In an attempt to lay to rest the row over his reinstatement of a bishop who denies that the Nazi Holocaust occurred, Pope Benedict XVI today declared his "full and unquestionable" solidarity with "our Jewish brothers" and called for the Holocaust or Shoah never to be forgotten.

Speaking at his weekly audience the Pope said that as the world this week commemorated Holocaust Day to honour the victims of the Nazi extermination camps, "I recall to mind the images of my repeated visits to Auschwitz and the testimonies of the innocent victims of racial hatred".

The German pontiff said he hoped that such memories would "induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the human heart". This should act as a warning against forgetting or negating what had happened, the Pope told pilgrims in the audience hall, "because violence committed against a single human being is violence against all".

He said the Shoah demonstrated to both old and young generations that "only the difficult path of listening, dialogue, love and forgiveness can lead the peoples, cultures and religions of the world to the hoped-for goal of brotherhood and peace in truth... Let violence never again humiliate the dignity of man".

The leader of the Society of Pius X, the ultra-traditionalist Catholic movement whose four leading bishops were rehabilitated by the Pope last weekend, apologised to Pope Benedict for "ill advised" remarks by one of those reinstated, the British-born bishop Richard Williamson, denying the Holocaust.

Bishop Bernard Fellay said that he had "disciplined" Bishop Williamson, instructing him not to speak out again on any political or historical issues. Williamson's denial that six million Jews died in Nazi gas chambers, most recently on Swedish television last week, provoked anger and dismay on the part of Jewish leaders who said the row risked undermining half a century of Jewish dialogue with Catholics.

The Pope lifted the excommunications twenty years ago of Fellay, Williamson and two other bishops who were followers of the renegade bishop Marcel Lefebvre, an arch conservative opponent of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

In his statement Bishop Fellay said "a Catholic bishop cannot speak with ecclesiastical authority except on questions that regard faith and morals. Our Fraternity does not claim any authority on other matters. Its mission is the propagation and restoration of authentic Catholic doctrine, expressed in the dogmas of the faith. "

He acknowledged "with great sadness" the damage done to the fraternity by Bishop Williamson, whose views "do not reflect in any sense the position of our Fraternity. For this reason I have prohibited him, pending any new orders, from taking any public positions on political or historical questions. We ask the forgiveness of the Supreme Pontiff, and of all people of good will, for the dramatic consequences of this act."

The Pope's remarks were welcomed by Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, who said they had "resolved many doubts" and were a rebuff to those who had suggested the Jewish reaction to the Williamson affair had been "exaggerated".

However the Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Rabbinate had broken off official relations with the Vatican "indefinitely", and had cancelled a meeting on Jewish-Catholic relations scheduled to take place in Rome in early March. In a letter to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican official responsible for relations with Judaism, Oded Weiner, director general of the Israeli rabbinate said it would be "difficult to continue the dialogue without a public apology and a retraction".

The Pope said that in order to achieve "full Communion" with Rome the followers of Lefebvre must fully recognise and accept the Second Vatican Council "and the authority of the Pope". He said lifting the excommunications had been an "act of mercy" toward Catholics who had repeatedly made clear to him "their suffering for the situation in which they find themselves".