Pope seeks closer ties with Holocaust denier group

Pope seeks closer ties with Holocaust denier group

First Published 2010-01-15


VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Friday urged a rapprochement with a Catholic fraternity that includes a Holocaust-denying bishop just two days before a high-profile visit to Rome's synagogue.

Calling Christian unity a priority for the Roman Catholic Church, the pope urged the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog to "overcome doctrinal problems that prevent full communion between the Church and the Pius X Society."

The remark came as the pontiff's upcoming synagogue visit is already clouded by Jewish anger over his decision last month to move wartime Pope Pius XII further along the road to sainthood.

Many Jews accuse Pius XII of inaction during the Holocaust, and the president of Italy's assembly of rabbis, Giuseppe Laras, has said he will not be on hand for the Sunday visit.

On Friday the 82-year-old German pontiff was addressing the Vatican department he headed for a quarter-century, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He said he "counted particularly on the commitment" of the congregation to bringing the Pius X Society back into the Catholic fold.

The Swiss-based fraternity rejected the 1965 Vatican II declaration absolving Jews of blame for Jesus' death, and their leader Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ordained four bishops without Vatican blessing.

Benedict's predecessor John Paul II, fearing a schism, ex-communicated the four, who include Richard Williamson of Britain, who has dismissed as "lies" the fact that some six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, claiming that only between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews died before and during World War II.

A year ago, Pope Benedict unleashed an outcry among Jews as well as within the Catholic Church when he lifted Williamson's ex-communication as he began reaching out to the "Lefebvrists".