The Pope embraces Holocaust-denier

Given that he is a former member of the Hitler Youth himself, Pope Benedict XVI's (pictured) decision to rehabilitate the British bishop Richard Williamson, who claimed in a recent interview that no Jews died in gas chambers during the Second World War, looks rather bad.

Williamson, who was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, was ex-communicated in 1998 by Pope John Paul because of his unauthorised consecration by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, head of the schismatic Catholic group, the Society of Saint Pius X.

Benedict, 81, keen to resolve any internal church rows, reversed this papal order earlier this month – a serious case of bad timing it turns out. For in an interview taped in November and aired last Wednesday on Swedish television, Williamson said he agreed with the "most serious" revisionist historians of the Second World War who had concluded, he said, that "between 200,000-300,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps, but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber".

This has prompted a predictably strong response from Jewish groups, with the chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, saying Williamson's reinstatement would open a "deep wound", a reference, it is thought, to the many allegations that the Catholic Church did nothing at the time to prevent the Holocaust.

But the Pope, it seems, is steadfast. While Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's most senior spokesman, said Williamson's statements were not those of the Roman Catholic Church and were "open to criticism", he insisted that they have "nothing to do with the lifting of the ex-communication" and that "one is not connected to the other". ·