In a statement issued Wednesday, the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Bishop Williamson “must absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah,” or Holocaust, or else he would not be allowed to serve as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.

Will he or won’t he is hard to say, but I wonder if all those who castigated the Pope so quickly for his initial attempt at rapprochement with Bishop Williamson, three other SSPX Bishops and the community they represent, will be as effusive in their praise of this new move from the Vatican.

If better relations between people of different faiths are really the concern, then the readiness to offer moral critique when it’s needed must be matched by an equal enthusiasm to praise the actions of those we criticized earlier. Without that kind of balance, interfaith relations is really nothing more than communities monitoring each other’s behaviors for purposes of self-protection and the occasional opportunity to make one’s one community appear morally superior by highlighting the failings of other communities.
A wise man once reminded me that it’s never right to compare your community’s best with some others community’s worst. He was right. No?