Just Another Antisemite

On the recanting Bishop:

Williamson's anti-Semitism and dismissal of the Holocaust date back at least to the 1980s when he was rector of a seminary in Ridgefield, Conn. To his students, he was rigid and authoritarian.

...the Rev. John Rizzo, who was a student at the Ridgefield seminary in 1983. Reached by phone in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he is an assistant priest at the cathedral, Rizzo says he remembers Williamson expressing unusual views about the Holocaust.

"He said it was a pack of lies, that we shouldn't fall victim to a type of public sympathy toward the Jews," he said. "He would also tease in regard to my sizable nose, 'Gee, Rizzo, are you a Jew? I want to see a baptismal certificate,' things like that he would say. [There was] this other seminarian by the name of Dan Oppenheimer, and he would say to him, 'Oppenheimer, I don't like your name, there is a gas chamber waiting for you down at the lake,' horrible things like that, he would say."

...Williamson champions The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forged document from the late 1800s that blames Jews for the problems in Russia at the time. He has called Jews the enemies of Christ and says that they, together with Freemasons, have contributed to the corruption of the Catholic Church.

Rizzo says Williamson expressed such opinions and ultra-orthodox views during spiritual conferences held on Thursday afternoons.

...Rizzo also recalls that when Williamson taught sacred scriptures, he would often espouse conspiracy theories and attack the American government — a theme he would pick up in a 2007 lecture in London where he described the United States as a police state.

"And I hope none of you believe that 9/11 is what it was presented to be," Williamson said at the time. "Of course two towers came down, but it was absolutely for certain not two airplanes which brought down those two towers; they were professionally demolished by a series of demolition charges from top to bottom of the towers."