Holocaust-denying bishop apologizes, Vatican and Jewish leaders not satisfied

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Holocaust-denying bishop recently readmitted to the Catholic Church apologized for comments that have provoked an international outcry, but Jewish leaders and the spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI call the apology unsatisfactory. Bishop Richard Williamson issued his statement Thursday (Feb. 26) on a Web site affiliated with the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint […]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A Holocaust-denying bishop recently readmitted to the Catholic Church apologized for comments that have provoked an international outcry, but Jewish leaders and the spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI call the apology unsatisfactory.

Bishop Richard Williamson issued his statement Thursday (Feb. 26) on a Web site affiliated with the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Williamson is one of four SSPX bishops whose 1988 excommunications were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI last month, as part of the pope’s effort to reconcile with the schismatic group.

Jewish organizations were outraged after Williamson recently told Swedish television that no more than 300,000 Jews “perished in Nazi concentration camps … not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber.”


In response, the Vatican said earlier this month that Williamson would not be permitted to function as a bishop without first “distancing himself in an absolute and unequivocal way from his positions” on the Holocaust.

In his statement on Thursday, Williamson noted that he had been “requested” to “reconsider” his remarks, “because their consequences have been so heavy.”

“Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them,” he wrote.

“To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologize.”

Williams played down his inflammatory statements, describing them as “only the opinion … of a non-historian, an opinion formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available and rarely expressed in public since.”

He also seemed to hint at continuing uncertainty over the numbers killed in the Nazi genocide, adding in closing that, “as the Holy Father has said, every act of injust (sic) violence against one man hurts all mankind.”


On Friday morning (Feb. 27), the Rev. Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican press office, described Williamson’s apology as “generic and equivocal,” and told reporters that it “does not seem to respect the conditions established” by the Holy See.

The American Jewish Committee agreed. “Williamson still refuses to acknowledge the Holocaust as a historical fact,” the committee said in a statement. “He is not fooling anyone, least of all the Vatican.”

Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League called Williamson’s apology a “sham that doesn’t recant any of his earlier remarks about the Holocaust.”

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