Holocaust denying bishop defies Pope's order for recant

February 11, 3:57 PMAtheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks

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Bishop Richard Williamson is in the spotlight again (still?) as he has refused to comply with the Pope's demand that he recant his denial of the Holocaust.

Just this past Sunday it was reported that Williamson was "removed as the head of an Argentine seminary."

Now, after the Pope asked that Williamson to recant "in an absolutely unequivocal and public way," he is refusing to be pressured into such an act.

Williamson said that he would have to review historical records before arriving at a decision as to whether he would reverse his denial of the Holocaust.

According to a report on Telegraph.co.uk, Williamson said:

It is not about emotions but about historic evidence. If I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time. I was convinced that my views were right on the basis of my own research from the 1980s. But now I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently and I therefore must look again at the historical evidence.

It makes sense that the Pope would be asking Williamson to recant considering the anger that was incited after his decision to lift the excommunication. It seems that if the Pope had been in touch in the first place he wouldn't have lifted this excommunication any more than he would have appointed "'a bishop in Linz, Austria, who had said that hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for sin, and a cleansing of nightclubs and abortion clinics.'"

It is said that Williamson believes that "between 200,000 and 300,000 rather than six million Jews were killed." Further, he denies that gas chambers were used to exterminate Jews during the Second World War.

It is interesting that a man who believes in God with no "real" proof would require so much proof to realize that the Holocaust happened to the extent that the majority of the records indicate.