From the address of Benedict XVI to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, given on February 12 this year:
“The two-thousand-year history of the relationship between Judaism and the Church has passed through many different phases, some of them painful to recall……The Church is profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism and to continue to build good and lasting relations between our two communities….my predecessor Pope John Paul II stood at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, pleading God’s forgiveness….I now make his prayer my own: ‘God of our fathers….we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant’ (26 March 2000)
“The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity…It is beyond question that any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable…..This terrible chapter in our history must never be forgotten…It is my fervent prayer that the memory of this appalling crime will strengthen our determination to heal the wounds that for too long have sullied relations between Christians and Jews. It is my heartfelt desire that the friendship we now enjoy will grow stronger, so that the Church’s irrevocable commitment to respectful and harmonious relations with the people of the Covenant will be fruit in abundance.”
Read the entire address at:
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/february/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090212_jewish-organizations_en.html
Worth your time to read.
