Pope says right-wing bishop needs to drop idiotic ideas

Does the Vatican have Internet access?

Pope Benedict XVI is calling on a formerly excommunicated right-wing bishop to renounce his opinion that the Holocaust did not claim the lives of millions of Jews. Last month, Benedict chose to reinstate the the bishop, Richard Williamson, and three other prelates who belong to the Society of St. Pius X. The society’s U.S. headquarters is in Platte City.

Williamson expressed skepticism about the Nazi gas chambers in an interview that became public around the time Benedict decided to formally make nice with the Society of St. Pius X. The Vatican says Williamson’s views were “unknown to the Holy Father at the time he revoked the excommunication.” But Williamson has said lots of wingnuttish things over the years. He’s endorsed the neo-Nazi favorite The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claimed that demolition charges took down the World Trade Center.