Vatican tells bishop: Recant on Holocaust

BERLIN - The Vatican yesterday ordered a British bishop to publicly recant his denials of the Holocaust, responding to an outcry over last month's decision by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome the excommunicated cleric back to the church.

In an unsigned statement, the Vatican said the formerly defrocked bishop, Richard Williamson, would be barred from resuming life as a priest until he admitted, in "an unequivocal and public way," that he was wrong in asserting that the Nazis did not kill any Jews in gas chambers during World War II.

The Vatican said Benedict was not aware of the bishop's repeated public comments denying the Holocaust until after the pontiff decided to overturn a decision to excommunicate Williamson and three other renegade clerics 21 years ago.

The Vatican previously fended off criticism of Williamson's rehabilitation even as church officials in Rome distanced themselves from his views.

They had said Benedict adequately addressed the controversy the week before by warning against Holocaust revisionism and proclaiming his "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews.

But the Vatican's handling of the case continued to anger people inside and outside the church who said Benedict - a Bavarian who was conscripted into the Hitler Youth as a teenager - was underestimating the importance of the issue.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday accused the Vatican of "creating the impression that Holocaust denial might be tolerated." Even some German cardinals and bishops called on the Vatican to speak out more strongly against Williamson.

The Vatican's decision yesterday to issue the new order was welcomed by leaders of several Jewish groups, although they said Benedict needed to confront other high-ranking clerics who have espoused extremist views about Judaism.

"This was the sign the Jewish world has been waiting for," said Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress.

The episode has caused a particular stir in Germany, where Holocaust denial is a crime, and prosecutors in Bavaria have said they are investigating Williamson for his comments.

"We Catholics are trying to be loyal to the Vatican and trying to understand what happened behind the scenes," said Edmund Runggaldier, a professor of religious philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin. "It's horrifying because we all know what happened in Auschwitz and we know that the pope does, too. That's what makes it so embarrassing."

Marvin Hier, a rabbi and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the matter "was bungled at the highest levels of the Vatican. If they Googled the name 'Bishop Williamson,' they'd find out he was a Holocaust denier."

There was no word yesterday from the bishop on whether he would agree to the Vatican's demand. Williamson resides in Argentina and could not be located for comment. He had previously apologized for causing the pontiff "unnecessary distress" but did not back away from his comments on the Holocaust.

Williamson is a member of the Society of St. Pius X, a Catholic sect that rejects the reformist teachings of the Second Vatican Council from the 1960s. He and three other clerics from the sect were excommunicated in 1988 after they were consecrated as bishops without papal consent.

The Vatican announced Jan. 24 that Benedict had agreed to lift the excommunication order as part of an effort to mend relations with the Society of St. Pius X.

Two days earlier, a Swedish public television station broadcast a prerecorded interview with Williamson in which he insisted that no more than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, "not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber."

Most credible historical accounts estimate that at least six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Vatican said when it announced the rehabilitation of the bishops that removing the excommunication did not mean the Vatican shared Williamson's views. In its statement yesterday, the Vatican said that while Williamson's excommunication had been lifted, he still had no canonical function in the church because he was consecrated illegitimately.

"Bishop Williamson, in order to be admitted to episcopal functions within the church, will have to take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah, which the Holy Father was not aware of when the excommunication was lifted," the statement said.

Shoah

is Hebrew for the Holocaust.