German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken to Pope Benedict about Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson, but the Pope isn’t budging. Williamson is still being reinstated.

(CNN) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Pope Benedict XVI Sunday over a Holocaust denier whom the pope welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church last month.

“It was a very constructive conversation,” the German government and Vatican said in a joint statement about the call. Merkel and the pope expressed respect for each others’ opinion, the release said — diplomatic-speak for saying neither side budged. ..

The Vatican has pointed to several statements by Pope Benedict in the past few years condemning the destruction of European Jewry, including his visits to concentration camps. He has also said he did not know of Williamson’s views on the Holocaust when he lifted the excommunication.

“I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against — is hugely against — 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler,” Williamson said recently in an interview with a Swedish television station, which also appeared on various Web sites after its broadcast. “I believe there were no gas chambers.”

And Williamson has no intention of honestly recanting his ugly antisemitic views.

In the Saturday article, Spiegel quotes Williamson saying he will not recant and that he would need more evidence to believe the Holocaust really happened. “If I find this proof, then I will correct myself,” he said. “But that will require some time.”