B’nai B’rith International (BBI) welcomes as a constructive step forward the Vatican’s statement about Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson. The Jewish community is especially thankful for the expressions of concern and support by a number of episcopal bodies and other Roman Catholic voices around the world.The Vatican’s statement noted that Williamson cannot function legitimately as a bishop until he, “in an absolutely unequivocal and public way,” recants his previous assertions that Jews were not killed in gas chambers during World War II.
In January, Pope Benedict XVI overturned the excommunication of Williamson and three other bishops who reject the Second Vatican Council reforms, which initiated healing in Catholic-Jewish relations.
Williamson and his fellow “Lefebvre bishops” are members of the fundamentalist Society of St. Pius X. Williamson subscribes to discredited theories of a plot for global Jewish denomination and has said publicly that the Holocaust claimed the lives of no more than 300,000 Jews.
BBI sincerely appreciates the Vatican’s reiterated opposition to anti-Semitism, “solidarity” with Jews, and stated fidelity to Second Vatican Council teachings. However, a series of recent steps by the Vatican make necessary not just greater sensitivity and foresight in the future, but real clarification of the church’s authoritative interpretation of those views on Judaism and its adherents.
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