A Vatican official who was blamed for the controversy surrounding a bishop who denied the Holocaust was removed from his position on Wednesday by Pope Benedict. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos was president of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei department which was created 20 years ago to reconcile with the same splinter group at the center of the Holocaust-denial scandal that erupted in January.
One of the group’s bishops, Richard Williamson, said in an interview he believed there were no gas chambers and that no more than 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps. Williamson had made similar comments before and Castrillon Hoyos was criticized for not handling the situation him properly.