Church joins in condemning Holocaust denial
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published December 22, 2006
Photo by Larry Peplin
With Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss (right) at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills Monday is Auschwitz death camp survivor Bill Weiss. | Detroit – The Archdiocese of Detroit added its voice Monday to the condemnation of Holocaust denial efforts orchestrated by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Those who would attempt to ignore or erase the horrors of the Holocaust do a terrible disservice to the family of man," Cardinal Adam Maida said in a statement read by Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
Bishop Reiss represented the archdiocese at the news conference called by the Metropolitan Detroit Interfaith Partners of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion to voice opposition to an Ahmadinejad-sponsored conference of Holocaust denial "scholars" in Tehran, Iran the previous week.
Among the participants in Tehran was former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke from the United States.
Cardinal Maida, in his statement, noted that he had visited the Nazi death camps in Poland, visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and participated in ecumenical and interfaith reconciliation services for Holocaust victims. "I am painfully aware of what was done during World War II to advance a perverse political agenda against the Jews, the Poles, the Gypsies, and other innocents," he said.
And the cardinal continued, "Along with Pope Benedict XVI, my brother American bishops, and my good friends and collaborators in our local Jewish Community, I reject any and all efforts at revisionist history."
Photo by Larry Peplin
Rabbi Josh Bennett of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township and Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss view painting of a Nazi death camp at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. | Cardinal Maida added the archdiocese has distributed Holocaust-related educational materials in Catholic parishes and schools through its involvement with the Holocaust Educational Coalition in southeast Michigan.
The Interfaith Partners' statement called Ahmadinejad's efforts to "invalidate the horrors and lingering psychological trauma" of the Holocaust "insidious" and said it amounted to "cruel insolence."
The group noted that Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had also expressed outrage about the Tehran conference.
Interfaith Partners has as its mission to create deeper understanding among the Abrahamic faiths and to improve social welfare through education, dialogue and cooperative service projects.
Members include the Jewish Community Council, the Metropolitan Christian Council Detroit-Windsor and the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, as well as local Muslim, Jewish and Christian congregations and organizations such as Pathways to Peace and the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity.
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