Vatican City, Nov 22, 2010 / 23:01 pm
Leaders of the Society of St. Pius X threatened to expel controversial member Bishop Richard Williamson for hiring a lawyer with neo-Nazi ties. The bishop will appeal charges in a German court for publicly denying the scope of the Holocaust.
Bishop Bernard Fellay – head of the St. Pius X society – ordered Bishop Williamson on Nov. 22 to fire his attorney Wolfram Nahrath, whom Bishop Williamson hired to represent him as he appeals an incitement conviction in Germany on Nov. 29.
The Associated Press reported that Nahrath has allegedly defended neo-Nazis in the past and is the former leader of a neo-Nazi group in Germany called Wiking-Jugend, or Viking Youth.
In April, a court in Regensburg, Germany fined the British-born Bishop Williamson almost $14,000, for his remarks in a 2009 interview with Swedish television on the Holocaust. The 70-year-old bishop had denied the magnitude of the Holocaust, saying only 300,000 Jews perished, and that there were no gas chambers.