WORLD BRIEFING / ARGENTINA
The bishop whose rehabilitation by the Vatican sparked outrage because of his denials of the Holocaust has been removed as the head of an Argentine seminary, his superiors said.
The ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X, which is trying to reconcile with the Vatican, announced that it had dismissed British Bishop Richard Williamson as director of the La Reja seminary and distanced itself from his views.
His views about the Holocaust created an uproar last month when Pope Benedict XVI lifted his excommunication and that of three other bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X in 1969 in opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly its outreach to Jews.
In an interview broadcast Jan. 21, Williamson told Swedish state TV that there were no gas chambers during the Holocaust and only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed, not 6 million.
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