Richard Williamson = A hole

What the heck is the Pope smokin?


(CNN) -- Germany's Catholic bishops are calling for the expulsion of a bishop, recently brought back into the church by Pope Benedict XVI, after new reports that Richard Williamson denies the Holocaust.


Bishop Richard Williamson, shown in a recent Swiss interview, says he'll recant "if I find this proof."

1 of 2 In statements to Spiegel Online, the Web site of the German news magazine, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch said the church should part ways with Bishop Williamson, a member of an ultra-conservative group that split off after Pope John Paul II excommunicated him and three other bishops in 1988.

"Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible," Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, told the magazine in an article published Saturday. "I now see no room for him in the Catholic Church."

The Vatican has faced criticism since Benedict lifted the excommunication of the four men January 21 and announced the move three days later. The announcement came days after a Swedish Public Television interview in which Williamson said Germany's systematic murder of millions of Jews during World War II never happened.

In the Saturday article, Spiegel quotes Williamson saying that he will not recant his theories and that he would need more evidence to believe the Holocaust really happened. Watch Argentines respond to ex-bishop's statements »

"If I find this proof, then I will correct myself," he said. "But that will require some time."

On Wednesday, the Vatican ordered Williamson to "distance himself" from his views "in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner."

I was tempted to give it to the Pope, but this just may be proof of senility.