BISHOP RICHARD Williamson, whose denial of the Holocaust provoked an international outcry, could face further problems in Germany and in his strained relations with the Holy See despite his apology on Thursday for those comments.
Yesterday the Vatican’s senior spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi appeared to reject the bishop’s apology and German justice minister Brigitte Zypries said Germany might issue an arrest warrant for the bishop on hate crime charges. Given that the ultra-traditionalist bishop made Holocaust-denial comments in a recent Swedish TV interview, recorded in Germany, he could be prosecuted in Germany where it is a crime to deny the Holocaust.
For much of the last two months, Pope Benedict XVI has struggled to contain the international outcry prompted by his decision to lift the 1988 excommunication of four “Lefebvre” bishops, including Bishop Williamson, all members of the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X, founded in 1970 by French bishop Marcel Lefebrve. The Vatican claimed that Pope Benedict was unaware of the bishop’s controversial views when he lifted his excommunication.
Early this month, in an obvious attempt to answer worldwide criticism, the Vatican called on Bishop Williamson to “unequivocally and publicly distance himself” from his previous statements on the Shoah.
In his Thursday apology, Bishop Williamson had said: “To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologise.” Fr Lombardi, however, suggested yesterday that Bishop Williamson’s statement “does not seem to respect the conditions” set down by the Vatican.
Bishop Williamson, who returned to Britain this week after being expelled from Argentina, said: “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.”
Not surprisingly, the cautious tones of the bishop’s apology had already prompted the ire of Jewish groups, even before the Vatican issued its rejection. Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said: “As he clearly failed to retract his malicious lies, Williamson has again shown that he is a staunch anti-Semite and incorrigible Holocaust denier who doubts the genocide of six million Jewish people.”