Holocaust denier re-communed

I haven't written for almost a week due to work, a high volume of running, followed by extensive exhaustion, traveling, and more running. This has been going around for a day or two. I'm disappointed:

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Jewish officials in Israel and abroad are outraged that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunication of a British bishop who denies that Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers.

The pope's decree, issued Saturday, brings back into the Catholic Church's fold Bishop Richard Williamson and three other bishops who belong to the Society of Saint Pius X.

The liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations -- Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity -- said he was not consulted.

"It was a pope decision" he told CNN in a phone interview. "I have my opinions about it, but I do not wish to comment on a decision made by the pope."

The Society of Saint Pius X was founded by Archbishop Lefebrve, who rebelled against the Vatican's modernizing reforms in the 1960s, and who consecrated the men in unsanctioned ceremonies. As a result, Pope John Paul II excommunicated the four in 1988.

Within the Catholic Church, many Vatican analysts suggests that in an attempt to heal one rift with ultra-conservative church members, the pope is risking creating a wider gap with those more liberal groups that have fully embraced the changes and reforms.

The church's decision to lift the excommunication comes a few days after a Swedish television aired an interview with Williamson in which the 68-year-old claimed the Nazis did not use gas chambers.

"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler," he said in the interview, which appeared on various Web sites since its broadcast. What do you think?

"I believe there were no gas chambers," he added.

He added: "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers."

Prosecutors in Regensburg, Germany, where the interview took place -- and where the pope once taught -- are investigating Williamson's comments on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. Holocaust denial is treated as a crime in Germany.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, who now heads the society, distanced himself from Williamson's position. He told the Italian newspaper La Stampa that Williamson was responsible for his own opinions.

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee called the move by the Roman Catholic Church "shameful."

By "welcoming an open holocaust denier into the Catholic Church without any recantation on his part, the Vatican has made a mockery of John Paul II's moving and impressive repudiation and condemnation of anti-Semitism," he said.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, also expressed disappointment at the pope's decision.

"The decree sends a terrible message to Catholics around the world that there is room in the church for those who would undermine the church's teaching and would foster disdain and contempt for other religions, particularly Judaism," he said. "Given the centuries-long history of anti-Semitism in the church, this is a most troubling setback."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi called Williamson's remarks "absolutely indefensible."

He said the Vatican's decision to accept Williamson was part of its desire to normalize relations with the ultra-conservative group, and had nothing to do with the bishop's personal views.

But Rabbi Rosen dismissed as meaningless the Vatican's claim that the decision to welcome back Williamson did not mean the pope shared his views.

That explanation "does not resolve the question of how can the pope or the Vatican -- committed to fighting anti-Semitism which the late Pope John Paul II called "a sin against God and man" -- embrace someone who denies or at least minimalizes the Holocaust.

The move has the potential to set back Jewish-Catholic relations, which was strained by Pope Pius XII. The Pontiff during World War II, he is accused by some historians of failing to speak out against the Holocaust.

"While there are still hundreds of thousands of living Holocaust survivors amongst us who carry the scars of the Holocaust in them, to accept back a Holocaust-denying bishop raises questions if the Vatican under Pope XVI has learned the lesson of the Holocaust," said Amos Hermon, who heads the Task Force Against Anti-Semitism at Israel's Jewish Agency.

Some theologians say the decision by the pope -- who said he wanted to unite the Catholic church -- could be counter-productive. "This is not so much an act of grace as a surrender," Vatican analyst Marco Politi told The Times of London.

Pope Benedict was seeking reconciliation, "but the new era has begun with a lie. The pope has made a openly declared and unshakeable anti-Semite a legitimate bishop," Politi added.

The pope has twice visited synagogues, in the U.S. and his home country Germany, but recently stated, according to The Times, that dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims "in the strict sense of the word" was "not possible."

After his 14th birthday in 1941, Benedict -- then called Joseph Ratzinger -- was forced along with the rest of his class in Bavaria, southern Germany, to join the Hitler Youth. However his biographer John Allen Jr., said Ratzinger's family was strongly anti-Nazi.

Throw the baby away

Christian wades into a controversial topic:

I recently had a conversation with someone about Down Syndrome. The issue of "making a decision" during the pregnancy came up. They said that it might be best if the baby didn't make it to term. I whole-heartedly disagree. Everyone deserves a chance. Did you know, by the way, that about 92% of the pregnancies diagnosed as Down Syndrome end in an abortion? I'm not here to judge a couple or an expectant mother going through this. The news must be devastating and I can't begin to imagine what that is like. I'm just deeply saddened that the Down Syndrome babies don't get a chance to live.

