The Holocaust-denying bishop, who flew out of Argentina under a government expulsion order yesterday, scuffed with a reporter at the airport
The Holocaust-denying bishop, who flew out of Argentina under a government expulsion order yesterday, scuffed with a reporter at the airport.
ADVERTISEMENT
A local television station showed Richard Williamson raising his fist toward a reporter, then shoving him into a pole with his shoulder as he hurried through Buenos Aires' Ezeiza international airport to catch a flight for London. Two men accompanying the bishop then grabbed Dupesso by his shoulders and held him back by while Williamson hurried away.
Argentina's government ordered the traditionalist Catholic bishop to leave the country or face expulsion, citing his failure to declare a job change as required by immigration law as well as his denials of the Holocaust, which it called "an insult" to humanity.
Pope Benedict XVI sought last month to help heal a rift with ultra-traditionalists when he lifted a 20-year-old excommunication decree imposed on Williamson and three other bishops who had been consecrated without Vatican approval.
The pope's action caused an uproar among Jewish groups. Swedish state television last month broadcast a November interview in which the British bishop asserted that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust and only 200,000 to 300,000 were killed, not 6 million.
That prompted the pope to insist that Williamson recant before he can be recognised as a Roman Catholic bishop.
The Anti-Defamation League also found records of embarrassing speeches and letters by Williamson. He was quoted in one 1989 speech as saying that "Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism."
He was quoted as asserting that "the Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new state of Israel".
Williamson's conservative Society of St Pius X distanced itself from his views and announced on February 9 it had removed him as head of a seminary in Buenos Aires. The government then ordered the bishop to leave.
Argentina has Latin America's largest Jewish population.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
