VATICAN - Benedict XVI tells Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: “The Church is profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism and to continue to build good and lasting relations between our two communities.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “The two-thousand-year history of the relationship between Judaism and the Church has passed through many different phases, some of them painful to recall. Now that we are able to meet in a spirit of reconciliation, we must not allow past difficulties to hold us back from extending to one another the hand of friendship.” These were the words of the Holy Father Benedict XVI as he addressed members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, whom he received in audience on February 12. The Pontiff emphasized that the Vatican II Declaration “Nostra aetate” has been “a milestone in the journey towards reconciliation,” and added: “The Church is profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism and to continue to build good and lasting relations between our two communities.”
Recalling the images of Pope John Paul II at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, “pleading for God’s forgiveness after all the injustice that the Jewish people have had to suffer,” Benedict XVI quoted a passage of his prayer and mentioned that “The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity. This should be clear to everyone, especially to those standing in the tradition of the Holy Scriptures...It is beyond question that any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable...This terrible chapter in our history must never be forgotten. Remembrance — it is rightly said — is memoria futuri, a warning to us for the future, and a summons to strive for reconciliation. To remember is to do everything in our power to prevent any recurrence of such a catastrophe within the human family by building bridges of lasting friendship. It is my fervent prayer that the memory of this appalling crime will strengthen our determination to heal the wounds that for too long have sullied relations between Christians and Jews.
At the beginning of his address, Benedict XVI recalled his encounters last year with the Jewish communities in Washington and New York, which “were experiences of fraternal esteem and sincere friendship. So too was my visit to the Synagogue in Cologne, the first such visit in my Pontificate. It was very moving for me to spend those moments with the Jewish community in the city I know so well, the city which was home to the earliest Jewish settlement in Germany, its roots reaching back to the time of the Roman Empire. A year later, in May 2006, I visited the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. What words can adequately convey that profoundly moving experience? As I walked through the entrance to that place of horror, the scene of such untold suffering, I meditated on the countless number of prisoners, so many of them Jews, who had trodden that same path into captivity at Auschwitz and in all the other prison camps...The entire human race feels deep shame at the savage brutality shown to your people at that time.”
The Holy Father made reference, in his speech, to his upcoming trip to Israel, with these words: “I too am preparing to visit Israel, a land which is holy for Christians as well as Jews, since the roots of our faith are to be found there. Indeed, the Church draws its sustenance from the root of that good olive tree, the people of Israel, onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (cf. Rom 11: 17-24). From the earliest days of Christianity, our identity and every aspect of our life and worship have been intimately bound up with the ancient religion of our fathers in faith.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 13/2/2009)