Argentina expels Catholic bishop who questions Holocaust

• Briton told to leave for 'concealing true activity'
• Jewish groups welcome interior ministry's order

Argentina ordered a British bishop who has questioned the truth of the Holocaust to leave the country last night or face expulsion, reigniting a controversy which has dogged the Vatican. The interior ministry said Richard Williamson, a conservative Catholic who headed a seminary near Buenos Aires, had 10 days to leave.

The unexpected decision cited the bishop's Holocaust denial as well as his alleged failure to reveal "his true activity" in Argentina. He had apparently registered as an employee of a non-governmental group.

"The interior minister ... orders Richard Nelson Williamson to leave the country within 10 days or be expelled," the statement said. Jewish groups welcomed the move. Julio Schlosser, general secretary of the Jewish social welfare organisation Amia, said Williamson's views "affects the civic harmony and the social peace that this country needs so much".

The British-born cleric has been at the centre of a storm since last month when the Pope lifted his excommunication to try to heal a rift between the Vatican and rebels in the breakaway Society of St Pius X (SSPX). The decision provoked anger because Williamson had recently repeated claims there were no Nazi gas chambers and that the number of Jews killed in the second world war was 300,000 rather than 6 million.

"I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler," he said.

Protests by Jewish groups and the German government rattled the Vatican and imperilled a papal trip to Israel. To try to repair the damage the pope hosted Jewish leaders in Rome and said the Nazis' attempt to wipe out European Jewry was a "crime against God".

He said he had been unaware of Williamson's views and had ordered him to recant.

Williamson, who describes himself on his personal blog as a dinosaur, offered to reconsider his views with fresh reading about the Nazi genocide. "And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time," he said. Argentina's decision means that research is likely to take place elsewhere.

Guardian

Holocaust-denying bishop removed from seminary post

Ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X relieves British-born Richard Williamson of duties at seminary in Argentina

A Roman Catholic bishop who said he does not believe the Nazis murdered millions of Jewish people in gas chambers has been removed from his seminary. Richard Williamsom caused outrage with his remarks, which surfaced shortly after the Vatican's decision to welcome him back into the Catholic church last week.

The Diarios y Noticias news agency reported today that the ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X was relieving the British-born Williamson of his post as the director of its seminary in La Reja, Argentina.

Williamson is reported to have claimed in a television interview last month that historical evidence was "hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler ... I believe there were no gas chambers". He added: "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them by gas chambers."

In a statement, Father Christian Bouchacourt, the head of the Latin American chapter of the Society of St Pius X, said Williamson had been relieved as the head of the seminary on the outskirts of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. "Monsignor Williamson's statements do not in any way reflect the position of our congregation," the statement, reported by Reuters, said.

The row led the Vatican to order Williamson to recant his views last week. It issued a statement saying the bishop must accept the widely accepted historical truth that millions of Jews had been killed by the Nazis.

"Bishop Williamson, in order to be admitted to the episcopal functions of the church, must in an absolutely unequivocal and public way distance himself from his positions regarding the Shoah [Holocaust]," the statement said.

Pope Benedict XVI faced anger in his homeland of Germany and severe criticism from Jewish groups over his decision to lift an excommunication of the bishop. Williamson's excommunication was lifted along with those of three other bishops ordained without Vatican permission by the renegade French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The Vatican said the Pope did not know about Williamson's views on the Holocaust when he agreed to lift the excommunication. The pontiff's actions led to him being criticised by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Guardian