FRANCE : Cleric Exits Country After Holocaust Flap

Abbe Pierre, a priest regularly voted France’s most popular man, has left the country after a dispute over his support for the author of a book that attempts to cast doubt on the Holocaust. Abbe Pierre, 83, became embroiled in controversy last month when he backed his friend Roger Garaudy, whose book “The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics” expresses doubt about the widely accepted fact that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II. Pelerin magazine said the Roman Catholic cleric has been living in a Benedictine monastery in Padua, in northern Italy, since the beginning of May.