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
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