Winona Daily News: Holocaust Denier Richard Williamson Taught in Minnesota for 15 Years

I'm shaking my head. They are much closer than I imagined.

Not in Argentina, but just a few miles from where I lived in Minneapolis, Richard Williamson, the meshuggenah Holocaust denier bishop, lived and taught from 1988 to 2003 at an SSPX seminary in Winona.

Did the Winona seminary fire him? We doubt it - he was their rector for 20 years. The good news is that his Argentina seminary bosses have fired him now.

And now what will the Pope do? Promote him to the Vatican?

Holocaust-denying bishop lived in Minn. 15 years
Associated Press

WINONA, Minn. - A Holocaust-denying bishop lived and taught for 15 years at a Minnesota seminary, where he expressed views similar to those that sparked a diplomatic crisis for the Vatican, the Winona Daily News reported Sunday.

Bishop Richard Williamson was one of four bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican last month. The decision sparked outrage because he said in a recent Swedish TV interview he did not believe any Jews were gassed during the Holocaust.

Williamson made numerous similar statements in the southeastern Minnesota city of Winona, where he was rector of the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary between 1988 and 2003, the newspaper reported.

"There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies," he said in a speech at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Canada in 1989, shortly after he became rector, the newspaper reported. "The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel ... Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil, and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism," he said in the speech.

The Daily News said Williamson kept a low profile at the seminary from 1988 to 2003, writing letters on his beliefs and occasionally making speeches. It said Williamson became rector of the society's U.S. seminary in Connecticut in 1983, and came to Winona when the seminary moved here in 1988 to occupy the former St. Peter Martyr Priory....more...