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Rabbinate Retains Vatican Ties
Posted by Tom McFeely
Friday, January 30, 2009 8:50 PM
Oded Wiener (Comunità di Sant'Egidio)
Contrary to many press reports, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has not cut ties with the Vatican over the lifting of the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson.
The director general of the organization, Oded Wiener, sent a letter Jan. 27 to Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.
In it, he asked for clarification on lifting the excommunication of Bishop Williamson, the Society of Pius X bishop who denies the extent of the Holocaust.
Wiener stressed that “without a public apology and repudiation of the bishop, it will be difficult to continue the dialogue.”
However, after Pope Benedict addressed the controversy during his general audience this week, and after Cardinal Walter Kasper replied with a Jan. 28 letter to the Grand Rabbinate (which Wiener described as “very important, nice and serious”), relations were back to normal.
Wiener tersely denied reports that ties were severed. Nor was the scheduled Rome meeting in March with the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews ever canceled.
“We have not broken relations with the Vatican,” said Wiener on the Italian network Sky TG24. “I believe that the Pope’s words were very important. There is no place for people like Williamson who deny the existence of the Holocaust.”
Wiener said that relations between the Rabbinate and the Commission are “very special”, in another interview with the Italian newspaper Liberal. “We must do our best to maintain them at the highest level,” he said.
Wiener went on to say the planned visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy Land in May is “very important for us — a visit that we’re expecting.”
He added, “Some think like Bishop Williamson, and unfortunately that plays negatively on the Church, but then fight with us to defeat this upsurge in Nazism.”
— Edward Pentin
| Filed under bishop williamson, catholic-jewish dialogue, society of st. pius x, vatican
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