Pope Benedict will make his first visit a synagogue in Rome in the Fall, Jewish community officials and the Vatican said on Thursday. The late Pope John Paul became the first pontiff of the Catholic Church since the times of the apostles to enter a synagogue when he visited the temple on the banks of the Tiber in 1986 and made a historic speech calling Jews "our beloved elder brothers."
Since becoming Pope in 2005 Benedict has already visited synagogues in his native Germany and in the United States. But a visit to Rome's temple is thick with historical significance because of the troubled relationship over the centuries between the papacy and the local Jewish community, the oldest in the Diaspora. The date for the visit has not been set.
"The Jewish people, who were chosen as the elected people, communicate to the whole human family knowledge of and fidelity to the one, unique and true God," Pope Benedict XVI told a delegation from Israel's Chief Rabbinate during an audience on Thursday. Also present at the meeting were representatives of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Jews. "This was not just another meeting," commented Haifa chief rabbi She'ar-Yashuv Cohen, who headed the delegation. "This was a special experience, a turning point, the end of a crisis. We could not have expected a warmer reception."
