Germany's Catholic bishops are calling for the expulsion of a former bishop, recently brought back into the church by Pope Benedict XVI, after new reports that he denies the Holocaust, CNN reported.
In statements to Spiegel Online, the Web site of the German news magazine, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch said the church should part ways with Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of an ultra-conservative group that split off after Pope John Paul II excommunicated him and three other bishops in 1988.
"Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible," Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, told the magazine in an article published Saturday. "I now see no room for him in the Catholic church."
The Vatican has faced criticism since Benedict lifted the excommunication on January 21 and announced the move three days later. The announcement came days after a Swedish Public Television interview in which Williamson said Germany's systematic murder of millions of Jews during World War II never happened.