Germany's criticism pushes Vatican to act on Holocaust denials

Published on Wednesday 4 February 2009 21:02

THE Vatican has demanded that a prelate who denied the Holocaust recant his position before being fully admitted as a bishop into the Roman Catholic Church, in a response by the Holy See to rare direct criticism from the German government.

The Vatican, seeking damage limitation, also said Pope Benedict XVI had not known about the views of British-born Bishop Richard Williamson when lifting his excommunication and that of three other ultraconservative bishops on 21 January.

The Vatican's secretariat of state issued the statement a day after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, took the unusual step of urging the Pope to make a clearer rejection of Holocaust denials, saying there had not been adequate clarification from the church.

The Holy See announced the rehabilitation on 24 January of four bishops excommunicated in 1988 after being consecrated without papal consent. Just days before, Bishop Williamson had been shown on Swedish television saying historical evidence "is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed" during the Second World War.

He has since apologised to the German-born Pope for having stirred controversy, but he did not repudiate his comments, in which he also said that only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the conflict and that none was gassed.

Though the Vatican said it did not share Bishop Williamson's views, Jewish groups voiced outrage at his rehabilitation and demanded he recant.

Bishop Williamson and the three others were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who in 1969 founded the Society of St Pius X, which opposed the liberalising reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including its outreach to Jews.

The Vatican said yesterday that while Bishop Williamson's excommunication had been lifted, he still had no canonical function in the church.

"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. The Shoah is the Hebrew term for the Holocaust. Jewish groups welcomed the Vatican statement.

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

Bishop Williamson's interview was aired on 21 January. The decree lifting his excommunication bore the same date, although it was not announced until three days later. The broadcaster said the timing was a coincidence, but Bishop Williamson has expressed his views about the Holocaust previously.

Yesterday's statement was a remarkable turnabout by the Vatican, which had considered the case "closed" after Benedict issued a lengthy denunciation of Holocaust deniers last week.

On 28 January, the Pope said he felt "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews, and warned against any denial of the full horror of the Nazi genocide.

The Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, cited those comments on Tuesday in telling the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, Avvenire, that, as far as he was concerned, "the question can be considered closed".

Yet the pressure continued, including from Roman Catholic leaders in Pope Benedict's native Germany and from Ms Merkel.