The recent “apology” of Bishop Richard Williamson for his comments minimizing the Holocaust falls far short of acceptable. In fact, it furthers the case as to why Williamson’s association with the Catholic Church is rightly viewed by many as a stain on that body.

Williamson, recently kicked out of Argentina, told the Zenit Catholic News Agency last week “The Holy Father and my Superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay, have requested that I reconsider the remarks I made on Swedish television four months ago, because their consequences have been so heavy. Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.”

If that’s an “I’m sorry,” then Pope Benedict XVI will be leading Yom Kippur services next year at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In other words, Williamson really feels bad that he upset people. But what he said? He obviously still believes it. Oh, for good measure he’s consulting with professional Holocaust denier David Irving to see if he can learn more about the most documented crime in history.

This is all happening because Pope Benedict sparked a furor last month when he reinstated Williamson and three other excommunicated bishops, all members of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X. That came just days after Williamson told Swedish TV that he believed “that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.” I guess the Jews were accidentally gassed, right? And they fell into those mass pits the Nazis forced them to dig before gunning them down and then going off to drink beer.

For good measure, Williamson tossed in that no more than a few hundred thousand Jews died in Europe during World War II.

Catholic Church officials, including Baltimore Archbishop Emeritus William H. Keeler, have said that the Pope would not have moved to welcome Williamson back into the fold had he known of the remarks. The Pope, and other leading Catholic officials, have since that time forcefully criticized those who would deny the enduring pain of the Shoah.

But the Pope has welcomed Williamson and his anti-modernization crew—which includes 500 priests and tens of thousands of followers—back on board as a first major step toward reconciliation. Mind you, this was done unilaterally, without the Pius X people needing to do anything other than continuing to hate the reforms of the famed 1965 Vatican II Council.

Now it’s time for the Pope to directly and forcefully and personally address Bishop Williamson and the like-minded. To not do so, remains a lasting insult to the Jewish people and their many Catholic friends who have spent recent decades seeking to bridge the chasm created by the faiths’ painful historical relationship.