The Canadian Jewish Congress has called on the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to condemn Pope Benedict XVI's controversial decision to reinstate an excommunicated Bishop who denies the Holocaust.
The reinstatement of Bishop Richard Williamson, along with three other priests of the ultraconservative movement known as the Society of Saint Pius X, has outraged many around the world.
"We call on the leadership of the Catholic Church in Canada to follow the lead of Bishops in France, Belgium and Germany, among other countries, in denouncing the Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism of Bishop Williamson and in reaffirming no uncertain terms that such hateful views have no place in the Church," Canadian Jewish Congress co-president Rabbi Reuven Bulka said in a statement Thursday.
British-born Williamson has made a number of Holocaust-denying statements.
He told a Swedish television station recently: "I believe there were no gas chambers."
He added that he thought only 300,000 Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps, instead of the six million that did.
Most Rev. James Weisgerber, Archbishop of Winnipeg and the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops told CTV.ca Thursday that he and his organization completely repudiate Williamson's views.
However, Weisgerber said that the move to reinstate Williamson has nothing to do with the bishop's views on the Holocaust.
"They were excommunicated because they were ordained without the permission of the Pope," he said. "It has nothing to do with their views . . . because (Williamson's) are completely unacceptable."
"The Pope has repudiated Bishop Williamson's views, his superior has repudiated it and certainly the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops completely repudiates those views."
He says that Williamson is still suspended by the Vatican and that his views can now be dealt with by the disciplinary bodies within the Church.
Weisgerber said he "understands the position of the Jewish people . . . and the difficulty understanding the processes going on within the Church."
However, the Canadian Jewish Congress, among other critics, say that bringing back Williamson to deal with his views is not the right answer.
"We understand that the Pope may be trying to heal an internal rift within the Church but that cannot be done by re-embracing someone with such intolerable views toward Jews," Bulka said in his statement.
Both Bulka and Weisgerber said that there was a strong relationship between the Canadian Jewish community and Catholics.
"I know that in any kind of relationship there are misunderstandings and I hope we have enough generosity with each other to understand and recognize what is going on and move forward," Weisgerber said.
Decision threatens improved relations
Jewish-Catholic relations were vastly improved by decisions made in the Second Vatican Council, commonly known as Vatican II in the 1960s. One document stated that Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ, and that the Catholic Church should reject any kind of anti-Semitism.
Pope John Paul II made many overtures towards the Jewish community during his time as pontiff, which he was praised for.
The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization, stated after the Pope's passing that "more change for the better took place in his 27-year Papacy than in the nearly 2,000 years before."
However, there are still many outstanding issues between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community, particularly in regards to the Church's role in the Holocaust.
The move to bring back a Holocaust denier has brought many of those issues back to the surface.
"The eagerness to bring a Holocaust denier back into the Church will cast a shadow on relations between Jews and the Catholic Church," Mordechai Lewy, Israel's ambassador to the Vatican, told the Reuters news organization last week.
