The Vatican on Wednesday ordered a traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust to publicly recant his views if he wants to serve as a prelate in the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican said Pope Benedict was not aware of Bishop Richard Williamson's denial of the Holocaust when the pontiff lifted excommunications on him and three other traditionalist bishops last month.
It also said the traditionalist movement the bishop belongs to must accept all teachings of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, which urged respect for Judaism and other religions, as well as all the teachings of popes since 1958. "Bishop Williamson, in order to be admitted to the episcopal functions of the Church, must in an absolutely unequivocal and public way distance himself from his positions regarding the Shoah," a Vatican statement said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.
His views on the Holocaust were "absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father," it said. On January 24, Benedict lifted the excommunications of the four to try to heal a 20-year-old schism that began when they were thrown out of the Church for being ordained without the permission of Pope John Paul II.
Among those who condemned Williamson and the pope's decision were Holocaust survivors, progressive Catholics, members of the US Congress, Israel's Chief Rabbinate, German Jewish leaders and Jewish writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. Williamson told Swedish television in an interview broadcast on January 21: "I believe there were no gas chambers". He said no more than 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, rather than the 6 million accepted by mainstream historians.
Williamson later apologised to the pope "for the unnecessary distress" he caused him but has not yet recanted. Jewish leaders welcomed the Vatican statement but said more was needed. "(This) was the necessary step we have asked for in order to defuse the moral crisis caused by his readmission to the Church," said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.
"The process can now begin of healing the deep wound that this crisis caused to the Catholic-Jewish dialogue," he said. The controversy over Williamson has led many to take a closer look at the traditionalist group, the Society of Saint Pius X, its view of Jews and its future in the Church.
Traditionalists reject most of the teachings of Second Vatican Council. One of its key documents, "Nostra Aetate" (In Our Times) repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death. Since Williamson made his comments one Italian member of the society said "gas chambers existed at least for disinfecting" and another called the late Pope John Paul a heretic for advancing relations with Jews.
The US Jesuit weekly "America" pointed out that the following phrase on its US website a week after the controversy: "Judaism is inimical to all nations in general, and in a special manner to Christian nations". The World Jewish Congress (WJC) welcomed the Vatican's latest move but said the pope had been "badly advised" on the whole matter and that more had to be done.
"Williamson's blatant anti-Semitism is not an isolated case," he said. The congress called on the pope "to urgently address these concerns and to ensure that the achievements of four decades of Catholic-Jewish dialogue are not being damaged by a small minority of people who want to divide rather than united."
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