Somewhere, despite my inability to fluently speak the language, a vestigial hatred of seeing a phrase like “die darstellung von Heiner ist falsch” is insulting to the Bavarian blood that flows in my veins. This insult was part of the sad epitaph to the Der Spiegel story of last week, written by its librettist, Maximilian Krah, on Kreuz.net.
In this piece, Krah engaged in various nitpicking points – like saying he wasn’t in London in August – fine, then it was July or some other summer month; or saying that Bishop Williamson did not definitely refuse the interview, when he definitely did; or referring to the fact that Bp Williamson emailed one of the Spiegel reporters, when it was only to respond to something that Krah had leaked to them, that he had told them that the Bishop thought they were “rats” and the reporter wrote back saying, “We may be rats, but we are nice rats.” The bishop, embarrassed at his confidence being broken, apologized and was gracious. But, this is all an unimportant sideshow, and necessary fodder for the most important paragraph that Mr. Krah penned. Point 4 of Krah’s article is translated as well as our staff can manage:
If the SSPX does not here make clear that it has nothing to do with that (Bishop Williamson's failure to fulfill his duty to abstain from historical-political activities), it must reckon with being once more attacked.
I point out that supervision by the Constitution Protection Agency was called for last year, and I point out that if the SSPX gets actually reported on by the same Agency, its apostolate in Germany will become next to impossible.
If anyone does not want that to happen, they must make clear that they distance themselves from Bishop Williamson and his activities. That has happened.
(emphasis mine)
This pithy group of sentences requires some commentary.
First, we should point out the utter absurdity, repeated at the highest levels of the SSPX, that the Society does not concern itself with “historical matters.” As a graduate of an SSPX college, St. Mary’s College in Kansas, I can testify to the fact that, contrary to what any cleric might pronounce, there is indeed a Catholic point of view to any number of historical events, like, for example, the imprisonment of Galileo or the Battle of Lepanto, which is often in direct contradiction to popular notions. Catholicism is not confined to the sanctuary. It encompasses the whole of our lives. Jesus Christ is yesterday, today, and forever. So too the story of His Church, interwoven among the threads of millennia, is indeed a matter of “history.” His very birth and death are history. So, it ist falsch to say that Catholicism, and that bishops, who are guardians of the Faith, are to say nothing about history, and are instead to cow like dogs before politicians who foam at the mouth like the devil himself.
Secondly, if it is said that I am the Bishop’s secretary, so be it. It is therefore understood that anything I write or say about him has at least his tacit approval. If this be admitted, it must also be admitted that Maximilian Krah, who has been counsel to the SSPX longer than I have been “secretary” to Bishop Williamson, also enjoys the same tacit approval for what he says, and from the highest levels of the SSPX.
Therefore, when he says that it was necessary to create distance between the SSPX and Bishop Williamson so that the Society may continue its apostolate in Germany, I believe him. It is a practical measure, but it is one that is pretended to be carried off as noble. The last line of Krah’s response was “this has happened.” Meaning, he set up the Spiegel piece as a way to show Bishop Williamson as unbalanced, ill, and outcast by what might be humorously called his “brothers” in the priesthood. A face-to-face interview would have provided more logs for the burning of the excommunicate, but what kindling Krah could gather, through his various sources, served enough for the necessary “distance” Krah dictated, which any thinking person can gather, was not solely at his own initiative, though it may have been through his own advice. Gut. Es wird getan.
And now we know whose side Krah is actually on.
