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New Pope "Architect" of Vatican's Pro-Jew Stance

Thread ID: 17887 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-04-21

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Stigmata [OP]

2005-04-21 09:45 | User Profile

[img]http://www.jta.org/storage/articleimages/15310.jpg[/img]

Gary Krupp, president of Pave the Way Foundation, gives a yarmulke to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on Feb. 2 at the Vatican.

[QUOTE]

But he also used his position as the Vatican’s chief theologian under John Paul II to play an instrumental part in his predecessor’s historic rapprochement with the Jews. In 2000, under Ratzinger’s editorial direction, the Vatican released “Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past,” a watershed document that acknowledged church errors in its past dealings with Jews, asking “whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts.”

Ratzinger also oversaw the 2002 publication of “The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures,” which asserted that “the Jewish messianic wait is not in vain” and expressed regret that certain passages in the Christian Bible condemning individual Jews have been used to justify anti-Semitism.

Israeli officials and Jewish groups issued statements welcoming the selection.

“Israel is hopeful that under this new papacy, we will continue to move forward in Vatican-Israel relations and we are sure that considering the background of this new pope, he, like his predecessor, will be a strong voice against anti-Semitism in all its forms,” Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said.

Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, said Ratzinger had been instrumental in improving relations between Catholics and Jews under John Paul. “He is the architect of the policy that John Paul II fulfilled with regard to relations with the Jews. He is the architect of the ideological policy to recognize, to have full relations with Israel,” Singer said. “He was the ideologist behind the last pope — the theologist and the ideologist.”

[/QUOTE] [url="http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Jews%20welcome%20choice%20of%20pope&intcategoryid=5"]http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Jews%20welcome%20choice%20of%20pope&intcategoryid=5[/url]