Pope Francis -- Into an ice age: 1. “fuels an already out of control global antisemitism” 2. “Inappropriate comments while antisemitism runs rampant in Europe” and around the world
The Vatican recognized Israel in 1993 and Popes have said that they understand how central the country is to contemporary Jewish identity but the Church has not been willing to grant Israel any theological significance
Rabbi David Rosen, former American Jewish Committee International Director of Inter-religious Affairs, explained,
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”There’s a paradox there”
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“If you say that the covenant between God and the Jewish people is eternal, the covenant has never been broken, that covenant focuses specifically upon this particular land”
“And therefore to say that the return of the Jewish people to its ancestral home doesn’t have theological meaning is highly problematic”
Pope Francis visited Auschwitz and while in Israel made the first pilgrimage by a Pope to the tomb of Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl Pope Francis, regularly denounces antisemitism, calling it “neither human nor Christian”
However Pope Francis has been at times less careful — or perhaps less attentive — than his two predecessors when it comes to Jews and their sensitivities
