Hundreds protest Italy funeral for Nazi criminal

A woman holding a flag of Italian Communist Refoundation Party thumps her fist on the hearse carrying the coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke. Photo / AP

Shouting "murderer" and "executioner," hundreds of people jeered as the coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke arrived Tuesday for a funeral Mass celebrated by a splinter Catholic group opposed to the Vatican's outreach to Jews.

Since Priebke's death on Friday at age 100, debate has raged over what to do with his remains. Pope Francis' vicar for Rome refused him a funeral in a Catholic Church and Rome's police chief backed him up, citing concerns for public order.

Priebke participated in one of the worst massacres in German-occupied Italy during World War II, the slaughter of 335 civilians at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome. Tensions have been high ever since he died and left behind an interview in which he denied Jews were gassed in the Holocaust.

No one appeared ready to take him in until, in a surreal twist, the schismatic Society of St. Pius X in the city of Albano Laziale south of Rome stepped forward to celebrate the funeral Mass. The society, known for the anti-Semitic views of some of its members, celebrates the pre-Vatican II old Latin Mass.

As the hearse bringing the coffin arrived outside the society's walled compound, people in the crowd slammed their fists and umbrellas on the car and shouted "We are all anti-fascist!" and "Priebke, murderer!"

One woman fainted.

Later, at least 50 Priebke supporters gathered and were being held back by riot police about 500 meters (yards) away.

The society was formed in 1969, opposed to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly its outreach to Jews. It split from Rome after its leader consecrated bishops without papal consent. It currently has no legal standing in the Catholic Church.

One of its disgraced members is Bishop Richard Williamson, who made headlines in 2009 when he denied that any Jews were killed in gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Priebke espoused the same views. In a final interview released by his lawyer upon his death, Priebke denied the Nazis gassed Jews and accused the West of inventing such crimes to cover up atrocities committed by the Allies during World War II.

Once word spread that the society would celebrate the Mass, the mayor of Albano Laziale issued an ordinance trying to block the coffin from arriving but said he was overruled by the government prefect. Deputy Mayor Maurizio Sementelli said one of the reasons for the outrage was that one of the victims of the massacre was from Albano.

Priebke spent nearly 50 years as a fugitive before being extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1995 to stand trial for the 1944 massacre. He died in the Rome home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini, where he had been serving his life term under house arrest.

Giachini has said he merely wanted a Catholic funeral for his client, whom he said had confessed his sins and been absolved. But the pope's vicar for Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini refused him a church funeral. Albano is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Rome and isn't part of Vallini's archdiocese.

The Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University, said Vallini's decision to refuse Priebke a church funeral was highly unusual, but was presumably done to take into account the outpouring of emotion Priebke's death has unleashed, particularly in Rome's Jewish community.

Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the roundup of Jews from Rome's ghetto for the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"For reasons of justice, for truth regarding the Holocaust, to honor the Jewish people and all that they suffered and for maintaining public peace, these are all good reasons for not having a public ceremony," said Gahl, an Opus Dei priest.

Details of Priebke's relationship with the Society of St. Pius X weren't known, but one Italian member, the Rev. Floriano Abrahamowicz, said he counted Priebke as a friend and would celebrate a memorial Mass in his honor this weekend.

Abrahamowicz in the past has supported Williamson and expressed doubts of his own about the extent of the Holocaust.

"I absolve sinners, and I don't consider a sin what he did," Abrahamowicz told Sky TG24, speaking of Priebke's role in the massacre. "It was simply the tremendous, horrible laws of war."

The funeral was likely to further distance the Society of St. Pius X from the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI had made bringing the society's members back into the fold a key priority of his pontificate. But talks between the society and Rome broke down in the final year of his papacy and Francis has made clear he has no interest in restarting them.

-AP