either Williamson or the SSPX. They can’t have it both ways.”

    )(

    Yes, they must follow Central Party thinking. Poor comrade-Father. He failed to be politically correct. He dared to have an opinion which had nothing to do with Faith And Morals, and so must disappear from the Society…

    Why does everyone get the vapors over this?

    Father Florian’s timing was very inopportune in light of the present circumstances and created one more of the same “scandal” the Society didn’t need. Granted. Unless it turns out there’s more to it than this, treating Father like that was quite uncharitable and speaks quite loudly of human respect.

  22. Syriacus says:

    On Tornielli’s blog, an Italian SSPX militant strongly defends Fr. Abrahamowicz . “The best Italian SSPX priest” , he says, and “we’ll never give up, we’ll stay with him”. Fellay & alii would be “traitors” which “should be shot dead in their back”.

    Many so far have been telling that the (few) Italian Society’s priests were mainly with a ‘sede’ attitude… We’ll see what will happen now, both in terms of priests and faithful.

    Franco Damiani Scrive: February 6th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    Don Floriano è notoriamente di gran lunga il miglior prete della Fraternità, per fede, preparazione, pietà e umanità. Forse anzi l’unico vero prete. Al suo cospetto gli altri pretini e pretonzoli balbettano latino, balbettano gregoriano e fanno prediche di un moscio terrificante: si capisce benissimo che a loro non interessa nulla della fede e delle anime ma solo del proprio prezioso deretano e delle poltrone dove aspirano a posarlo. Espellendo don Floriano chi ci perde è solo la Fraternità, passata armi e bagagli tra i nemici della Tradizione. I fedeli del Triveneto non abbandoneranno don Floriano, che continuerà a esercitare il suo ministero in barba ai diktat dei vigliacchi traditori, gente che sta completando l’opera di distruzione dell’opera di Mons. Lefebvre e che andrebbe fucilata alla schiena.

    Appalling.

    see: http://blog.ilgiornale.it/tornielli/2009/02/06/don-abrahamowicz-espulso-dalla-fraternita-san-pio-x/#comments

  23. Matt Q says:

    Shzilio wrote:

    “Now if they could only get a certain German Cardinal and a Georgetown priest to shut their mouths we might enjoy some peace.”

    )(

    Yeah, your lips to God’s ears. Pretty peculiar the Church and everyone else has the vapors over anyone who denies “accepted statistics” about the WWII which would be mere opinion, but doesn’t give a rat’s rear-end about those who deliberately speak lies about the Faith, promote all kinds of weird heretical ideas and pretty much sound like mental patients, at the peril of souls. Peculiar indeed.

  24. teresa says:

    Dear Father Zuhlsdorf and all your folks here:

    the Germans have started an action to support our Holy Father:

    do click this link:
    http://www.ja-zu-benedikt.net/
    and there you can sign your name and give on your adress.

    This list of signatures will then be sent to the Holy Father, he himself will also be informed of this action soon.

    In the first line: your family name
    the second line: your surname
    the third line: title
    the fourth line: address
    the fifth line: country
    the sixth line: zip code and place
    the seventh line: canonical status

    only the lines in bold are obligatory to be filled out.

    Then you get an Email, which you have to click on the address send in it to confirm your signature.

    Until now there are already 2800 people who signed up, one of them even from Oman.

  25. veritas says:

    Richard Williamson does not exist, he is a fantasy creature fabricated to legitimate opposition to the Catholic Church. Reports of his existence are “lies, lies, lies”. All the alleged evidence, news reports, documents from schools and universities, certificates of birth, etc. are forgeries produced by a world-wide conspiracy. Indeed all university historians are part of this conspiracy which aims at world dominion and the destruction of catholicism. His intrincic improbability is attested by his hilarious opposition to women’s trousers and “The Sound of Music”.

    Should he however prove to have actual existence it is in an attenuated form of no practical import and unlikely to attract the charge of Williamson-denial, which is no doubt a capital offence in Iran and other countries which share many of his basic attitudes.

  26. Maeana says:

    On Rorate Caeli, there is now an update. It had more to do with a homily bordering on sedevacantism than on any interviews he gave. The FSSPX has always made it clear that they will not put up with any opinions that even insinuate the pope is not the head of the church.

  27. veritas says:

    What a pity Don Floriano does not have access to an English (or would it be Italian) dictionary. Genocide and holocaust have definite meanings and are not applicable to ordinary acts of war. When soldiers who hide among civilians are killed the two words are inapplicable to describe their fate.

    Denial of the Shoah well predates the rise of political correctness and has always rightly been taken as an indicator of unchristian lack of charity or indeed of bearing false witness.

  28. jack says:

    “Yes, they must follow Central Party thinking.”
    Matt Q

    Matt Q, by comparing the good people at SSPX with the evil Communist Party, defames the SSPX. Is Matt a liberal troll? Why does he hate the SSPX so much?

  29. jack says:

    Der Spiegel is reporting today remarks by Williamson. http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,606088,00.html
    So now Williamson is disobeying a order from his superior, Fellay, to be silent. So let’s pray that Williamson will be expelled from the SSPX. Choose to side with either SSPX or Williamson. But you now can’t side with both.

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