Of Plots And Monsignors.

There is a fairly easy way to spot a bigot, a racist, a conspiracy freak or crank, when something awful or nasty happens these malcontents will invariably blame it on the object of their own pet hatred.

So it is with Monsignor Giacomo Babini.

Rather than take the Catholic Church to task over the years of child abuse, neglect and coverups, Monsignor Babini goes on the offensive and not unsurprisingly you can guess who is the subject of his fury?

Ahh yes, according to the arch Catholic conservative web site, Pontifex.Roma, that’s right Monsignor Babini blames it on the, er, “Zionists”!

This is a google translation of the Monsignor’s words. Its not perfect but you will see he’s not exactly making a subtle point:

“But who orchestrated this operation? “Enemies always cattolicesmo or Freemasons and Jews, and the intertwining of them sometimes is a little easier to understand.” States: “I think it is more ..A Zionist attack, given the power and refinement, they do not want the Church, are natural enemies.

After all, historically speaking, the Jews are God-killers. “Now jump,” there is little to jump. The Scriptures say it nice chiaro.Magari they were unconsciously, have enjoyed the cowardice of Pilate, yes, but are God-killers, the Crucify him have told them and not others. “He states:” Their offense was so serious that Christ premonizzò what would happen with them not weep for me, but for your children.

“What do you mean?” the Holocaust was a disgrace to humanity, but it should look without rhetoric and with watchful eyes. Do not think that Hitler was just crazy. The truth is that the criminal Nazi fury was unleashed for the excesses and economic mismanagement of the Jews strangling the German economy. A so vehement reaction must even at this, Germany was tired of the harassment of those who practiced usury interest rates. “His speech is not a politically correct” just bad, but it is the duty of bishops to speak clearly, yes, yes, no, no. They were God-killers and this does not say Babini, the Gospel says, you deny it or change it? Certainly for goodism you get this too. “States:” Christ is the Redeemer, also died for the salvation of Jews and each and every one of us daily crucify the sin, but from the historical point of view, this was deicide, beautiful and good. ”

[My emphasis.]

The original is here for Italian speakers.

We are often told that Christians have finally disabused themselves of the old antisemitic notion of Jews as “Christ killers”, but that new thinking doesn’t seem to have percolated down to some parts of the Catholic Church.

I doubt this is an aberration, Monsignor Babini’s views are probably more widely held than we hear of, but they don’t often enter the public domain for fear of ridicule.

Astute readers will notice how, for Monsignor Babini, the words “Jews” and “Zionists” are interchangeable,

So despite years of apparent change amongst Christians, I suspect a fair few still believe the nonsense about “Christ killers”, if they could only admit it.

Perhaps it is time for a global confession by Roman Catholics and some deliberation on their own past errors?

(Hat tip: Adam Holland)

Update 1: As the AJC points out Monsignor Babini is not exactly a novice, in fact he was Bishop of Grosseto.

Update 2: The religioustolerance.org covers Anti-semitism in the Roman Catholic Church, Repudiation during the 20th century.

Update 3: Jams spotted it long before me.

Update 4: Marc Alan Di Martino has intelligent coverage:

“It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. After Father Cantalamessa’s embarassing blather about the Church being the victim of anti-Semitism, now it’s Monsignor Babini of Grosseto’s turn to make the Vatican turn red. In an interview with the medieval website Pontifex, the venerable monsignor said what I am beginning to imagine a sizable amount of Vatican cronies actually believe (but are far too prudent to state openly): the pedophilia scandal is a “Zionist attack, given the force and sophistication…they don’t want the Church, they are its natural enemies. In the end, historically speaking, they murdered God.”

It gets better: “Don’t believe that Hitler was crazy. The truth is that the Nazi’s criminal fury was unleashed by the Jews’ excesses and ebezzlement, which strangled the German economy.”

Are you laughing yet, or crying? Babini then goes on to deride homosexuals, predictably accusing them of some sort of lobby to bring down the pope. Freemasons dutifully get theirs. In the end, there is not much to distinguish this interview, published on the internet in the year 2010, from the vitriolic attacks of the pre-war Osservatore Romano, or Der Sturmer.

But there is more than meets the eye here. The website Pontifex is in no obvious way an “official” organ of the Catholic Church. In fact, it’s nothing more than an ultra-traditionalist, obscurantist blog publishing the most disgusting, offensive and retrograde opinions imaginable anywhere in the “civilized” West. They flirt with exorcism, demonology, angelology and satanism. They are obsessed with Jews, homosexuals and sex. Nothing new here. “

His L’Affaire Babini is good:

“Why bother about L’Osservatore Romano, though? Because it seems the Vatican is playing a never-ending game of hide-and-seek with “official” “semi-offical” and “unofficial” pronouncements. One might infer that the only “official” voice of the Church is that of the pope himself.

That leaves a huge margin for bishops, priests, cardinals and the like to voice various “unofficial” points of view, some of which push the limits of free speech up against a wall. When Lilli Gruber of Otto e Mezzo, a popular evening news program in Italy, recently invited a cardinal to speak on the pedophilia scandals, Gruber smilingly acknowledged that the cardinal could not say certain things.

Is his therefore an “official” voice, constrained to silence on touchy issues? Who can know? Can “offical” voices become “unofficial” if they lead to scandal or a worsening of the Church’s public image?

If the interview is indeed a fabrication, one would expect serious action to be taken against the Pontifex blog by the Church itself. One would expect the Italian media giants to have caught on to it by now and have published some kind of editorial apology. But none of this is happening.

I couldn’t, say, fabricate an interview with Hillary Clinton, quoting her as saying, “We’re going to nuke those sand niggers in Iran” (I’m being entirely facetious here), have the story picked up verbatim and uncritically by the New York Times and Washington Post and countless other media, then have Clinton retract her statement as “having said nothing against the Iranian people” and still keep the interview up on my blog without some serious legal action.

But that’s kind of how things stand at the moment with the Babini affair.” [My emphasis.]