The Bishop leaves Argentina

[Ognir]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7908660.stm




Nazi row bishop leaves Argentina

Richard Williamson's views on the Holocaust

A British Roman Catholic bishop embroiled in a row over Holocaust denial has flown out of Argentina days after being told to leave the country.

Richard Williamson was asked to leave Argentina, where he had been living, after he refused to retract his denial of the existence of Nazi gas chambers.

The row hugely embarrassed the Vatican which had only recently lifted an excommunication order on the bishop.

He took a British Airways plane bound for London from Buenos Aires.

Wearing dark glasses and a cap, Bishop Williamson was swiftly moved through the Argentine capital's Ezeiza international airport, accompanied by two men.

After completing customs formalities, he boarded a British Airways flight for London, airport officials said.

Last Thursday he was given 10 days to leave by the government for having "deeply shocked Argentine society, the Jewish people and all of humanity".

Earlier, he had been removed from his post as head of a Roman Catholic seminary near Buenos Aires.

'No gas chambers'

The row erupted in January after Pope Benedict decided to lift Bishop Williamson's excommunication on an unrelated matter.

Bishop Richard Williamson (in cap and dark glasses) at Buenos Aires airport
The bishop passed through Buenos Aires airport in dark glasses

After that move, it emerged that the bishop had denied the full extent of the Nazi genocide of the Jews in an interview for Swedish TV.

"I believe there were no gas chambers," he had said.

"I think that two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers."

The Vatican later said the Pope had been unaware of Bishop Williamson's views and had ordered him to recant.

Pope Benedict met American Jewish leaders at the Vatican in a display of solidarity with victims of the Nazis.

The decision to lift the excommunication order was related to the appointment of Richard Williamson as bishop by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who died in 1991, had rebelled against liberal reforms in the Church, such as the ending of the Latin Mass.


*** The print version, is a cut version of the story, what gives
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pageto ... 0.stm?ad=1

[EireWarrior]

Williamson is a follower of Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, might dive into this see what pops up.
Society of St Pius X (SSPX)  

Into the dark. (Roman Catholic followers of Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre)

THE Roman Catholic church is heading A for its first schism in more than 100 years. The last one came from the left of the church, when liberal Catholics in Austria, Germany and Switzerland split off from Rome in protest against the adoption at the First Vatican Council in 1870 of the dogma of papal infallibility. The church they formed, known as the Old Catholic church, now has only about 200,000 members in Europe and the United States, and is in communion with the Church of England.

This time the would-be splitters come from the right of the church: 100,000-400,000 believers, in about 30 countries, who follow Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, an 82-year-old retired French ...

Article date:
June 25, 1988

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