Holocaust: British Bishop Fined 10,000 Euros for Partial Holocaust Denial
DEUTSCHE WELLE: Ultra-conservative bishop Richard Williamson has been fined 10,000 euros for denying aspects of the Holocaust in an interview for Swedish television. He made the comments while on German soil.

A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg has fined a conservative British bishop 10,000 euros ($13,500) for partial Holocaust denial in a television interview.

Bishop Richard Williamson did not attend the hearing, and his lawyer said he was instructed not to by his ultra-conservative order, the Saint Pius X Society.

"Bishop Williamson would gladly have come," defense lawyer Matthias Lossmann told the court in Regensburg, "but the Saint Pius X Society suggested he did not. To be precise, they forbade him from coming."

While the maximum sentence for Holocaust denial - a criminal offence in Germany - is five years in prison, the court in Regensburg had said in the run-up to the trial that a fine would be the most likely outcome in the case of a guilty verdict.

The clergyman had already incurred a 12,000-euro fine for a 2008 Swedish television interview he gave from the Saint Pius X seminary near Regensburg. Because Williamson refused to pay this, the Regensburg court elected to open criminal proceedings against him.

In the interview he argued that only "200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps," and further argued that gas chambers had not been used as a method of mass-execution. The German issue >>> msh/dl/AP/AFP, Editor: Chuck Penfold | Friday, April 16, 2010

Vatican Admits 'Errors' in Rehabilitating Bishop Who Questioned Holocaust
The Vatican has conceded for the first time that it may have made 'errors' in its rehabilitation of a British bishop who questioned the Holocaust.

A senior Vatican official acknowledged that the Holy See made "management errors" with its decision to lift the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, who has said that the Nazis did not use gas chambers to kill and that a maximum of 300,000 Jews, not six million, lost their lives.

Pope Benedict XVI's decision to rehabilitate Bishop Williamson – without seeking the advice of his most senior advisers, according to Vatican insiders – provoked uproar around the world and forced the Vatican into damage control mode.

"I observe the debate with great concern. There were misunderstandings and management errors in the Curia," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is in charge of the Vatican department that deals with Jewish relations.

"The Pope wanted to open the debate because he wanted unity inside and outside," the German cardinal told Vatican Radio, referring to the Pontiff's desire to reconcile the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X, of which Williamson is a member, with the rest of the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Kasper noted that although Bishop Williamson and three other bishops have had their excommunications lifted, "they are still suspended" from the mainstream Church.

The Vatican has argued that rehabilitating Bishop Williamson, who runs a church in Argentina, does not imply that it accepts or condones his views on the Holocaust.

But the affair has poisoned relations with progressive Catholics and Jewish groups around the world, leaving many with the impression that the Vatican did not give enough thought to bringing Williamson in from the cold. >>> By Nick Squires in Rome | Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Bishop Richard Williamson interviewed by Swedish television >>>

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