Pope Benedict receives Jewish delegation

(March 13, 2009) Pope Benedict XVI met representatives of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel on Thursday in the Vatican and pledged continued efforts to improve Catholic-Jewish relations. Referring to his scheduled May visit to Israel, the pope told the rabbis he hoped his trip would "help to deepen the dialogue of the church with the Jewish people so that Jews and Christians and also Muslims may live in peace and harmony in this Holy Land." The meeting with the pope was part of the annual dialogue sponsored by the chief rabbinate and the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews. Israel's rabbis urged the Pope to make Holocaust studies a required subject in Catholic schools, saying it could help combat anti-Semitism in future generations. They also asked that the Vatican take a strong stand against the draft final declaration of next month's U.N. conference on racism in Geneva, a statement some countries view as hostile to Israel
Also on Thursday, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict would pay his first visit to Rome's main synagogue this autumn. Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, told Italian media no date has been fixed as yet. The late Pope John Paul became the first pope since the times of the apostles to enter a synagogue when he visited Rome's synagogue on the banks of the Tiber in 1986 and made a historic speech calling Jews "our beloved elder brothers". Pope Benedict has already visited synagogues in his native Germany and in the United States. But a visit to Rome's temple is thick with historical significance because of the troubled relationship over the centuries between the papacy and the local Jewish community, the oldest in the diaspora. Relations between Catholics and Jews have been under severe strain since Pope Benedict’s Jan 24^th decision to lift the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop who denies the holocaust. The pope has since made several major declarations to repudiate Bishop Richard Williamson's views and condemn anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. After meeting the Pope on Thursday Israel’s Jewish officials declared the crisis over.