Rabbi Sees Papa Benedetto's Lifting Of SSPX Excommunication as Kosher (Sorry about the pun, I couldn't resist)

Rabbi Yehuda Levin calls criticism by Cardinal Karl Lehmann & others "insurrection". & sees that the left wing of the Church is "doing immeasurable harm to the faith". He says that the Vatican has dealt appropriately with the controversial comments by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. I can't wait to see how all those on the left that saw Papa Benedetto's lifting of the SSPX Bishops excommunication as an opportunity to undermine him in the guise of accusing him of anti-semitism deal with this. I suspect they will ignore it completely. They will have to or they know they will undermine their attack. & when push comes to shove, they will try & marginalize the Rabbi as well.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin is the head of a group of 800 Orthodox rabbis in the US and Canada.

I will share some of Rabbi Levin's quotes from 2 LifeSite News articles. (Links to the full articles at the end of this post.)

"I support this move (to reconcile the traditionalist faction in the Church,) because I understand the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem. There is a strong left wing of the Church that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith."

"I understand that it is very important to fill the pews of the Catholic Church not with cultural Catholics and left-wingers who are helping to destroy the Catholic Church and corrupt the values of the Catholic Church." This corruption, "has a trickle-down effect to every single religious community in the world."

"What's the Pope doing? He's trying to bring the traditionalists back in because they have a lot of very important things to contribute the commonweal of Catholicism."

"Now, if in the process, he inadvertently includes someone who is prominent in the traditionalist movement who happens to say very strange things about the Holocaust, is that a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start to condemn Pope Benedict? Absolutely not."

"The most important issue is the work the Church is doing "to save babies from abortion, and save children's minds, and young people's minds, helping them to know right and wrong on the life and family issues."

"That's where ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue has to go."

"Anyone who understands and follows Vatican history knows that in the last three decades, one of the moral and intellectual underpinnings of the papacy of Pope John Paul II, was Cardinal Ratzinger."

"And therefore, a lot of the things that Pope John Paul did vis-à-vis the Holocaust, he [Benedict] might have done himself, whether it was visiting Auschwitz or visiting and speaking in the synagogues or asking forgiveness. A lot of this had direct input from Cardinal Ratzinger. Whoever doesn't understand this doesn't realise that this man, Pope Benedict XVI, has a decades-long track record of anti-Nazism and sympathy for the Jews."

Talking about what Cardinal Karl Lehmann, a former chairman of the German bishops' conference, other Bishops, Hans Kung & other liberal thologians had to say:

"At this point there has been a wonderfully strong renunciation of Bishop Williamson by the Vatican and therefore the Jewish community from their statements seems to be satisfied that things are going in the right way. This is just going to increase the frenzy of left wing Catholics, whether outside the Church or inside, because they now have to carry the ball in terms of keeping the attack on the Pope going."

"It has now become very clear, for all to see, the extreme danger that having some who hold high positions in the church seeking to destroy their own church and attack their own pope. The silver lining is that its now that the battle lines have been drawn."

"The remedy, I believe is that church hierarchy should take strong action in dealing with this type of insurrection. This should be a significant signal to the Pope, that it is absolutely essential that the right people be appointed in every place all over the world. And church faithful need to have unambiguous leadership that's totally in line with traditional church teaching."

Rabbi Speaks on Pope Benedict Controversy: Leftist Catholics Using Jews to Attack the Pope

Left Wing of the Catholic Church Destroying the Faith Says Orthodox Rabbi