The bishop, Richard Williamson, was one of four traditionalist bishops whose excommunications Pope Benedict revoked last month. In an interview broadcast on Swedish television several days before that, Bishop Williamson denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers and the scope of the Holocaust.
In a statement published by the Zenit news agency on Thursday, Bishop Williamson said, “I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.”
He added, “To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologize.”
His statement did not address the content of his televised remarks, in which he said that no more than 300,000 people died in the Holocaust and none in gas chambers. In recent weeks, he has said in interviews that he needs more time to study documentation about the Holocaust.
In his statement on Thursday, he said that the views he expressed on Swedish television were those of “a nonhistorian,” and that his perspective was formed “20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available, and rarely expressed in public since.”
The impact of a German pope pardoning a Holocaust denier prompted widespread criticism, engulfing the Vatican in an international political crisis. Many local churches were sent scrambling to reassure parishioners worried about the Vatican’s moral authority.
In an effort to control the damage in recent weeks, the pope has repeatedly condemned Holocaust denial. This month, in a rare instance of the Vatican’s expanding on comments by the pope himself, the church said that Bishop Williamson must distance himself from his statements on the Holocaust or he would not be allowed to serve as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican also said that Benedict was not aware of Bishop Williamson’s remarks when he decided to revoke his excommunication.
Bishop Williamson said Thursday that he had been asked “to reconsider” his remarks by the pope and Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X to which Bishop Williamson belongs, “because their consequences have been so heavy.”
Jesús Colina, the director of the Rome-based Zenit news agency, said he had received Bishop Williamson’s statement from the Vatican committee that oversees relations with the Society of St. Pius X, and had confirmed its veracity with Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, who oversees the committee.
Attempts to reach the cardinal were unsuccessful. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment on the report of Bishop Williamson’s statement.
Some outside observers were not convinced by Bishop Williamson’s statement. “He does everything except confront the central issue of this whole crisis,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “Has he changed his mind about the Holocaust, and does he believe that the Holocaust is a historic fact?”
He said he did not think that Bishop Williamson should be accepted as a bishop in the Catholic Church until his apology included recognition of the Holocaust.
The Society of St. Pius X is an ultraconservative group founded in opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The four rehabilitated bishops were ordained by their schismatic leader in 1988 without papal approval; they were then excommunicated by Pope John Paul II. Last month Pope Benedict revoked the excommunications to heal a schism in the church.
In later statements, the Vatican has said that the society must accept the teachings of Vatican II before it can be brought in full communion with the church. It remains to be seen how Bishop Williamson’s statement on Thursday will affect negotiations between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X.
This week, Bishop Williamson was expelled by Argentina, where he directed a seminary, and traveled to Britain.
On Thursday, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center and the Anti-Defamation League announced that they were starting a renewed Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the United States.
