Amsterdam  - A philosophy and ethics professor at Radboud University of Nijmegen, until 2004 formally a Catholic university, has formally renounced his membership of the Catholic Church to protest the rehabilitation of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX).

In an interview for Dutch Catholic internet magazine Katholiek Nederland, Belgian-born Jean-Pierre Wils said he refuses to associate himself any further with the Church's "anti-modern, anti-pluralistic and totalitarian" attitude.

Wils said he made his decision after Rome revoked on January 24 the 1988 excommunication of the four clerics, who led the breakaway, ultra-traditionalist Catholic group which accents prayer in Latin and opposition to Jewish beliefs.

British-born bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied the Holocaust in recent weeks in Germany and Sweden, was one of them.

In the interview, professor Wils, who lives in Germany but teaches at the university in the south-east Netherlands, called the SSPX an "extremely reactionary and deeply anti-Semitic" group that "sympathizes with dictators and fundamentalist rightist extremists."

According to the scholar, the SSPX bishops claim Jews and freemasons manipulated the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

One of the Second Vatican Council's most heavily debated documents was the Nostra Aetate, in which the Church renounced its traditional approach that all Jews, including contemporary Jews, were responsible for the Jesus' death.

The Second Vatican Council also lifted the obligation for all Catholics to actively convert Jews. (dpa)