Pope Demands Bishop Disavow Shoah Remarks
The Vatican has called on a Holocaust-denying bishop to recant his views.
In a statement Wednesday, the Vatican secretariat of state said Bishop Richard Williamson “must absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah,” The New York Times reported.
Williamson, a member of a schismatic Catholic sect, said in a recent television interview that he doubted the existence of Nazi gas chambers and believed that only a few hundred thousand Jews lost their lives during the Holocaust. Williamson’s views generated a crisis for the church after Pope Benedict XVI revoked a longstanding excommunication order against Williamson and three other bishops last month.
The statement comes as more voices were added to the chorus of criticism that has greeted Benedict’s decision to pursue greater unity within the church by moving towards a rapprochement with the renegade sect.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, said Tuesday that Williamson’s views were “utterly false,” according to the Catholic News Service. And on Wednesday, the World Jewish Congress weighed in, saying the pope’s decision was “badly advised” and welcoming the Vatican’s insistence that Williamson recant.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
