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Outrage as Pope lifts ban on Holocaust denier

Jewish leaders are calling on the Vatican to repair the damage caused by the rehabilitation of an ultra-conservative bishop who is a Holocaust denier.

January 29, 2009 15:57
Bishop Richard Williamson

BySimon Rocker, Simon Rocker

2 min read

Jewish leaders are calling on the Vatican to repair the damage caused by the rehabilitation of an ultra-conservative bishop who is a Holocaust denier.

Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligous Consultations, believed the controversy “worse than any of the crises we have had with the Catholic Church”, almost since the new era of dialogue began more than 40 years ago.

Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of English-born Bishop Richard Williamson, who in an interview on Swedish television last week said that at most 300,000 Jews died in Nazi camps and that there were no gas chambers.

The Catholic Herald has also reported that the bishop believes the antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is authentic. He was also quoted by the paper to have once written: “In accordance with their false messianic vocation of Jewish world-domination, the Jews are preparing the Anti-Christ’s throne in Jerusalem.”