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On Wednesday, the Vatican made a 听to tamp down growing worldwide furor over its late January decision听to revoke the excommunication of Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) Bishop Richard Williamson, who has a 20 year track record of vocal Holocaust denial.

What the Vatican has not yet addressed is SSPX鈥檚 听of anti-Semitism. The SSPX as a whole, which has chapels and schools across the United States and in several other countries, is a font of anti-Semitic propaganda. It is in The Angelus, published monthly by the SSPX, and on SSPX鈥檚 website, that the radical anti-Semitism of the order is most evident. One example now on the website is an听Angelus article听by two SSPX priests that calls for locking Jews into ghettoes because 鈥淛ews are known to kill Christians.鈥� Further examples of the group's anti-Semitism can be found .听

The statement demanding Williamson recant was issued by the Vatican鈥檚 Secretariat of State a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the pope to clearly reject Holocaust denial. Condemnation of the Pope鈥檚 decision has been widespread. Top German church officials, Jewish groups and the head of the U.S. bishops conference also denounced Williamson. On Tuesday, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said he considered the matter "closed" after Benedict issued a lengthy denunciation of Holocaust deniers. By Wednesday, it was clear that the matter was far from closed and the Vatican had to return to the issue and call on听Williamson听to recant.

Williamson heads SSPX鈥檚 La Reja, Argentina seminary and has held several high level posts in the organization. At one point, SSPX materials were banned from Canada after Williamson 听Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel during a presentation to a Montreal audience. Williamson, who was then rector of SSPX鈥檚 main North American seminary in Winona, Minn., told his audience: 鈥淭here was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies.鈥� (More videos of Williamson expressing his extremist views can be found at the Huffington Post .)听

Just a few days before the Pope revoked his excommunication, Williamson appeared on Swedish television claiming that the Nazis did not use gas chambers to murder people. 鈥淚 believe that the historical evidence is strongly against 鈥� is hugely against 鈥� 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler,鈥� he 听in the interview. 鈥淚 believe there were no gas chambers,鈥� he added.

On Jan. 27, the American branch of SSPX for the first time ever publicly denounced Williamson's Holocaust denial. "Bishop听Williamson鈥檚 statements do not in any way reflect the position of our Society," SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay's letter. "This is why I have forbidden him,听until further notice, to make any public statements on political or historical issues."

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