A Brazilian Archbishop has accused Jews of exaggerating their suffering during the Holocaust.

Archbishop Dadeus Grings of Porto Alegre in Rio Grande de Sul said in a magazine interview: “The Jews talk about six million people killed. But how many Catholics were victims of the Holocaust? There were 22 million in all…the biggest victims were the gypsies because they were exterminated. And [the Jews] don’t mention this.”

Veteran Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said in 1984 that the gypsies were murdered in a proportion similar to Jews.

The archbishop’s comments mean further embarrassment for the Catholic church following Pope Benedict XVI’s rehabilitation of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williams.