German Jews cut ties with Vatican over bishop
Friday January 30 2009
Germany's Jewish community cut its ties with the Vatican yesterday as the decision to rehabilitate a renegade bishop who questioned the Nazis' use of gas chambers escalated into an international crisis.
Pope Benedict's decision to lift the excommunication of Lefebvrist bishop Richard Williamson, who insists that a maximum of 300,000 Jews rather than the widely accepted figure of six million were killed by Hitler's regime, has led to relations between the Vatican and Jewish groups hitting a new low.
Charlotte Knobloch, the head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, said she was withdrawing from a scheduled dialogue with Catholic leaders, while government ministers in France and Britain criticised the Pope's actions.
"Under such conditions there will certainly be no conversation between the Church and me at the moment," Ms Knobloch said. She added that she could not believe that the Pope's decision was the result of an oversight.
"The Pope is one of the most well-educated and intelligent people that the Catholic Church has and every word he speaks, he means," she said.
France's minister for Europe said the Pope had made a serious error in lifting the excommunication.
Bruno Le Maire, a practising Catholic, said: "It was a mistake to forgive so easily and to rehabilitate a bishop who has denied the existence of gas chambers and who said so very clearly." (© Daily Telegraph, London)
- Nick Squires in Rome
