ROME (AP) — Richard Williamson, an ultra-traditionalist Catholic bishop whose denial of the Holocaust created a scandal in 2009 when Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated him and other members of his breakaway society, has died. He was 84.
Williamson suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in his native England on Jan. 24 and died Wednesday, the Society of St. Pius X said in a statement on Thursday.
Williamson was among four men consecrated bishop in 1988 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who formed the group in 1969 in opposition to the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II was the series of 1960s church meetings that modernized the Catholic Church by allowing Mass in the vernacular rather than Latin and revolutionizing the church’s relations with Jews.
In 1988, the Vatican excommunicated Lefebvre, Williamson and the other bishops, because they were consecrated without papal consent.
First as cardinal and then as pope, Benedict worked to heal the schism and bring the group back under Rome’s wing, fearing the spread of a parallel, pre-Vatican II church. The fear wasn’t unfounded: The society, which is based in Menzingen, Switzerland, boasts six seminaries and dozens of chapels, schools and retreat centers around the globe.
As part of his outreach, Benedict removed the excommunications of Williamson and the surviving bishops in 2009. But an uproar ensued after Williamson said in a television interview that aired on Swiss television just before the pope’s decree was made public that he didn’t believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.
The scandal was an acute embarrassment for the German-born pope, who later acknowledged mistakes in the Williamson affair and said that a simple internet search would have turned up Williamson’s views.
Williamson later ran afoul of the society itself, which expelled him in 2012 for insubordination. He had ignored a deadline to “declare his submission” to its authority and had called for the society’s superior to resign, the group said at the time.
The following year, a German court fined him for having denied the Holocaust in the 2009 television interview. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.
In announcing Williamson’s death, the society said that Williamson had been ordained a priest by Lefebvre in 1976 and had taught in the society’s seminaries in Europe, the U.S. and Argentina. He had also served in a leadership position as second assistant general from 1988-1994.
“Sadly, his path and that of the Society separated many years ago,” the statement said.
