I cannot tell you how relieved I am to hear that Richard Williamson is going to review the evidence.

Apparently, back in the 1980s, this excommunicated bishop did some research and concluded that only 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And that there “were no gas chambers.” Now that his reinstatement in the Catholic Church is on the line, he tells us that he is going to conduct a comprehensive review of the “evidence.”

How good of him!

This whole thing stinks to high heaven. I do not know what new “evidence” has emerged in the last twenty years. To suggest that a generation ago it was in any way more reasonable to believe the Holocaust was a hoax than it is today is absurd. If anything, a lot more Holocaust survivors were alive in the 1980s to tell the tale. And beyond the fact that the Germans kept gruesomely meticulous records, the simple disappearance of a whole Jewish civilization numbering in the millions should have kept him at least a little skeptical.

The Church doesn’t come out looking much better from the whole affair. If Pope Benedict really did not know Williamson’s views, then we have here a vetting problem that makes Barack Obama’s look just fine, thank you. Everyone else seemed to know Williamson’s views when the announcement was made. If the Pope did know, then he is putting reconciliation with Williamson’s group ahead not just of Jewish sentiments, but of simple honesty and decency.