Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

234 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:233
Catholics, under the Bishop’s influence, have developed an affinity with
organizations that appear, on the surface, to be diametrically opposed to the
basic tenets of Christianity.
It will, finally, be easy to understand why the Traditional Catholic
Movement, having been primed by Bishop Williamson’s teaching, both personally
and through the priests he formed, is a prime target for subversive
and radical political organizations that promote the practical application of
Williamson’s philosophical ideology.
I will conclude by offering some practical ideas for developing a systematic,
updated plan for exposing and eradicating sanitized, pious
antisemitism. I hope this paper will spark a serious public discussion about
the emerging pernicious threat of religious antisemitism.
SOCIETY OF ST. PIUS X (SSPX)
I had the great fortune to grow up in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest
of nine Irish-Catholic children. My father, a very conservative man, was
dissatisfied with the modernized, Post-Vatican II Church, and was always
in search of an old-fashioned parish. In 1983, my aunt and uncle discovered
St. Michael’s Church, in Farmingville, New York, on Long Island, and
told my parents that this was a parish in which they could attend the Latin
Mass.
St. Michael’s is run by the SSPX, a congregation of priests founded by
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The Archbishop, like my own father,
objected to many of the doctrinal and liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican
Council, and wished to provide like-minded Catholics with an opportunity
to receive the Sacraments and the traditional teaching of the Church.
My father was happy to find the Latin Mass, and we frequented SSPX
chapels, both on Long Island, and in Hudson Falls when we moved upstate
in 1987.
I was an idealistic teenager and became very attached to the Traditional
Catholic Movement. Since I was considering the priesthood, I spent
my first year after high school living in an SSPX retreat center before entering
the English-speaking Society seminary in Winona, Minnesota, for formal
priestly training.
The spirit in the seminary at Winona was totally different from that of
the simple Catholicism I had grown up with. The source of the peculiar
orientation and ideology permeating the intellectual and spiritual life was
the rector of the seminary, Bishop Richard N. Williamson. His worldview,
his interpretation of history and politics, dictated the academic formation,
the books read in common, and the frequent guests invited to speak at the
seminary. Instead of directing us to concentrate on the writings of the