An unprecedented phenomenon is occurring in the Catholic world: calls are growing among the faithful for their top spiritual leader to step down.

Pope Benedict XVI's decision to revoke the excommunication of four bishops who were consecrated in 1988 by the rebel conservative French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, against the wishes of the Holy See at that time, has created international tumult.

But it was the Pope's repeal of the excommunication of British Bishop Richard Williamson in particular, a rabid anti-Semite and Holocaust denier that prompted one Catholic theologian to actually call on him to step down.

"If the pope wants to do some good for the Church, he should leave his job," liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering was quoted as saying by the German daily Tageszeitung.

Williamson is on record as having denied that Jews were murdered by Nazis in the gas chambers during the Holocaust. On January 21, he said bluntly in a Swedish television interview, "I believe there were no gas chambers" and said that no more than 300,000 Jews died in concentration camps altogether.

Another German theologian, Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart Gebhard Furst referred to his own sense of "uncertainty, incomprehension and deception."

A third German cleric, Bishop of Hamburg Werner Thissen, was quoted by the Hamburger Abendblatt daily newspaper on Monday as saying "There is obviously a loss of confidence" in Pope Benedict XVI.  He added that "rehabilitating a denier is always a bad idea."

Diplomatic Fallout from Holy See's Decision
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday called on the pope to make a "very clear" rejection of Holocaust denial as a result of the debacle.

Last week, Israel's Chief Rabbinate broke ties with the Vatican to protest the Pope's decision. Rabbinate Director-General Oded Weiner wrote a letter to the Holy See Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, saying, "Without an official apology and recanting, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue."

German Jews also broke ties with the Church last week. The Central Council of Jews in Germany announced it would sever its relations with the Holy See and called for a general boycott against the Catholic Church.

Although the Vatican has affirmed that Holocaust denial is unacceptable, the pope did not recant his decision to revoke Williamson's excommunication.