In a 1989 speech at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Canada, Bishop Richard Williamson claimed “There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies”. read more »

In a 1989 speech at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Canada, Bishop Richard Williamson claimed “There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies”.

In the same speech, he also said that “the Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel … Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism.”

In an interview with Swedish television, which was recorded in Germany in late 2008, Williamson claimed that fewer than 300,000 Jews died in the Nazi death camps and none in the gas chambers. The broadcasting of that interview in January 2009 led to a major embarrassment for the Vatican, which announced only a few days later that it was to lift the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, which rejects the key reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

After complaints made by the WJC, and others,  Bishop Williamson was suspended from official duties and was called on to retract his statements. Despite widespread international condemnation, more than a year later Bishop Williamson still has not retracted his statements. An apology for the upset caused by the remarks was deemed insufficient by the Vatican. In April 2010 he was convicted of Holocaust denial by a German court and fined €10,000. He has launched an appeal against the conviction and is due to appear in court in Germany in November 2010.

read less »

In January 2009 Floriano Abrahamowicz, a priest with Jewish ancestry, claimed that the number of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust was 'derived from a number fired off by the head of the German Jewish community without knowledge of the facts'. read more »

In January 2009, Floriano Abrahamowicz, an Austrian born priest living in Italy, said he was not sure the Nazis had used gas chambers for anything other than disinfection, claimed that the number of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust was 'derived from a number fired off by the head of the German Jewish community without knowledge of the facts', he complained that the Holocaust had wrongly been exalted, by Jews in particular, above other genocides, such as the Armenian Genocide, and said that the people of Israel "initially were the people of God, ... then became the people of deicide, and ... at the end of time will reconvert to Jesus Christ."

In 2006, he said in a television interview that he viewed Erich Priebke, a German SS officer convicted of war crimes for a 1944 massacre in Rome, in which 335 Italian civilians were killed in reprisal for the deaths of 33 German soldiers, not as an "executioner", but rather a soldier who acted "with regret and a heavy heart".

read less »

Former head of the Polish bishops' conference, Tadeusz Pieronek, caused controversy in January 2009 with remarks he made about the Holocaust when an interview he gave to a journalist was published on the main Italian Catholic website. read more »

Former head of the Polish bishops' conference, Tadeusz Pieronek, caused controversy in January 2009 with remarks he made about the Holocaust when an interview he gave to a journalist was published on the Italian Catholic website www.pontifax.roma.it.

According to Pieronek the interview was published on the website without his authorization. He is quoted as saying that the Jews 'expropriated' the Holocaust as 'a propaganda weapon'. He is also alleged to have said that "the Holocaust as such is a Jewish invention. We could just as well establish a day of remembrance to the numerous victims of communism, when Catholics and Christians were persecuted."

The timing of the comments added to the controversy being made days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Pieronek refused toback down. When asked if the Holocaust has been exploited he said: "Certainly it has. It is used as a propaganda weapon to get advantages that are often unjustified." He said that: "... they, the Jews, enjoy good press because they have powerful financial means behind them, enormous power and the unconditional backing of the United States and this favours a certain arrogance that I find unbearable."

These remarks seem at odds with the background of bishop Pieronek who appears to have been more of a mediator and less of a provocateur in the past. In 2008 he received the Jan Karski Eagle Award for work he did combating extremism in Polish society, in particular the alleged anti-Jewish bias of Radio Maryja... a reactionary mouthpiece run by the Redemptorist priest Tadeusz Ryzdzyk. Pieronek has also been supportive of the Open Society Institute of George Soros.

The bishop addressed issues other than the Holocaust. He expressed outrage at the treatment of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis: “Seeing the photographs of the wall we can conclude that a colossal injustice has been committed against the Palestinians, who are treated like animals and their rights are being violated.”

“Let them establish a Memorial Day for them also.”

He says that there are inaccuracies in the version published by the Italian site: “I have not seen the printed text of the interview, which I have given but have not authorized. But if I were to believe in what I hear from the media then it looks as though the final form of the interview was the idea of the journalist that I had spoken to, as the text is full of vague statements."
 

read less »