BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Common witness
to the one God
by Fr. Norbert Hofmann
[Secretary of the Commission for
Religious Relations with Judaism
Translated from
the 1/15/10 issue of



On Sunday afternoon, January 17, Pope Benedict XVI will visit the Jewish community of Rome, and in this context, the Great Synagogue along the Tiber River, not far from the Vatican.

For the Holy Father, it will be a brief trip from the center of the universal Catholic Church to the place that is sacred to the Jews of Rome.

Christianity and Judaism have always lived side by side in this city. They have a long common history, made up of diverse monents: times of peaceful brotherhood as well as times of tension.

From the time of the Macabbees in the second century before the Christian era, there is proof of a Jewish community in Rome that is directly traceable to the Judaism of the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

The present Jewish community is therefore rightly proud of its venerable history and its religious tradition that has been kept through the centuries.

Benedict XVI is not the first Pope to visit Rome's Great Synagogue - the first was his predecessor. Venerable Pope John Paul II, on April 13, 1986.

With Nostra aetate (No. 4) of the Second Vatican Council, which, in 1865, laid down the basis for a systematic dialog between Jews and Catholics from a theological and practical point of view, relations between the two communities have gradually intensified.

Although these have had high and low points, they are much more resistant today than in the past. This was shown, for instance by the 'Williamson case', which, starting January 24, 2009, put this relationship to a test.

But in the course of a few weeks, thanks to efforts by both the Jewish and Catholic sides, it was possible to smoothen out the situation.

On February 12, 2009, the Pope received a delegation composed of the presidents of the principal American Jewish organizations. On this occasion, he reiterated forcefully that negationism and anti-Semitism do not have a place in the Catholic Church. He expressed his solidarity with the Jewish people and said he would continue to do everything possible to promote relations with Judaism.

At the same time, the Pope officially anounced his trip to the Holy Land from May 8-15, 2009. One of the aims of the pilgrimage was clearly to provide a new impulse to inter-religious dialog among the three monotheistic faiths.

It was significant that during his trip to Israel, the Pope visited the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem to pray for the six million Jews who were the innocent victims of the Shoah, and to remember their names "incised indelibly in the memory of Almighty God'.

The Holy Father also went to the Wailing Wall, where he paused in silent meditation and left a prayer in a fissure on the wall, just as Pope John Paul II had done in March 2000.

And at the Hechel Schlomo Center, he met with the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem's Grand Rabbinate, Jonah Metzger and Shlomo Amar, along with other important representatives of Israeli and international Judaism.

The numerous meetings with our Jewish dialog partners in the Commission for Religious Relations with Judaism, and the words explicitly said by the Holy Father on the irreversibility of efforts that have been done so far to promote dialog, have surely contributed to reinforce the relations between our two communities.

Let us not forget that Pope Benedict XVI has already visited two other synagogues: on August 19, 2005, in Cologne, during World Youth Day, and on April 18, 2008, in New York, during his apostolic trip to the Untied States. He will be remembered as the Pope who visited the most number of synagogues.

He has repeatedly demonstrated that he has Jewish-Christian relations very much at heart, and above all, as a German, the aspect of reconciliation, as he clearly underscored in his address on May 28, 2006, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The fact that the Pope chose January 17, 2010, as the date for meeting the Jewish community of Rome is particularly symbolic. The Italian bishops' conference has celebrated since 1990 a Day for Judaism, which points to the uniqueness of relations between Christians and Jews, highlights the Jewish roots of Christianity, and is meant to reinforce current relations between Jews and the Catholic Church including activities in common.

This special day is observed on January 17, one day before the start of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 25-18). In this connection, let us remember that 2010 also marks a small anniversary: 20 years of the Day of Judaism in the Italian Church.

Other European countries have intrdouced a similar initiative - Austria, Poland and the Netherlands.

The Holy Father's decision to visit the Roman Synagogue this year. on the 20th anniversary of the Day for Judaism, clearly demonstrates the Pontiff's desire for reconciliation and the courage given him by God to go on beyond every possible tension.

The Pope will meet the Jews to express once more his solidarity with the people God chose to be a light to all peoples.

All these encounters take place in the context of dialogs with international Jewry as well as with the Grand Rabbinate of Israel, dialogues that have already borne much fruit.

Despite remaining differences, we have rediscovered more profoundly our common heritage and we are firmly determined to bear witness together to the one God and his commandments, whichare fundamental for today's society and civilization.


Theological implications
for Pope's synagogue visit?
Two Jewish journalists think so
Translated from



ROME, January 15 -The visit that Benedict XVI will make Sunday to the Synagogue in Rome could have theological implications within the Catholic Church, according to two Italian Jewish journalists writing in the special issue of the monthly magazine Shalom which will be distributed during the visit.

For Levi, the return of a Pontiff to the capital's Great Synagogue is a demonstration that 'the great turning point' introduced by John Paul II 'was a turning-point and remains so".

"A turning point that was not only political but also theological, because the emphasis on the jewish roots of Christianity concerns the present adn teh future of Christian thinking and identity" and demonstrates that "the fecundity of Jesus's exquisitely Jewish teaching" like the univeral preaching of Saul of Tarsus, "continues to reveal immense potential for innovation".

But a 'confrontation' with the novelty represented by the recognition of Jesus's Jewishness does not concern only the Catholic Church, Levi says, but also interpellates Judaism which "could modify its identity and attitude towards Jesus" - a double challenge according to Levi, who writes for La Stampa.

On the same plane, but more focused on the figure of Benedict XVI is Gad lerner's article entitled "An encounter in the interests of clarity and friendship".

"For his well-known personal inclinations and the consequent nature of his ministry, Benedict XVI, theologian Pope and intelelctual, raises greater expectations", according to the former editor of RAI state TV's TG-1 [its premier newscast].

"The studies he has dedicated to Jesus as a Jew are destined to address a new ievitable step forward in the [Catholic-Jewish] dialog".

And that is why, he points out, "more than just conveying emotion to him, there must be reasoning, a theoretical ordering of open questions that are inevitable".

Among these, Lerner cites the continuity of the presence of the Jewish people in the world and of the Jewish faith, in Christianity itself, in a way that implies "different interpretations than those made till now of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles". [Whatever 'different' interpretations Lerner has in mind, nothing will change the belief that distinguishes Christianity from Judaism - that Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible), and in Christian doctrine, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Triune God.]

Lerner says that even the term 'conversion' may have to be redefined. He thinks that a 'grave responsibility' rests on Benedict XVI for theological updating "that friendship and dialog in themselves do not suffice to bring about".


I hope the articles come online in full, because I am curious exactly what 'theological updating' Lerner means. Even the post-'Nostra aetate' Catholic emphasis on Jesus as a Jew - and an obediently observant one - was not theological updating but an acknowledgment of historical fact which had been obscured or glossed over for centuries of Christian teaching, for being 'inconvenient'.

P.S. The program of the Pope's visit to the Rome Synagogue in a ZENIT English service article today is a rehash of Salvatore Izzo's detailed report for AGI on 1/14/09 translated and posted in the preceding page of this thread.