German Chancellor Angela Merkel is calling on Pope Benedict to clarify his Holocaust stance, as the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson’s Holocaust denial refuses to go away.

Her demand came amid increasing outrage among Germany’s Roman Catholic leaders over the pope’s decision to lift the excommunication of British-born Richard Williamson, who questioned whether 6 million Jews were gassed during the Nazi Holocaust. …

Benedict last week expressed “full and indisputable solidarity” with Jews and warned against any denial of the horror of the Holocaust, but several leading German bishops have decried the German-born pope’s decision and called Williamson’s rehabilitation to be revoked.

“I do not believe that sufficient clarification has been made,” Merkel said.

Earlier Tuesday, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the bishop of Mainz, went a step farther in an interview with broadcaster Suedwestfunk, calling for an apology from “a high level.”

“There must also be consequences for those who are responsible for this,” Lehmann said of the decision to rehabilitate Williamson.