Florian Abrahamowicz
Encyclopedia
Florian Abrahamowicz in Italian
Floriano Abrahamowicz, is an Austria
n-born priest who has been superior of the Society of St. Pius X
in the northeast of Italy
. He was expelled from the Society in February 2009 for expressing opinions differing from the official views of the Society of St. Pius X.
, where his father, Alexander Abrahamowicz, was a Protestant pastor of Jewish background. Alexander's father, Jakob Abrahamowicz, had moved to Vienna from Pozorita/Pojorâta
, Romania
before Alexander's birth on 10 September 1926.
Several members of that family, residents of Siret
(Romania), were murdered during the Shoah
. Because of his mother, Maria Teresa Amantea an Italian pianist, Florian Abrahamowicz also has Italian
nationality. He is one of five siblings, three of whom became Catholic priests. The other two priests are not linked with the Society of St Pius X or any similar organization.
One of them, Dom Johannes Paul Abrahamowicz, was prior (under-abbot) of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Paul Outside the Walls from 2005 to 2009. He was webmaster of the ATLAS of the Benedictine Order OSB-International website until January 2008. At Saint Paul outside the Walls he composed the official hymn of the Pauline Year, and gave interviews on ecumenical
aspects of the Year. In December 2009 he returned to his monastery in Austria.
An aunt, Elfriede Huber-Abrahamowicz (1922–2001) wrote poetry, stories, novels and philosophical treatises and lectured on the philosophy of feminism
in Zürich
.
's Italian Social Republic
, fighting, he said, for motherland and religion, "innocent victims because their murderers belonged to no legitimate army", a reference to the partisans
whom he described as "poor ignorant fellows fighting for what Pius XI
called the perverse sect of communism
".
, a German SS officer convicted of war crimes for a 1944 massacre in Rome, in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in reprisal for the deaths of 33 German soldiers, not as an "executioner", but rather a soldier who acted "with regret and a heavy heart".
He is seen as unofficial chaplain of Italy's regional party Lega Nord. In 2007, Umberto Bossi
, the leader of the party, accepted his invitation to his celebration of a Tridentine Mass
and said there were affinities between his party and the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
.
's Padania Association on Radio Padania Libera (Radio Free Padania), he attacked Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan
for having deplored the lack of worship facilities for Moslems in that city. He called on his listeners to put no trust in the Cardinal Archbishop, whom he called "the latest example of the infiltrators who try in every revolution - the English, the French, the Bolshevik and, now, the globalist - to subvert the Church from inside", adding: "Do not think that Tettamanzi represents the left wing of a Church led by the conservative Ratzinger, because in reality it is the whole Conciliar Church that is allied to those powerful forces that by Islamizing Europe aim at world domination in accordance with an anti-Christian design".
Just the evening before, on 4 February 2009, Abrahamowicz declared on television: "The Second Vatican Council
was worse than a heresy
... Saint Pius X
tells us that modernism is the main sewer of heresies. ... So I say that the Second Vatican Council is a main sewer".
Perhaps the most likely catalyst for the decision to expel Abrahamowicz was the sermon he preached twice on Sunday 25 January 2009, the day after the publication of the decree lifting, at their request, the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X. Abrahamowicz denied that there had been any excommunication to lift, and said: "A traditionalist Catholic
cannot ask for or accept such a decree". Quoting words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, he declared:
, he said he was not sure the Nazis had used gas chambers for anything other than disinfection, claimed that the number of six million Jews killed was derived from a number fired off by the head of the German Jewish community without knowledge of the facts, complained that the Holocaust had wrongly been exalted, by Jews in particular, above other genocides, such as the Armenian Genocide
, and said that the people of Israel "initially were the people of God, ... then became the people of deicide
, and ... at the end of time will reconvert to Jesus Christ."
On 5 February 2009 the Italian chapter of the Society of St. Pius X issued a notification that from the following day Abrahamowicz was expelled from the Society "for serious disciplinary reasons": "Father Florian Abrahamowicz has for some time been expressing opinions differing from the official views of the Society of St. Pius X. The painful decision to expel him has become necessary in order to avoid having the image of the Society of St. Pius X further distorted with consequent harm to its work at the service of the Church."
Flavio Tosi
described the priest's words as "unconceivable, unacceptable and monstrous", while Luca Zaia
told the press that "no revisionism is possible".
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
Floriano Abrahamowicz, is an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n-born priest who has been superior of the Society of St. Pius X
Society of St. Pius X
The Society of Saint Pius X is an international Traditionalist Catholic organisation, founded in 1970 by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...
in the northeast of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. He was expelled from the Society in February 2009 for expressing opinions differing from the official views of the Society of St. Pius X.
Early life and ordination
Florian Abrahamowicz was born in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where his father, Alexander Abrahamowicz, was a Protestant pastor of Jewish background. Alexander's father, Jakob Abrahamowicz, had moved to Vienna from Pozorita/Pojorâta
Pojorâta
Pojorâta is a commune located in Suceava County, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Pojorâta and Valea Putnei....
, Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
before Alexander's birth on 10 September 1926.
Several members of that family, residents of Siret
Siret
Siret is a town in Romania, Suceava County, one of the oldest towns in, and a former capital of, the former principality of Moldavia. It is located 2 km from the border with Ukraine, being one of the main border passing points in the North of the country, having both a road border post and a...
(Romania), were murdered during the Shoah
Shoah
Shoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...
. Because of his mother, Maria Teresa Amantea an Italian pianist, Florian Abrahamowicz also has Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
nationality. He is one of five siblings, three of whom became Catholic priests. The other two priests are not linked with the Society of St Pius X or any similar organization.
