Vatican: Comments by Holocaust denier unacceptable

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The Vatican said Monday that comments by a recently rehabilitated bishop that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust were unacceptable and violate Church teaching. In a front-page article, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reaffirmed that Pope Benedict XVI deplored all forms of anti-Semitism and that all Roman Catholics must do the same. The article was issued amid an outcry from Jewish groups that Benedict last week lifted the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop, Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II. The Vatican has stressed that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson's views.