Jewish leaders denounce traditionalist's remarks on 'deicide' (Bp. Williamson again)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Jewish groups have called on the Vatican to suspend reconciliation talks with a traditionalist group after one of its bishops argued that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus.

"Comments like these take us back decades to the dark days before there was a meaningful and mutually respectful dialogue between Jews and Roman Catholics," Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Oct. 19.

"We call upon the Catholic Church to suspend negotiations with extremist Catholic tendencies until it is clear that these groups show a clear commitment to tackling anti-Semitism within their ranks," he said.

He was referring to comments by Bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of St. Pius X, who said recently in his online newsletter that the killing of Jesus "was truly deicide, the killing of God" and that "only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide" because they clamored for his crucifixion.

Read the rest here.