Word: pope
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Then an unlikely figure entered the fray: Angela Merkel. German Chancellors don't usually weigh in on church matters, she said. But when the Vatican gave "the impression that it could be possible to deny that the Holocaust happened," she felt compelled to demand that the Pope repudiate the idea, lest it affect relations with "the Jewish people as a whole." In essence, Merkel (a Protestant) was tutoring the German Pope on his responsibilities to the Jews...
...near carbon copy of one made by his predecessor John Paul II in 2000. The Vatican hopes to use the trip to build on its 44-year rapprochement with the world's Jews after centuries of conflict and persecution. During his papacy, John Paul became the first modern Pope to visit a synagogue, recognize the state of Israel and apologize for the role Christians played in the Holocaust...
...Pole, could turn his somber history into a special authority for combatting anti-Semitism and pursuing the pro-Jewish reforms the church enacted at the Second Vatican Council in 1965. But he hasn't done so. Instead, says David Gibson, the (Catholic) author of The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World, "here's a Pope who grew up under the Nazis, who witnessed this whole thing, a man with such an acute and vivid sense of language and experiences--and yet for whom one of the great dramas of the 20th century...
...Judaism for Christianity," says Cardinal William Levada, his successor as Vatican doctrinal chief. "And he has also shown a fundamental sympathy that not even written words can have." But the Williamson affair was only the most recent episode in a series of gaffes and sour notes by the Pope. He seems simply to have forgotten Jewish concerns on a range of decisions regarding liturgy, sainthood and historical interpretation. In the case of SSPX, there is a distinct possibility that he knew full well he might offend Jews but went ahead anyway...
Rabbi James Rudin, senior interreligious adviser for the American Jewish Committee, notes that while "flash points happened with John Paul II as well, you always knew the Pope was committed to solving them. With Benedict, there's a sense of concerned bewilderment." Even after Benedict returns to the Vatican from the Holy Land, it's likely that he will still have to address skepticism about whether he shares John Paul's commitment to strengthening ties between Catholicism and Judaism--or whether he is willing to let his papacy be a tepid transition into a period of interfaith neglect...