Pope condemns Holocaust denial

In a visit to Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Pope Benedict said the suffering of Jews murdered by the Nazi regime must never be denied, a message aimed at addressing Jewish anger over a Holocaust-denying bishop.Pope Benedict on Monday said at Israel's memorial to 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany that their suffering must never be denied, a message that addressed Jewish anger over a Holocaust-denying bishop.It was not immediately clear if the pope's words, which fell short of an outright apology for lifting the excommunication of British Bishop Richard Williamson in January, would heal the worst schism between the Vatican and Jews in a half-century.On his arrival earlier in the day, the pontiff underscored the Vatican's political divisions with Israel's right-leaning government by voicing support for a Palestinian homeland.At the stark Yad Vashem memorial, the German-born pope said he had come to honour the memory of Jews killed in the "horrific tragedy of the Shoah", the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, which he called an atrocity that disgraced mankind."May the names of these victims never perish. May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten," he said, in prayer-like phrasing.The pope's comments echoed remarks he made in February on the Williamson controversy in which he told Jewish leaders "any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable".In the 45 years since the Second Vatican Council repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death, relations have been haunted by the Holocaust and the question of what the church did, or failed to do, about it.