Posted on 06/09/2005 1:58:57 PM PDT by NYer
| BUDAPEST, June 9 (JTA) — Following what they termed a warm and friendly Vatican audience with Pope Benedict XVI, Jewish leaders are expressing conviction that Jewish-Catholic relations will broaden and deepen under his pontificate. “After this meeting, we are confident that under the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church will continue to build upon its growing relations with the Jewish community,” World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman said in a statement after the audience Thursday. The WJC’s chairman, Rabbi Israel Singer, added that the church and the Jewish community would cooperate on joint humanitarian initiatives, including “much-needed relief and education aid to Africa, a continent suffering from the plague of AIDS.” The meeting between the pope and a 25-member delegation from the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, or IJCIC, was Benedict’s first official audience with international representatives of another faith community. Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious relations, called the encounter “remarkably warm and the most informal private papal audience I have ever attended.” Participants included representatives from the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements; leaders from Israel, North America, Europe and Latin America; the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith International. Benedict, who had met many members of the delegation when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, greeted them as old friends and spoke with them individually about a variety of specific issues. Singer said that he and Bronfman also had a private meeting with the pope in which they briefed him on this week’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit on anti-Semitism and discussed humanitarian projects. In his formal address to the group, Benedict reaffirmed his commitment to make Jewish-Catholic relations a prominent part of his agenda. He noted that this year marks the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, a landmark declaration by the Second Vatican Council that opened the door to formal Catholic-Jewish dialogue. That declaration, he said, affirmed the church’s conviction that “the beginnings of her faith are already to be found in Abraham, Moses and the prophets.” It also “called for greater mutual understanding and esteem between Christians and Jews and deplored all manifestations of hatred, persecution and anti-Semitism,” he said. “At the very beginning of my pontificate,” he said, “I wish to assure you that the church remains firmly committed, in her catechesis and in every aspect of her life, to implementing this decisive teaching.” Benedict noted that the history of relations between Jews and Catholics has been “complex and often painful,” but he stressed that “remembrance of the past remains for both communities a moral imperative.” That imperative, he said, “must include a continued reflection on the profound historical, moral and theological questions presented by the experience of the Shoah.” The German-born Benedict, 78, was elected to the papacy April 19 following the death of Pope John Paul II. The Polish-born John Paul made fostering Jewish-Catholic relations a pillar of his policy. Both popes clearly felt that “the burden of history rests on their shoulders,” said Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. It was significant, he said, that at a time when a lot of people “wish the Jewish community would shut up about the past, here is a pope who says that it is a sacred obligation to remember the past and learn from it.” |
Obviously Rabbi Singer has a lot to learn:
Papal Address to Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations
"A Future of Hope"
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 9, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered today when receiving a delegation of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.
* * *
Distinguished Guests,
Dear Friends,
I am pleased to welcome to the Vatican a delegation of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations.
Our meeting takes place during this year which marks the fortieth anniversary of the Declaration "Nostra Aetate" of the Second Vatican Council, whose teaching has served as the basis of the Church's relationship with the Jewish people since then. The Council affirmed the Church's conviction that, in the mystery of the divine election, the beginnings of her faith are already to be found in Abraham, Moses and the Prophets. On the basis of this spiritual patrimony and the teaching of the Gospel, it called for greater mutual understanding and esteem between Christians and Jews and deplored all manifestations of hatred, persecution and anti-Semitism ("Nostra Aetate," 4). At the very beginning of my Pontificate, I wish to assure you that the Church remains firmly committed, in her catechesis and in every aspect of her life, to implementing this decisive teaching.
In the years following the Council, my predecessors Pope Paul VI and, in a particular way, Pope John Paul II, took significant steps towards improving relations with the Jewish people. It is my intention to continue on this path. The history of relations between our two communities has been complex and often painful, yet I am convinced that the "spiritual patrimony" treasured by Christian and Jews is itself the source of the wisdom and inspiration capable of guiding us toward "a future of hope" in accordance with the divine plan (cf. Jeremiah 29:11). At the same time, remembrance of the past remains for both communities a moral imperative and a source of purification in our efforts to pray and work for reconciliation, justice, respect for human dignity and for that peace which is ultimately a gift from the Lord himself. Of its very nature this imperative must include a continued reflection on the profound historical, moral and theological questions presented by the experience of the Shoah.
During the past thirty-five years the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations has met with delegations of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews eighteen times, including the most recent meeting, in Buenos Aires in July 2004, devoted to the theme "Justice and Charity." I give thanks to the Lord for the progress which has been made in these years, and I encourage you to persevere in your important work, laying the foundations for continued dialogue and the building of a reconciled world, a world ever more in harmony with the Creator's will. Upon all of you and upon your loved ones I cordially invoke the divine blessings of wisdom, strength and peace.
* Good Lord. Another Pope tricked by Vatican Two :)
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