March 21, 2006
The leader of the Catholic Church in Germany, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, has said the dialogue between Christians and Jews had to be reinforced and it had to include the question to what extent the churches bore a responsibility for the Shoah. "The Jews are our older brothers. We must not forget what was inflicted on them, also by Christians." Lehmann also called on the two religions to fight the growing secularization together. His comments came as he accepted the the annual Abraham Geiger Prize for his contribution to Catholic-Jewish understanding from the Abraham Geiger rabbinical college. The school has been educating future rabbis since 2002, and is to confer its first degrees in September. The prize jury said that Cardinal Lehmann had long been involved in efforts to promote “tolerance and freedom of thought, and had sought out contact with Jews.” Lehmann has dedicated the award money of US$ 6,000 to the Leo Baeck Foundation, a New York-based organization dedicated to the study of German Jewish history.
