UPDATED May 28, 2009
On February 19th, 2009, Bob Sungenis had the gall to imply that Pope Benedict XVI has avoided mentioning the number of Jews killed by the Nazis because His Holiness agrees with him that perhaps only a few hundred thousand Jews perished. Bob also took yet another opportunity to promote Holocaust revisionism (a "report by Meyer"):
While the Holy Father assures us that the names of the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust are fixed in the memory of Almighty God, Bob Sungenis would have us forget most of them and believe that perhaps the Jewish people themselves were largely to blame for their terrible fate. Again, below are a few other ignorant and offensive statements made by Bob about the Holocaust:
No, the Holy Father most certainly does not agree with Bob Sungenis that the Nazis may only have killed a few hundred thousand Jews and that the figure of six million is “mere propaganda”. To the contrary, His Holiness has denounced the kind of ugly Holocaust “minimization” and revisionism that Bob and SSPX Bishop Williamson peddle as “intolerable and unacceptable.” (Article)
R. Sungenis: "The pope made no mention of the '6 million' figure that has become such a hot issue in the Williamson affair. The pope did the right thing. In reality, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s 600,000 (according to a recent report by Meyer) or 6,000,000." (link)
Does the Pope really agree with Sungenis that perhaps only a few hundred thousand Jews were killed in the Holocaust? Is the Holy Father avoiding mention of the number "six million"? For the sake of any individuals who may have any doubts on that score, the following are two recent statements made by Pope Benedict XVI:
It is right and fitting that, during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the six million Jewish vicitims of the Shoah, and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude.
(Ben Gurion Airport, May 11, 2009. The full text of the speech may be viewed here)
I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again. Most of all, their names are forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God...May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten!
(Yad Vashem, May 11, 2009. The full text of the speech may be viewed here)
While the Holy Father assures us that the names of the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust are fixed in the memory of Almighty God, Bob Sungenis would have us forget most of them and believe that perhaps the Jewish people themselves were largely to blame for their terrible fate. Again, below are a few other ignorant and offensive statements made by Bob about the Holocaust:
Robert Sungenis (2002): The figure of six million Jews dying under Hitler's regime is even admitted by informed Jews to be mere propaganda. (link)
Robert Sungenis (2005): I have my doubts that it was 6 million [Jews killed in the Holocaust]...Hitler hated the Jews, not only for what he saw as a youth, but because the Jews had a stranglehold on European finance and banking for many years. There are some stories, however, that suggest these Jewish banking families actually helped Hitler in his quest, since their objective was to ellicit [sic] world-wide sympathy so as to migrate European and Russian Jews to Palestine, their long-sought goal which they have, indeed, accomplished." (link)
Robert Sungenis (2009): "it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that six million Jews were killed in Nazi internment camps." (link)
R. Sungenis (2009): "I suggest you stop blaming it on the nation who excised [the Jews] and start looking at what the Jewish people do to get themselves excised." (link)
R. Sungenis (2009): "As for Germany's relationship with the Jews, well, the Germans treated the Jews very nicely when the Jews were excised out of Russia and migrated to Germany. Then the Jews turned on the Germans because they got a better deal from someone else." (link ; a very similar statement was repeated in Ask Your Questions About the Jews)
Robert Sungenis (2009): “I suggest you read the unsanitized accounts of what really happened [in the Holocaust]. When the Jews and Jewish sympathizers start showing proof that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews by gassing them, instead of jailing people for even bringing up the question, then you can talk about the Nazis and I’ll listen.” (link)
Robert Sungenis (2009): "One example of this evidence is the fact that the worldwide Jewish population from 1940 to 1948 did not decrease by even a half million, much less six million....But the international population records show that the numbers of Jews after World War II were virtually the same as before the war." (link) (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists".)
Robert Sungenis (2009): "The documented records of the International Red Cross show that there were less than a few hundred thousand Jews who died in Nazi camps, and that most of those were from disease." (link) (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists". According to the International Committee of the Red Cross itself, this is not what these records "show.")
No, the Holy Father most certainly does not agree with Bob Sungenis that the Nazis may only have killed a few hundred thousand Jews and that the figure of six million is “mere propaganda”. To the contrary, His Holiness has denounced the kind of ugly Holocaust “minimization” and revisionism that Bob and SSPX Bishop Williamson peddle as “intolerable and unacceptable.” (Article)
