opinions & letters
The Pope Benedict I Knew: A Keeper of
His Faith With a Deep Respect for Judaism
Rabbi David Rosen
Rvin88derivative work: Jüppsche, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
I was fi rst introduced to Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, later to
become Pope Benedict XVI, in
the late 1980s when he was visiting
Jerusalem. Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem, was eager for me
to meet with the cardinal, telling me that I would discover
a very diff erent person from the image portrayed in the
general media. He was so correct.

That image was in no small part the result of Pope John
Paul II having made him the head of the Vatican Offi ce
for Doctrine and Faith, to enforce orthodox Catholic
teaching. In addition, the fact that Ratzinger was a shy
man with a professorial background and attitude often
led people to see him as aloof and even cold.

He could not have been more diff erent. I discovered a
man of warmth and humor whose company was enjoy-
able and stimulating. Most signifi cant for me was the
discovery of the depth of his respect for Judaism and
the Jewish people, something that always impressed
me in the course of more than a dozen encounters
with him when he was Pope, most of which were in my
capacity as the American Jewish Committee’s interna-
tional director of interreligious aff airs.

He always reiterated his commitment to continuing
the path of his predecessor in advancing Catholic-
Jewish relations, and he highlighted the unique
relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31 at age 95, was the
fi rst pope to ever invite Jewish leaders both to the
funeral of a pontiff , and above all, to the celebration of
his own coronation at which I was privileged to be one
of those present.

Already during the fi rst year of his pontifi cate, he
received many Jewish delegations and notable individ-
uals, including the chief rabbis of Israel and the chief
rabbi of Rome. In receiving the latter, he declared, “The
Catholic Church is close and is a friend to you. Yes, we
love you and we cannot but love you, because of the
Fathers: through them, you are very dear and beloved
brothers to us.”
The last time I met him personally was well after he
had demonstrated his genuine and impressive humility
in stepping down as pontiff and devoting himself to
study and prayer. I visited him at the Mater Ecclesiae
Monastery in the Vatican gardens. While he was physi-
cally weak his mind was still lucid.

We spoke in particular about the positive treatment
of the Jewish scriptures in the work of the Pontifi cal
Pope Benedict XVI performs a blessing during
the canonization mass in St. Peter’s Square in
Rome on Oct. 12, 2008.

Theological Commission that dealt with this subject,
and which was published under his imprimatur. At
that time, I recalled our fi rst conversation in Jerusalem
when he said to me, “Your duty as a believing Jew is
to be true to Torah, and everything that is holy for you
must have theological meaning for us.”
I said to him, “You know there are many of us who
see religious signifi cance in the return of the Jewish
people to its homeland.”
“Of course, I know,” he replied. “We must also view
it as a sign of God’s fi delity to His covenant with the
Jewish people that has sustained you, even if we
cannot attribute to it the same theological meaning as
you might.”
Cardinal Ratzinger was a member of the papal
commission that ratifi ed the Fundamental Agreement
between the state of Israel and the Holy See, establish-
ing full diplomatic relations between the two. It was my
great privilege to have been part of the Israeli negotiat-
ing team that concluded that agreement.

One of Ratzinger’s closest Israeli friends, the late
professor Zvi Werblovsky of Hebrew University, told
me that the cardinal phoned him from Rome to express
his joy and congratulations on the agreement, declar-
ing it to be a fulfi llment of Nostra Aetate, the Second
Vatican Ecumenical Council declaration of 1965 that
revolutionized the Church’s teaching and approach
toward Jews and Judaism.

During Benedict’s papacy a couple of serious crises
in Jewish-Christian relations emerged relating to the
Society of Saint Pius XII and to the wider provision of the
Latin Mass and its text. These crises, as much a result of
church governance mismanagement as anything else,
were followed by clarifi cations that emphasized the
Vatican’s commitment to Nostra Aetate; its unqualifi ed
rejection of antisemitism as a sin against God and man,
and a complete disavowal of proselytization of Jews.

Unfortunately, they still did not completely repair
the damage to Benedict XVI’s papacy. Nevertheless,
Benedict explicitly and sincerely strove to continue
to advance the paths of his predecessor, especially
regarding the relationship between the Church and the
Jewish People.

In repeating his predecessor’s dramatic gestures
of going to the great synagogue in Rome; of paying
homage in Auschwitz to the victims of the Holocaust,
and of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he
paid respects to the state of Israel’s highest national civic
and religious authorities, Pope Benedict institutionalized
such steps, demonstrating the sincerity of Catholic-
Jewish reconciliation for the Church as a whole. ■
Rabbi David Rosen, former chief rabbi of Ireland,
is the American Jewish Committee’s international
director of interreligious aff airs.

letters Ways to Support Israel
I would like to strongly disagree with Jonathan Tobin’s
assertion in the Jan. 5 edition of the Exponent (“Can
US Jews Love the Real Israel or Only the Fantasy
Version?”) that we should support Israel’s new gov-
ernment under virtually any circumstances.

My father left his home in Wilmington, Delaware,
to fi ght in the Israeli army during the War for
Independence. I’ve been a member of a Conservative
synagogue my entire life, and I read Torah better
than 95% of the boychiks in any of the haredi shuls
in Israel. Why exactly should I support a government
where half of its MPs don’t think I’m Jewish? There
are innumerable ways to support Israel without
supporting a government that has no regard for
democratic principles. To quote my father recently
when describing the political situation in Israel, “This
isn’t what I went to Israel to fi ght for.” ■
David I. Schutzman, Philadelphia
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