A Conversation with the Vatican's Ecumenical Leader (Part 1) ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - During the first week of March, one of the Vatican's top officials visited Atlanta. Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany is the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

But Cardinal Kasper also met with members of Atlanta's Jewish community. Jews around the world were alarmed last year, when Pope Benedict XVI allowed English bishop Richard Williamson back into the Church. Williamson has denied that the death toll from the Holocaust was anything close to six million; or that the Nazis used gas chambers.

The Vatican claims the Pope did not know about Williamson's statements on the Holocaust, when he allowed him to return. Catholic officials said he was reinstated to try to heal a rift on other issues with a splinter group of conservative prelates. Those disputes had threatened a schism in the Catholic Church.

In part 1 of a conversation with WABE's Denis O'Hayer, Cardinal Kasper said he is still reaching out to the Jewish community, about the Vatican's handling of Williamson's return to the Church. © Copyright 2012, WABE