Particularly outrageous is the fact that the so-called Lefebvre bishops, members of the fundamentalist Society of St. Pius X, include Richard Williamson, who in a recent interview asserted that gas chambers were not utilized during the Holocaust. Williamson has also stated shamelessly that the Holocaust claimed the lives of no more than 300,000 Jews.

BBI does not wish to insert itself into the internal processes of the diverse Catholic Church, whose representatives have said that the church remains committed to Catholic-Jewish “dialogue.” But this latest step, coming on the eve of international Holocaust Remembrance Day, and as the reality of the Holocaust is being increasingly denied and distorted, reinforces a negative and troubling trend.

While Pope Benedict XVI has made welcome visits to important Jewish sites and has plans to visit Israel, these symbolic gestures have been matched by substantial steps backward from genuine Catholic-Jewish friendship.

The pope reinstated a prayer for Jews’ conversion and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently voted to replace a reference in catechism to Jews’ covenant as “eternal.” It is troubling that these moves were done with utter disregard for how they would be viewed in the Jewish community. But it is perhaps more objectionable that legitimate Jewish concerns have too often been dismissed as overreacting or intrusive.