The Rev. Gerthard Wagner of Windischgarsten, Austria, has just been named Bishop of Zuri. While I’m sure the name means nothing to you, perhaps it should

Earlier this week, Pope Ratzinger recommunicated British Bishop Richard Williamson, who was excommunicated in 1988 along with three other bishops of Society of Saint Pius X. The society was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve, who had problems with the 1960s-era reforms of the Catholic church — reforms Ratzinger seems eager to repudiate. Lefebvre consecrated the four bishops in unsanctioned ceremonies, hence the excommunication.

But now they’re back in the fold, including Williamson, who — just days earlier — said in an interview aired on the Swedish television network SVT

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. I believe there were no gas chambers.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, of course, said such remarks were “absolutely indefensible” but that the recommunication wasn’t based on that, it was just a simple attempt to play nice with an ultraconservative group.

Williamson later apologized. To the pope, for causing “distress and problems.”

And that leads us to Wagner. Wagner, who is also an ultraconservative Catholic, has made some pretty interesting remarks himself — like, for instance, that the Harry Potter books are “satanic” and that the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people in Southeast Asia came at the fortuitous time — Christmas — when many wealthy Westerners flock to that part of the world to escape winter, and possibly partake in unChristian behaviors instead of properly celebrating Christmas .

But that’s not all. Wagner was also among a number of Christian extremist illuminati who declared that Hurricane Katrina was New Orleans’ punishment for being such a “sinful” city., apparently because, he said, some reproductive health clinics and nightclubs were destroyed.

See a pattern here? Somehow, I’m not expected the screeching American Catholic watchdog Bill Donohue to be anywhere near a microphone while his Supreme Leader is doing this sort of thing.