ROME  A day after Pope Benedict XVI said he would revoke the excommunications of four schismatic bishops, including one who has denied the Holocaust, concern about the pope’s decision extended into the Vatican itself.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the director of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations, said Sunday that he had not been consulted. “It was a decision of the pope,” the cardinal said in a telephone interview.

That Benedict apparently did not widely discuss a matter that has provoked anger among Jewish groups and liberal Catholics was not out of character, however. It was just the latest example of how the pope is increasingly focused on internal doctrinal issues and seemingly unaware of how they might resonate in the larger world.

As such, it perfectly captured the theological aspirations  and political shortcomings  of his four-year-old papacy.