Florian Abrahamowicz - Holocaust Denial Controversy

Holocaust Denial Controversy

In January 2009, in the midst of a worldwide controversy over Bishop Williamson's denial of the reality of the Holocaust, Abrahamowicz said he was not sure the Nazis had used gas chambers for anything other than disinfection, claimed that the number of six million Jews killed was derived from a number fired off by the head of the German Jewish community without knowledge of the facts, complained that the Holocaust had wrongly been exalted, by Jews in particular, above other genocides and said that the people of Israel "initially were the people of God, ... then became the people of deicide, and ... at the end of time will reconvert to Jesus Christ."

Flavio Tosi, an Italian Venetist, politician responded to the statements of Abrahamowicz as "unconceivable, unacceptable and monstrous", while his party colleague Luca Zaia told the press that "no revisionism is possible".

On 5 February 2009 the Italian chapter of the Society of St. Pius X issued a notification that from the following day Abrahamowicz was expelled from the Society "for serious disciplinary reasons": "Father Florian Abrahamowicz has for some time been expressing opinions differing from the official views of the Society of St. Pius X. The painful decision to expel him has become necessary in order to avoid having the image of the Society of St. Pius X further distorted with consequent harm to its work at the service of the Church."