German Leader Calls About Holocaust Denier

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the pope on the holiest day of the weekend to question the Pope's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier. Merkel has been uncharacteristically outspoken in her demands on the Vatican; the day after her first complaint, the Vatican ordered Richard Williamson, the British bishop in question, to recant his incendiary remarks about the Holocaust. Today, Merkel and Benedict released a joint statement about their "good and constructive conversation" and "common deep concern about the perpetual warning of the Shoah for humanity." Though Williamson has apologized to the pope, he has not recanted his claim that the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust is a fiction and rejects suggestions that he visit the former Auschwitz death camp. Williamson is one of four bishops affected by the reinstatement of the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X.