Then, I was reading CNN.com this morning and read about a "cancer-free" baby being born in the UK. Essentially, the baby was created in-vitro, tested for the the gene linked to breast and ovarian cancer, and implanted when it cleared the test.

If the embryo had been found to carry a cancer-linked gene, she probably would have been discarded. Disgusting:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The first child in Britain known to have been screened as an embryo to ensure she did not carry a cancer gene was born Friday, a spokesman for University College London told CNN.

Genetic screening allows lab-fertilized embryos to be tested for genes likely to lead to later health problems.

The baby girl is the first child in Britain known to have been screened as an embryo to ensure she did not carry a gene linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

She was screened in a lab, days after conception, for the BRCA-1 gene. People with the gene have a 50-80 percent chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer in their lifetimes.

British newspapers have dubbed the girl the "cancer-free" baby.

"This little girl will not face the spectre of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life," said Paul Serhal, a consultant at University College London Hospital and Medical Director of the Assisted Conception Unit.

"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations."

Yet not everyone is thrilled with the idea of testing embryos for genes that could cause health problems later in life, a process known as preimplanatation genetic diagnosis.

"This is not a cure for breast cancer," said Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, which describes itself as group that focuses on ethical dilemmas related to reproduction.

"This is simply a mechanism for eliminating the birth of anybody (prone to) the disease," she said. "It is basically a search-and-kill mechanism."

She opposes the procedure because embryos found to carry disease-causing genes often are discarded. She says that is essentially murder.

"They will be destroyed," she said. "They will never be allowed to live."

Doctors in Britain and elsewhere increasingly test embryos for genes that are certain to cause illnesses such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington's Disease.

What's different about the girl born Friday is that she is the first infant known to have been tested in Britain as an embryo for a gene that is merely likely -- not certain -- to cause disease.

In the United States, geneticists are free to test for any condition for which they can develop a probe -- and they're free to look for genes that are certain to cause diseases as well as genes that merely may pose problems later in life.

Quintavalle opposes any form of in-vitro fertilization where embryos are "killed," she said. But she is particularly troubled by the idea of screening an embryo for the BRCA-1 gene because carriers of the gene do not always develop the disease, and the disease is not always fatal.

"The message we are sending is: 'Better off dead than carrying (a gene linked to) breast cancer,'" she said. "We have gone very much down the proverbial slippery slope."

Peter Braude, one of the top British experts on the genetic testing of embryos, said he understands the ethical objections but focuses on the benefits.

"There has always been a vociferous group in opposition," he said. But "there are people who can benefit and I think they should be allowed to do so."

In fact, he argues that the procedure actually prevents abortions because it takes place on a three-day old embryo in a lab. Only embryos that lack the defective gene are implanted.

"I don't think you can equate eight cells in a dish to an embryo or a child," said Braude, head of the department of women's health at the King's College London School of Medicine.

For many couples, the alternative to testing an embryo is to conceive a child naturally and test the fetus weeks or months into a pregnancy. Some couples opt for an abortion when such testing reveals a defect.

Diagnosing an embryo genetically typically involves fertilizing an egg with a sperm in a lab, testing the resulting embryo and implanting it in the mother if no defects are found.

Braude agrees that testing for diseases that may not be fatal -- or may not manifest themselves for decades -- raises thorny ethical questions.

"How serious does it have to be before you throw away an embryo?" he asked. "Are you prepared to throw away a 16-week embryo for Huntington's, which will not manifest until age 40?"

In Britain, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority determines the conditions for which geneticists can test. It has approved testing for more than 60 conditions since it was established in 1990.

The authority approved testing for the BRCA-1 gene in 2008.

Dr. Mark Hughes, who founded a genetics clinic in the United States, said he likes the idea of an authority that regulates what tests can be performed -- the system in place in Britain -- but believes that parents who want to test for genetic abnormalities should be allowed to do so.

At his Genesis Genetics Institute in Detroit, Mich., Hughes carries out about two tests a month for BRCA-1 or BRCA-2, a related gene.

"The couple is the best one to be making these decisions, because they live with these diseases," he said.

"When it hits your family over and over again, many couples are saying: 'Enough of this. Let's prune this out of our family tree forever.'"

He rejects the notion that parents will use genetic testing to remove all imperfections from children.

"You can get up on your high horse and say people are looking for perfect children, but let's give these families more credit," he said. "They just want one that has a fighting chance of not having a disease."

Hughes said he doubts genetic screening will ever be used to test all babies. That's partly because it costs the equivalent of about $11,755 -- 8,000 British pounds -- to screen embryos.

It's also because the process is very complex.

"It's gotten easier to do now than it was 19 years ago," when Hughes did his first test for cystic fibrosis, he said. "But it has not exploded, not burst onto the medical field like some technologies do.

