VATICAN CITY — An Israeli government official said yesterday that the Jewish state has good relations with the Vatican despite a recent controversy over Pope Benedict XVI's decision to readmit to the church an ultraconservative bishop who denies the Holocaust.

Israel's ambassador to the Holy See, Mordechay Lewy, said that "the climate is good" and that there is "a lot of potential for the cooperation" between the Vatican and Israel.

Relations between Israel and the Roman Catholic Church suffered a blow last week when Benedict lifted the excommunication of Richard Williamson and three other bishops of the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X.

Jewish groups denounced the Vatican for embracing a Holocaust denier and Israel's chief rabbinate, the country's highest Jewish body, severed ties with the Vatican.

The bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago because they were consecrated by late traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent — a move the Vatican at the time called an act of schism.

On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI said he feels "full and indisputable solidarity" with Jews and warned against any denial of the full horror of the Nazi genocide.

Lewy made his comments on the sidelines of the presentation of a catalog of ancient Hebrew manuscripts kept at the Vatican library. He called the catalog a "milestone" in Vatican cultural collaboration with Israel.

The catalog, compiled with the help of Jewish cultural institutions, lists some 800 manuscripts on religion, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, literature and other subjects.