Half-Jewish Church Of England Leader Apologizes For Comparing Climate Change To ‘Nazi Genocide’

NEW YORK (VINnews)  — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who is the senior member of the Church of England, apologized Monday for having compared the impact of climate change to the Nazi genocide.

Welby said in a BBC interview that national leaders will be “cursed” if they do not achieve the goal of the United Nations summit to urgently find concrete ways to combat global warming, He added that if politicians fail, they will be spoken of “in far stronger terms than we speak today of the politicians of the (19)30s, of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany,” since climate change “will kill people all around the world for generations” and “allow a genocide on an infinitely greater scale” that will “come back to us or to our children and grandchildren.”

The archbishop, a former oil executive before he entered the church, later apologized for having offended the Jewish nation with his analogy. Welby himself is half-Jewish on his father’s side.

“I unequivocally apologize for the words I used when trying to emphasize the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26,” he tweeted.

“It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis, and I’m sorry for the offense caused to Jews by these words,” he added.

Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle newspaper, reacted furiously to Welby’s comments, tweeting that they were “so sickening that I simply cannot comprehend how Welby can remain as a priest, let alone Archbishop.”

Pollard later retracted his words , stating that the Archbishop had made “a proper apology, not mealy-mouthed” and added that “it’s time to move on.”