"No one would use these technologies for a trivial reason. It's too much effort," he said. "Not just the money -- it's so many hoops to jump through for a couple that would prefer to make their baby on vacation rather than in a clinic."

Awaiting Emmanuel

Tonight I find myself curled up on the couch again for the third or fourth time this week. At first I thought I had caught one of those pesky stomach bugs that 5 year olds spread so well. But, after an analysis of my eating habits this week, Wendy and I may have discovered the culprit: eggs. For some reason my body is reacting terribly to eggs. We think.

In any case, this has blessed me with hours of TV watching and internet surfing time. As a news-junkie, I've spent a good amount of my intestinally-sponsored free time watching CNN and reading stuff on the BBC website. None of it seems good.

Yesterday, a man was killed due to the greed, lack of compassion, and disgusting behavior of Long Island Walmart shoppers.

The death toll in Mumbai has hit 195 dead and about 295 injured. And, there are still bodies uncounted.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue with deaths mounting daily.

The conflict in Darfur has no end in sight, with little being done internationally to help.

Riots kill hundreds in Nigeria and the Congo might erupt in all out war.

Thailand is shut down and falling apart.

New York City is on the lookout for a possible terrorist plot.

And the Dalai Lama says sex can only mean trouble.

No the news is not good today.

Which brings me to Advent. Advent is the season of waiting and preparing for the birth of our Messiah in our Church year. Basically it's the four weeks that lead up to Christmas. Tomorrow begins Advent.

As we decorate and shop, as we make travel plans and listen to cheery-Christmas music 24/7, as we wish that we get that Nikon camera we've been longing for (hint, hint) and eat ourselves into obesity, we should stop, take a look around us and take in what's happening.

There are blessings in abundance, yes. I cannot complain, I've been blessed tremendously. As I sit here whining about my belly aches, I look next to me on the couch and there's a beautiful lady bringing me tea.

But, in this time of cheer and blessings, also remember those who have not. Remember those who are going through less-than-cheery moments in history. And remember that although there is tremendous progress and change happening in the world, the images from the video below are eerily similar to images on the news today:



As we await Emmanuel, I sometimes wonder... we've been around for 2000 years since Jesus was born. What have we done with our time?

(Note: sour stomachs leads to depressing posts)

VOTE NOW: Healthcare for all?

My friend Xavier is an actor, comedian, and filmmaker out in LA. He submitted this video for CNN's iReport Film Festival and is a semi-finalist. Take a look.

Then, go to the Ballot Page and vote!

Voting ends at 11:59pm, October 22nd. Vote now!

(Having trouble posting the video so just click on the links for now).

Dow Down

Does anyone else feel like we just gave away a trillion dollars for absolutely no reason? Did it help? Is it going to help? Help who?

Fed Chairman Ben Bernake says it looks like our "economic outlook" is weaker. But, he claims, the bailout came just in time to prevent bigger, permanent damage.

Did it really???????????

Sunday School with Stephen Colbert

Man, I'd go back to Sunday School just to have Stephen Colbert as my teacher. I found this article, where he explains why he's a jerk on his show and his love for teaching Sunday School, on CNN.com:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stephen Colbert was raised in South Carolina to be a Southern gentleman. But he spends his days being a jerk. It must be tough.

"I don't care what they think of me," Stephen Colbert says of his show's guests.

Not really, says the Comedy Central star.

"I was taught to be nice, so it's not in my nature to be a jerk," he told a crowd of fans over the weekend at the New Yorker Festival. "But I do enjoy it."

Colbert figures that's because he's embarrassment-proof. "There's an essential embarrassment to being a jerk, and I just don't get embarrassed about things," he explained.

The host of "The Colbert Report" spent 90 minutes out of character, regaling interviewer Ariel Levy about how his career was launched and deconstructing the process of playing the right-wing blowhard pundit named Stephen Colbert.

Before every interview, he said, he explains to his guest exactly what he's doing. "I tell people, 'He's an idiot,"' Colbert said, referring to his alter ego. "I say, 'Disabuse me of my ignorance."'

Still, there have been a few people who didn't quite get the joke -- or at least didn't laugh. Colbert says he knows he has offended Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and early in the show's run, Bob Kerrey, the former governor of Nebraska who is now president of The New School, a university in New York, didn't seem to get that he was fake.

The comedian added that he does care about how people feel they're treated on the show.

"I don't care what they think of ME, but I am worried about their feelings," he said.

Colbert, who lives in New Jersey with his wife and kids, also touched upon one of his hobbies: teaching Sunday school. He's done it in the past and hopes to again next year.

"The great thing about teaching Sunday school is that these kids ask questions that even in college we thought were so deep," he said. Examples: What's beyond time? What came before God?

Then again, he said, sometimes they're just asking to go to the bathroom.