Mer om jødiske reaksjoner overfor Vatikanet

Avisa Jerusalem Post skrev i går i en lederartikkel kalt: Benedict’s plea positive ting om møtet mellom pave Benedikt og jødiske ledere fra USA – det virker som krisa i det jødisk-katolske forholdet nå er over:

On Thursday, leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations met with Pope Benedict in Rome. The audience had been scheduled before the Williamson controversy broke. Canceling it would have exacerbated tensions and embarrassed the pope – which is not the Jewish way. These communal leaders sensed the Vatican wanted to set matters straight. It appears they were right.

The pope told them: «Any denial or minimization of [the Holocaust] is intolerable… This should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures.»

He then repeated, verbatim, the prayer Pope John Paul offered when he visited the Western Wall in 2000 and asked the Jews to forgive the Christians who had persecuted them over the centuries. Benedict ended: «I now make his prayer my own.»

We welcome this reiteration of the late pope’s entreaty. Still, as the Holy Father may know, in Jewish tradition, absolution requires not just the confession of a sin, but its cessation.

I en annen artikkel i går, kalt: Pope: Holocaust denials unacceptable, skriver de også om dette, men her sies det at møtet kom i stand pga Williamson-kontroversene:
The Vatican scheduled the pope’s audience with about 60 American Jewish leaders Thursday after his lifting of the excommunication of traditionalist bishop and Holocaust denier Richard Williamson sparked outrage among Jews, Catholics and world leaders, including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Issuing his strongest condemnation of Holocaust denial yet, Benedict affirmed the Catholic Church was «profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism.» «The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity,» Benedict said. «This should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures.»

«It is beyond question that any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable,» he said during the meeting in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

The Jewish leaders, gathered under the rubric of the US umbrella group Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, welcomed Benedict’s words, saying the crisis was largely over.

«I think this statement is an important one,» said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents. «It addresses critical issues in Catholic-Jewish relations. But the test comes in what follows, in education efforts, in church leaders speaking out against anti-Semitism in the many countries where the church is present, in the pope’s speaking out against voices calling for the destruction of Israel and in what the church does with the Society of Pius X,» the religious order to which Williamson belongs.

The Vatican has said Pope Benedict did not know of Williamson’s views when he agreed to lift the excommunication, and stressed that he did not in any way share those views. But confronted with mounting Jewish outrage, the Vatican demanded Williamson recant before he would be fully «admitted to the episcopal functions of the church.»

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