Richard Williamson, who at the weekend defied the Pope’s demand that he recant his views, was forced out as director of the seminary in Argentina by the breakaway Catholic faction of which he is a member, the Society of St. Pius X.

The Cambridge-educated cleric attracted global condemnation last month when he publicly dismissed the fact that the Nazis used gas chambers and insisted that rather than murdering six million Jews, they killed at most 300,000.

The society’s South America head, Father Christian Bouchacourt, called Williamson’s remarks “inopportune”.

“Statements by Monsignor Williamson in no way reflect the position of our congregation,” he said.

Williamson, 67, was one of four bishops whose excommunications were lifted by Pope Benedict XVI last month in an attempt by the Pontiff to mend the rift with the Society of St. Pius X, which opposes the Vatican reforms of the 1960s.

The rehabilitation came despite Swedish television airing an interview with Williamson a few days earlier in which he denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers during World War II.

The Vatican insisted that the Pope was not aware of Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust when he authorised his excommunication but the ensuing scandal made his Papacy look at best ill-informed and at worst cavalier towards Jewish sensitivities.

The ensuing row forced the Vatican to distance itself from the bishop’s views, but Jewish groups and moderate Catholics criticised its efforts as too little, too late.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, criticised the Pope, prompting the Vatican to change its stance and demand that Williamson recant his views before he could be fully readmitted to the Church.

She was said to have a “cordial and constructive” conversation with the German-born Pope at the weekend.

Williamson told the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel in an interview last week that he would have to re-examine the historical evidence of the gas chambers before changing his views.

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