CANBERRA, Australia (WJC)–Australian authorities have barred a Holocaust-denying Catholic bishop from entering the country.
Bishop Richard Williamson was scheduled to speak in rural Australia later this month but his visa was revoked this week, the ‘Australian Jewish News’ reported. The Jewish newspaper said it had contacted the Department of Immigration last week to alert them to Williamson’s visit.
A department spokesman told the newspaper this week that “the individual’s visa has been canceled,” the paper reported.
Williamson was convicted of Holocaust denial by a German court in 2013 after he had claimed in a 2008 TV interview that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust, and none of them in gas chambers. He also described Jews as “enemies of Christ.”
Williamson was suspended from his episcopal functions by Pope Benedict XVI until he repudiated his denial of the Holocaust. In 2012, he was expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X, a breakaway sect that opposes Church reforms decided by the Second Vatican Council.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress