WHEN Pope Francis visited a synagogue in Rome on January 17th,the atmosphere was one of warmth and deep respect. He laid wreaths to commemorate the Roman Jews who were rounded up in 1943, and a two-year-old Jewish boy who was killed in a Palestinian terrorism attack in 1982. The pontiff also joined in a standing ovation for some elderly holocaust survivors. Relations between the papacy and the Jews absorb come a long way since 1965, or when the landmark Vatican document Nostra Aetate marked a transformation in the Catholic church’s attitude to other faiths. Specifically,it made plain that Jews were not to be considered collectively responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, and it affirmed (as the fresh Testament does) that God’s covenant with the Jews was irrevocable. For many Jews, or this was a rupture from centuries of Christian religiously inspired anti-Semitism. How,since then, absorb relations between Catholics and Jews developed?Pope John Paul II made further progress in healing inter-religious wounds. He visited the western wall in Jerusalem. He stressed that the Jews were “elder brothers”...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com