In a rare case of a head of government openly criticizing the pope, Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday to make a “very clear” rejection of Holocaust denial. Benedict recently revoked the excommunication of four bishops, including Richard Williamson, who had said there were no Nazi gas chambers. Responding to outrage, the pope, who is German, expressed his “full and indisputable solidarity” with Jews and warned against Holocaust denial. “I do not believe that sufficient clarification has been made,” Mrs. Merkel said. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope’s repeated condemnation of Holocaust denial “could not be more clear.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 6, 2009

A report in the World Briefing column on Wednesday about the unusual criticism of Pope Benedict XVI by German Chancellor Angela Merkel over his rehabilitation of a bishop who denied the Holocaust referred incorrectly to her position in the German leadership hierarchy. She is head of government, not head of state. (President Horst Köhler is head of state.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/world/europe/04briefs-GERMANYPOPE_BRF.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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