VATICAN CITY, Jan 24: Pope Benedict on Saturday rehabilitated a traditionalist bishop who denies the Holocaust, despite warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm Catholic-Jewish relations and foment anti-Semitism.

The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops who were thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission.

The four bishops lead the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which has about 600,000 members and rejected modernisations of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine.

The Vatican said the excommunications were lifted after the bishops affirmed their willingness to accept Church teachings and papal authority.

In healing a 20-year-old schism that had wounded the Catholic Church, the decree looks set to spark one of the most serious crises in Catholic-Jewish relations in 50 years.

One of the four bishops, the British-born Richard Williamson, has made a number of statements denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.

In comments to Swedish television broadcast on Wednesday, he said “I believe there were no gas chambers” and only up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, instead of six million.

Before the excommunication was lifted Rome’s chief rabbi said Williamson’s rehabilitation would open “a deep wound”.

CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organisations, called him “a despicable liar whose only goal is to revive the centuries-old hate against Jews”.

Williamson said: “I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler”.

VATICAN DEFENCE: Asked about Williamson’s comments, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said they were “totally extraneous” to the lifting of the excommunications.

“This act regards the lifting of the excommunications, period,” Lombardi told reporters.

“It has nothing to do with the personal opinions of a person, which are open to criticism, but are not pertinent to this decree.”

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said before the decree was issued:

“For the Jewish people and all persons who feel the pain of the terrible years of the Shoah, this development marks a dangerous blow to interfaith dialogue and encourages hate-mongers everywhere.”

“For any Catholic clergy to embrace the anti-Semitic Holocaust denier is obscene,” said Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League in the United States.

“It would be an insult to Catholic-Jewish relations and the memory of the millions of Jews who perished because they were Jews.”

Rabbi David Rosen, head of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, asked the Vatican for clarification.

“While this is an internal Church matter, any embrace of a Holocaust denier is profoundly disturbing,” he said.

Catholic-Jewish relations were already severely strained over the figure of wartime Pope Pius XII, who Jews have accused of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust. Jews have asked the Vatican, which denies the charges, to freeze the procedure that can lead to his sainthood pending more study of wartime records.

Pope Benedict has already made several gestures of reconciliation to the schismatic group, including allowing the unconditional return of the old-style Latin Mass.

That move also angered Jews because the ceremony includes a Good Friday prayer for their conversion.—Reuters