Word: jewishness
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...after Merkel's upbraiding. The church demanded that Williamson recant his gas-chamber denial, and the Pontiff released a letter that deplored the strain between the church and the Jews resulting from his "mistake." He assured a visiting group of Israeli rabbis of his intent to deepen Catholic-Jewish relations and his belief that the Jewish people "were chosen as the elected people" to communicate fidelity...
...that message sufficient? Rabbi David Rosen, the Jerusalem-based chair of the umbrella International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, says the Williamson affair is an "absolute gift" because it enabled the Pope to reiterate his affection for the Jews. Yet while Benedict may have been unaware of Williamson's Holocaust-denying interview, the Pope--who has been trying to pull the SSPX back into the fold for decades--must have been aware that anti-Semitism was something of an SSPX calling card. Says Eugene Fisher, a former Jewish-affairs expert for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who generally lauds...
...understanding of Benedict's subtle disengagement from Jewish questions begins in his youth. Joseph Ratzinger served a brief, mandatory stint in Hitler's Wehrmacht, but both Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center and the former East German secret police closed investigations into that part of his history without detecting any enthusiasm for Hitler's regime. Ratzinger's family was solidly anti-Nazi. But unlike John Paul, Ratzinger had no childhood Jewish playmates. His older brother Georg told German philosopher Raphaela Schmid, "I didn't know what a Jew was." That changed when their family moved from a small Bavarian village...
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Pope's point man for Christian-Jewish affairs, says Benedict believes "Germans have a special obligation to do something more for the Jewish-Christian relationship." But it's not apparent that the Pope views the Holocaust with a sense of personal remorse. Wolfgang Benz, head of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin, notes that generalized remorseful feelings "started with [Germans] about 10 years younger" than the 82-year-old Pope. Members of Benedict's generation tend to judge themselves strictly on the grounds of personal culpability. Moreover, the Pope identifies heavily with...
...ongoing Jewish covenants--combined with points made in other conciliar documents--seem to temper the idea that Catholicism is a uniquely effective road to salvation that has little to learn from other traditions. But Benedict sometimes seems nostalgic for the old understanding. In 2006, for instance, he preached that in choosing 12 Apostles, Jesus was summoning the 12 tribes of Israel to be "reunited in a new covenant [Christianity], the full and perfect accomplishment of the old." There are harmless ways to interpret this. But it might also help explain why Benedict refused to delete the "conversion" wording from...