Vatican City – In a letter published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Pope Francis expressed his “gratefulness” towards Jews for never having lost their faith in God during the Holocaust and other “troubled times.”
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ROMEREPORTS.com (http://bit.ly/1eHGPCm) is reporting that the Pope made his comments in an open letter to the paper responding to a series of questions posed by the paper’s founder and long-time editor Eugenio Scalfari, an avowed atheist.
Previously, Scalfari had asked the Pontiff whether “God forgives those who do not believe and do not seek faith.”
The Pope’s letter answers, “Given that — and this is the key point — God’s mercy has no limits, if you go to him with a sincere and repentant heart, the issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”
In response to Scalfari’s question as to ” What to say to our Jewish brothers about the promise God made to them: Has this been forgotten?” Pope Francis called Jews the “holy root” from which Christianity grew.
“And this – believe me – is a question that radically involves us as Christians because, with the help of God, starting from the Second Vatican Council, we have discovered that the Jewish people are still, for us, the holy root from which Jesus originated,” wrote Francis.
“I too, in the friendship I have cultivated in all of these long years with our Jewish brothers, in Argentina, many times while praying have questioned God, especially when I remember the terrible experience of the Shoah. What I can say, with the Apostle Paul, is that God has never stopped believing in the alliance made with Israel and that, through the terrible trials of these past centuries, the Jews have kept their faith in God. And the Church as well as humanity, will never be grateful enough to them for this. Persevering in their faith in God and in the alliance, they remind everyone, even us as Christians that we are always awaiting, the return of the Lord and that therefore we must remain open to Him and never take refuge in what we have already achieved” said the Pope.
They can keep their gratefulness !!!!And please ,no bleeding heart liberal responses .
He sounds like a real mensch.
Yes, despite the best efforts by the Church including auto de fes, the crusades, the burning of wagonloads of seforim,kidnappings and forced conversons, the inquisition, and countless blood libels and tortures we never lost faith in the Ribono Shel Olam.
what does he mean by “troubled times”…… perhaps the inquisition?
Who knows? Maybe he is Jewish? His ancestors could have been from the Jews that ran away from Spain about 300 years ago. There was a pope named peter who was a Jew. His Jewish name was pinchos. Also another pope that his Jewish name “elchonon” and 1 “yotzer” that starts with al chonan b’noan nachloso l’hashpar” is from him. They became pops with the approval of the rabunim of there generations.
him mentioning soha instead of it english holocaust, tells me he is pandering or patronizing to some..
Yes, he is a mensch. But why is he saying that we are the root and they are the tree. We are the root AND the tree!
“the issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”
What kind of statement is that?! An atheist will take it to mean that it’s OK to deny the existence of a Creator, a Buddah will take it to mean its OK to serve idols.
Sounds like a fall back to the 60s and the hippie generation: “If it feels good, it is good” mentality.
It does not make for good leadership.
A better answer would be for him to tell the atheist to check his conscience and see if he is just taking the easy way out because it is convenient.
Of course we have to be vigilant, but this man seems to be righteous.
Some of the comments above are of purse ignorance of the catholic ethos of the past 50-ish years. There was a change in the ‘halacha’ of Catholics that made several reformations, including specifically mentioning the ‘link’ to Am Yisroel and that the Jewish people were not to be held responsible for the crucifixion of yesu. their own personal hashkafos since than has also changed and they have spent many decades having meetings with rabbanim both frum and reform/conservative to help establish trust and mutual understanding. We can see from the past three popes, an increasing amount of respect for the Jewish people. Perhaps we should be grateful that the leader of 1.5 billion Catholics desires to be a friend of the Jewish people. Are we so popular that we don’t need to show mutual respect? And when he said Shoah; in Europe this word is often used instead of Holocaust. And “troubled times”.. how about inquisitions, pogroms, executions, lack of human rights, and the Shoah. We have not had any shortage of troubled times. shana tova vemetuka ketiva ve chatima tova
We never lost our faith in God during the Your crusades neither!
I’ve heard this Pope was outspoken at the time of the Buenos Aires atrocity. But to give Yidden empty praise is vacuous. If he wants to make amends he should return the Jewish treasures stolen by the Vatican and apologize for the nazi rat line that helped escape so many war criminals.