ROME (CNS): Laying a wreath at a memorial to Roman Jews rounded up by the Nazis in 1943 and joining in a standing ovation to a dwindling group of Holocaust survivors, Pope Benedict XVI broke the ice with Rome’s Jewish community even before he began to speak.
The Pope made his first visit to Rome’s main synagogue on January 17, strongly affirming the Catholic Church’s commitment to improving Catholic-Jewish relations, its respect and appreciation for Jewish faith, its condemnation of anti-Semitism and his own hope that Catholics and Jews can work together to bring biblical values back to society.
Pope Benedict began by telling about 1500 people packed into the synagogue that he came to “confirm and deepen” the dialogue and to demonstrate “the esteem and the affection which the bishop and the Church of Rome, as well as the entire Catholic Church, have towards this community and all Jewish communities around the world”.
But he also responded to a widespread impression within the Jewish community, especially the community in Rome, that Pope Pius XII did not do enough to speak out against the Holocaust.
Pope Benedict’s decision in December to advance the sainthood cause of Pope Pius led for calls within the Rome community for the visit to be cancelled and some people boycotted the meeting.
The Pope said he could not come to the synagogue without remembering the Jews of Rome “who were snatched from their homes, before these very walls, and who with tremendous brutality were killed at Auschwitz”.
“How could one ever forget their faces, their names, their tears, the desperation faced by these men, women and children?” he asked.
While many people remained indifferent to Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews, he said, “many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude”.
Throughout the meeting, Holocaust survivors, wearing light and dark blue striped scarves, and their children wept at mentions of the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews.
Without mentioning Pope Pius by name, Pope Benedict told them, “the Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way”.
Welcoming the Pope to the synagogue president of Rome’s Jewish Community Riccardo Pacifici said the only reason he was born was because his father had been hidden by nuns in a convent in Florence, but many others were not so lucky.
“The weight of history is felt even at today’s event because there are wounds that are still open and cannot be ignored. For this reason, we also respect those who decided not to be here today,” he said.
Mr Pacifici told the Pope, “The silence of Pius XII during the Shoah is still painful today.”
Rome’s chief rabbi Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni said that despite continuing tensions, Catholics and Jews must move forward in their dialogue.
In his speech, Pope Benedict said that “the closeness and spiritual fraternity” of Catholics and Jews flowed from sharing the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament.
“It is in pondering her own mystery that the Church, the People of God of the New Covenant, discovers her own profound bond with the Jews, who were chosen by the Lord before all others to receive his word,” he said.
After the Pope’s visit, Rabbi Di Segni told reporters, “I think the speech calmed the atmosphere,” which was tense after Pope Benedict advanced the cause of Pope Pius.
“My first reaction is decisively positive,” the rabbi said.
