Report: Italian priest who denied Holocaust expelled from ultraconservative society

An ultraconservative society threw out an Italian priest Friday after he expressed doubts about the Holocaust, news reports said.

The Italian branch of the Society of St. Pius X said it expelled the Rev. Floriano Abrahamowicz to prevent its image from being distorted, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies said, citing a statement from the society.

The Vatican rehabilitated four excommunicated bishops from the society last month, sparking outrage since one of them, British Bishop Richard Williamson, said he did not believe any Jews were gassed during the Holocaust.

Abrahamowicz had defended Williamson and also expressed doubts about the extent of the Holocaust in remarks to La Tribuna di Treviso, a newspaper in northern Italy.

In the interview, which he said later he stood by, he said he knew gas chambers existed to disinfect but that "I can't say if anybody was killed in them or not."

This week, he was quoted as saying on Italian TV that the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings which paved the way for liberal reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, was worse than heresy.

ANSA and Apcom quoted a statement from the Italian branch of the society saying Abrahamowicz's expulsion took effect Friday for serious reasons of discipline.

"The Rev. Floriano Abrahamowicz has for some time expressed positions that differ from the official ones of the Society of St. Pius X," the agencies quoted the statement as saying.

"The expulsion decision, while difficult, was deemed necessary to prevent the image of the Society of St. Pius X from being further distorted, and thus hurt its work in the service of the church."

Officials at the society reached late Friday said they weren't authorized to speak to the media about the matter.