THE TELEGRAPH: Bishop Richard Williamson, who was asked to leave Argentina after making "deeply offensive" comments about the Holocaust, has arrived back in Britain.
The British-born Roman Catholic bishop flew into London's Heathrow airport from Buenos Aires where he was met by a crowd of international media and an armed police guard.
The bishop, who was given 10 days to leave Argentina by the country's government, declined to answer questions from the press as he was taken to a waiting car by police officers.
Those meeting him, including other Roman Catholic priests, also declined to comment before the vehicle sped away.
The bishop had been resident in Argentina until this week at the St Pius X seminary in the capital.
But after remarks he made in a Swedish television interview were broadcast, the government branded his view "deeply offensive".
He claimed in the 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 the Nazi concentration camps but none of them in gas chambers."
The Vatican has ordered Bishop Williamson to retract his comments and the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said he must do so before he can "enter into full communion with the church". >>> | Wednesday, February 25, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Vatican Complains to Israel about 'Blasphemous' TV Programme
The Vatican has lodged a formal complaint with the Israeli government over a TV programme that "ridiculed and blasphemed" Jesus and Mary.
In the programme, the host denied Christian traditions - that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus walked on water - saying he would do so as a "lesson" to Christians who deny the Holocaust, a reference to the Vatican's recent lifting of the excommunication of a bishop who denied 6 million Jews were killed during the Second World War. The rehabilitation sparked outrage among Jews.
The host, a well-known Israeli comedian Lior Shlein, also claimed that Mary became pregnant at 15 by a schoolmate and said that Jesus could never have walked on water because "he was so fat he was ashamed to leave the house, let alone go to the Sea of Galilee with a bathing suit."A statement from the Vatican press office said its representative in Israel had complained to the government about the show, which was broadcast recently on private Channel 10, one of Israel's three main television stations. >>> | Saturday, February 21, 2009
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