One of them, Dom Johannes Paul Abrahamowicz, was prior (under-abbot) of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Paul Outside the Walls from 2005 to 2009. He was webmaster of the ATLAS of the Benedictine Order OSB-International website until January 2008. At Saint Paul outside the Walls he composed the official hymn of the Pauline Year, and gave interviews on ecumenical
Ecumenism
Ecumenism or oecumenism mainly refers to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. It is used predominantly by and with reference to Christian denominations and Christian Churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice...
aspects of the Year. In December 2009 he returned to his monastery in Austria.
An aunt, Elfriede Huber-Abrahamowicz (1922–2001) wrote poetry, stories, novels and philosophical treatises and lectured on the philosophy of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
in Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
.
Chaplain for the Lega Nord
In 1984, Florian Abrahamowicz spoke at a ceremony in honour of those who died in support of Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Italian Social Republic
Italian Social Republic
The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
, fighting, he said, for motherland and religion, "innocent victims because their murderers belonged to no legitimate army", a reference to the partisans
Italian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
whom he described as "poor ignorant fellows fighting for what Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
called the perverse sect of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
".
Political views
In 2006, he said in a television interview that he viewed Erich PriebkeErich Priebke
Erich Priebke is a former Hauptsturmführer in the Waffen SS. In 1996 he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for participating in the massacre at the Ardeatine caves in Rome, on March 24, 1944...
, a German SS officer convicted of war crimes for a 1944 massacre in Rome, in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in reprisal for the deaths of 33 German soldiers, not as an "executioner", but rather a soldier who acted "with regret and a heavy heart".
He is seen as unofficial chaplain of Italy's regional party Lega Nord. In 2007, Umberto Bossi
Umberto Bossi
Umberto Bossi is an Italian politician, leader of the Northern League, a party seeking autonomy or independence for Northern Italy. He is married to Manuela Marrone and has four sons ....
, the leader of the party, accepted his invitation to his celebration of a Tridentine Mass
Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass is the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. It was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in December 1969...
and said there were affinities between his party and the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel Lefebvre
Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.In 1970,...
.
Religious views
In December 2008, speaking on the weekly programme of Mario BorghezioMario Borghezio
Mario Borghezio is an Italian politician from the Northern League. He is a Member of the European Parliament, and sits with the eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group. He is a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairsand of the Committee on Petitions...
's Padania Association on Radio Padania Libera (Radio Free Padania), he attacked Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
for having deplored the lack of worship facilities for Moslems in that city. He called on his listeners to put no trust in the Cardinal Archbishop, whom he called "the latest example of the infiltrators who try in every revolution - the English, the French, the Bolshevik and, now, the globalist - to subvert the Church from inside", adding: "Do not think that Tettamanzi represents the left wing of a Church led by the conservative Ratzinger, because in reality it is the whole Conciliar Church that is allied to those powerful forces that by Islamizing Europe aim at world domination in accordance with an anti-Christian design".
Just the evening before, on 4 February 2009, Abrahamowicz declared on television: "The Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
was worse than a heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
... Saint Pius X
Pope Pius X
Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...
tells us that modernism is the main sewer of heresies. ... So I say that the Second Vatican Council is a main sewer".
Perhaps the most likely catalyst for the decision to expel Abrahamowicz was the sermon he preached twice on Sunday 25 January 2009, the day after the publication of the decree lifting, at their request, the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X. Abrahamowicz denied that there had been any excommunication to lift, and said: "A traditionalist Catholic
Traditionalist Catholic
Traditionalist Catholics are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council...
cannot ask for or accept such a decree". Quoting words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, he declared:
Those who have "lifted" the pseudo-excommunication are "long since excommunicated. Why? Because they are modernists!" Being of modernist spirit, they have created a Church that is in conformity with the spirit of the world. For the person who gave orders for the insulting decree of "lifting" is Joseph RatzingerPope Benedict XVIBenedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
, who continues unperturbed the modernist ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, which he calls "a beacon we cannot renounce", thus incurring the excommunication Saint Pius X issued against the modernists. An excommunicate lifts a non-existent censure!
Holocaust denial controversy
In January 2009, in the midst of a worldwide controversy over Bishop Williamson's denial of the reality of the HolocaustThe Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, he said he was not sure the Nazis had used gas chambers for anything other than disinfection, claimed that the number of six million Jews killed was derived from a number fired off by the head of the German Jewish community without knowledge of the facts, complained that the Holocaust had wrongly been exalted, by Jews in particular, above other genocides, such as the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
, and said that the people of Israel "initially were the people of God, ... then became the people of deicide
Deicide
Deicide is the killing of a god. The term deicide was coined in the 17th century from medieval Latin *deicidium, from de-us "god" and -cidium "cutting, killing")...
, and ... at the end of time will reconvert to Jesus Christ."
On 5 February 2009 the Italian chapter of the Society of St. Pius X issued a notification that from the following day Abrahamowicz was expelled from the Society "for serious disciplinary reasons": "Father Florian Abrahamowicz has for some time been expressing opinions differing from the official views of the Society of St. Pius X. The painful decision to expel him has become necessary in order to avoid having the image of the Society of St. Pius X further distorted with consequent harm to its work at the service of the Church."
Flavio Tosi
Flavio Tosi
Flavio Tosi is an Italian Venetist politician. He is member of Liga Veneta–Lega Nord.-Career:Having joined Liga Veneta in 1991, he was elected to the Municipal Council of Verona in 1994 at the age of 25. From 1997 to 2003 he was also provincial secretary of Liga Veneta for the Province of Verona...
described the priest's words as "unconceivable, unacceptable and monstrous", while Luca Zaia
Luca Zaia
Luca Zaia is an Italian Venetist politician, member of Liga Veneta–Lega Nord.Since March 2010 Zaia is President of Veneto...
told the press that "no revisionism is possible".