Text 765, 85 rader
Skriven 2005-08-20 10:50:05 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45.0)
Ärende: Papal Visit - More
==========================
* Original message posted in: IN_CATHOLIC.
* Crossposted in: VATICAN.
Hello All.

   Aug. 18, 2005 21:42  | Updated Aug. 18, 2005 21:55
   Complex backdrop as Pope prepares to visit German shul
   By LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG
   ROME

   A  papal visit to Cologne on World Youth Day was on the late John Paul
   II's  agenda  when  he  died  last April. Otherwise, Pope Benedict XVI
   confessed on a Vatican Radio interview, he would "never have dared" to
   select Germany as his first trip abroad.

   While  Karol  Wojtyla, the previous pope, was openly a Polish patriot,
   Joseph  Ratzinger,  conscious  of  the bitter aspects of his heritage,
   shies  away from his national identity. His trepidations are based not
   only  on  an  acute  awareness  of the "pure evil," as he terms it, of
   Germany's  Nazi  past,  but  also  on the lively protests of a largely
   secular  contemporary  society  there  that  opposes  his conservative
   theological  views.  He  has  been dubbed "the foreign pope" by German
   media.

   Yet  Benedict is now in Germany nonetheless, with a visit to Cologne's
   Orthodox  synagogue  on  Friday  one  of the centerpieces. And further
   complicating  that  aspect  of  the  trip is that it comes against the
   backdrop  of  tension  between Israel and the Vatican triggered by the
   omission,  in  a  papal  homily,  of  Israel  in  a  list of countries
   considered  recent victims of terrorism. Sharp protests by the Israeli
   Foreign   Ministry  received  equally  harsh  responses  from  Vatican
   spokesman  Dr.  Joacquin  Navarro-Valls,  and,  much  to the Vatican's
   dismay,  ratification  of  a  binational  agreement  on  the  Catholic
   Church's economic and legal status in Israel has again been delayed.

   Still,  Benedict's  intentions  of  following John Paul II's footsteps
   regarding  relations  with the Jewish people are manifest, those close
   to him assert. As former prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the
   Doctrine of the Faith, they note, he shaped the theological context of
   many  of  his  predecessor's  most  important  declarations  regarding
   Judaism.

   In  the  first  papal synagogue visit, in Rome on April 13, 1986, John
   Paul  spoke to descendants of the oldest Diaspora community, which has
   survived nearly 2,000 years in the shadow of St. Peter's. The Catholic
   Church  in  Rome  had  protected Jews from pogroms but exposed them to
   repeated  humiliations  and  restrictions, herding them into miserable
   living quarters in a ghetto from 1555 to 1870.

   John  Paul  sat by the side of the chief rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff, in
   front  of  the  ark  containing  the  Torah. A lifelong friendship was
   formed   between  the  pope  and  the  chief  rabbi  the  only  person
   specifically  mentioned  in  John Paul's last will and testament aside
   from  his personal secretary, the present archbishop of Krakow. At the
   Rome  synagogue, pope John Paul II called the Jews "our dearly beloved
   older  brothers,"  helping to further demolish anti-Judaic theological
   stereotypes  already  officially  (but  perhaps  not yet sufficiently)
   shattered by the Second Vatican Council's document "Nostra Aetate 4."

   Whereas those Roman Jews were largely World War II survivors and their
   descendants,  there  will  be  practically  no one at the synagogue on
   Roonstrasse in Cologne who has direct memories of pre-Holocaust Jewish
   life in Cologne.

   "The  5,000  Jews  of  Cologne [1,000 in 1989] are nearly all from the
   former  Soviet  Union,"  said  Dr.  Michael  Rado,  a  member  of  the
   community's  Directive  Council. "They still celebrate May 9, the date
   of  the  cease-fire on the Russian front, as the end of 'the great war
   against our fatherland.'"

   "But they all have Jewish hearts," he added.

   This community has little, if any, rancor against the Catholic Church.
   "They  feel  excited  and honored by the visit and by being considered
   'older  brothers,'"  said  Rado.  "In  fact,  they have been told of a
   memorable  act of bravery by a Catholic priest, Father Josef Meinertz,
   the 'Domprelat' of the cathedral in the war years. He defied SS orders
   and  ran  into a burning ancient synagogue on Glockengasse, founded by
   Samuel Oppenheim, to save the Torah scrolls."
                                                        [CONTINUED]

Best regards,
Marc

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