Holocaust Remarks Led to Divide

Israel's highest religious authority has canceled a March meeting scheduled with Catholic leaders and cut ties with the Vatican. The chief rabbinate is upset that Pope Benedict XVI decided to reinstate a bishop who has denied the Holocaust.

Bishop Richard Williamson was excommunicated two decades ago and was recently reinstated. But Williamson told a TV interviewer last week that the evidence "is hugely against six million Jews being (killed in the Holocaust)… and not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber." The Vatican has distanced itself from the remarks.

This does not affect contacts between the Vatican and the state of Israel – which has a separate relationship with the Roman Catholic church from the chief rabbinate's office.