Despite claims by some (non-Jewish) commentators that Pope Benedict will be a problem for Christian-Jewish relations, in today’s Jerusalem Post we read just the opposite.
Paradoxically, it is most probably his German background that has made Ratzinger especially sensitive to the Jewish people. One could compare his sensitivity, born of the soul-searching of a man born into German society, with the sensitivity of his predecessor, John Paul II, who was born in Poland, a victim of Nazi Germany. The past and future popes can thus be said to be bound by common personal memories of the evils of the Holocaust.
A second article confirms it.
“His election is confirmation of the cardinals on the issue of continuity,” Rabbi David Rosen told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday. “There’s not a single issue in which the new pope will not be in complete accord with his predecessor. After all, his predecessor appointed him to the most important theological post in the Catholic Church.
Rather than listening to the nattering nabobs of negativity, we should just go right to the source.
