Hans Rustad Den katolske biskopen Richard Williamson har fått ti dager på seg til å forlate Argentina. Utvisningen av Williamson legger ytterligere press på paven, som gjenopptok Williamson i kirken, like etter at han hadde sagt at Holocaust aldri fant sted.
Paven har bedt Williamson trekke tilbake sine uttalelser, men Williamson sier han trenger mer tid til å vurdere bevisene. Biskopen av Mainz, Karl Lehman, sier det er latterlig.
The Vatican has ordered him to retract his comments. Williamson has said in response he needs more time to review the evidence.
«That’s actually almost ridiculous,» Lehmann said, adding it was hard for many people to understand the «cat and mouse» game being played. «And that’s why this has to somehow quickly be brought to a conclusion,» the bishop of Mainz added.
Saken setter søkelys på pave Benedikt 16.s dømmekraft. Williamson er ikke den eneste ytterliggående som er tatt inn i varmen. Den nye hjelpebispen av Linz, Gerhard Maria Wagner, anså orkanen Katrina for å være Guds straff for synd, og med synd mente han også byens fem abortklinikker. Utnevnelsen kjennes som et slag i ansiktet på Østerrikes katolikker, som ikke ble spurt.
Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, is to become auxiliary bishop in the Austrian city of Linz, where he is viewed as a controversial figure by churchgoers and clergy alike. In 2005, he wrote in a parish newsletter that Hurricane Katrina was an act of «divine retribution» for the sins of a sexually permissive society.
He said it was worth considering whether environmental catastrophes should not be seen as a result of «spiritual environmental pollution» – a type of «divine retribution» for New Orleans’ relaxed attitude towards sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.
«It is surely not an accident that all five of New Orleans’ abortion clinics, as well as nightclubs were destroyed,» he wrote, adding: «It’s not just any old city that has gone under, but the people’s dream city with the ‘best brothels and the most beautiful whores’.»
In 2001 he warned children against reading JK Rowling’s novels about the boy wizard Harry Potter, describing them as spreading satanism.
In 2004 he said it was no coincidence that the Tsunami disaster had occurred at Christmas, inferring that it was punishment for «rich western tourists» who had «fled to poor Thailand».
Wagner has served as the parish priest of the Austrian town of Windischgarsten since 1988 and has a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome. In an interview with Austrian state television, ORF, he said: «I am someone who goes in search of confrontation».
News of his ordination on 22 March prompted a wave of criticism from clergy, not least because the decision was allegedly taken without consulting Austria’s Catholic elite.
«I am devastated about this decision. It is astonishing that someone who holds an extreme view in so many questions can be called to such a position, which should bring people together,» said Franz Wild, priest of the parish of Traun. «The way it has unfolded is really a catastrophe.»
Walter Wimmer, of the Episcopal Consistorium, called it a «slap in the face for the Diocese of Linz».
Argentina expels Holocaust- denying bishop
