Argentina has given a Catholic bishop who denies the extent of the Holocaust 10 days to leave the country or else he will be expelled, the government said yesterday.
Bishop Richard Williamson, an ultra-traditionalist who headed a seminary near Buenos Aires until earlier this month, has said he believes there were no gas chambers and that only 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, rather than the widely accepted figure of six million.
Pope Benedict angered Jewish leaders and progressive Catholics last month when he lifted excommunications on Bishop Williamson and three other traditionalists to try to heal a 20-year-old schism within the Church.
The Vatican has asked him to recant his views on the Holocaust, which he has yet to do.