Pope Benedict XVI has scheduled meetings with members of the US Jewish community on his US trip in hopes of ending a brewing controversy over a Catholic prayer that calls for the conversion of Jews. The German-born pope is to meet with Jewish representatives after an inter-faith gathering at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington on Thursday, and is scheduled to stop for around 20 minutes at the Park East Synagogue on his visit to New York at 5 pm on Friday.His visit at the synagogue is hailed as "historic" by the US Jewish press as Benedict will be the first pontiff to visit a Jewish place of prayer in the US.
There have been only two recorded papal visits to synagogues in the world: John Paul II in Rome in 1986 and Benedict XVI in Cologne in 2005.
The papal visit is also significant since Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, came of age in Nazi Germany and was forced to become a member of the 'Hitler Jugend', the Hitler Youth.During Friday's ceremony at the part east Synagogue, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a Holocaust survivor who has close relations with the Vatican, will join the pope in brief remarks.
The meetings with the American Jewish community were added to the busy papal itinerary at the request of the Vatican, and are aimed at "conveying a message of good will toward the Jewish community as they prepare for Pessach or Passover," said Monsignor David Malloy, who is coordinating the pope's visit.
The meetings appear as an exercise in public relations, as ties between the Catholic Church and Jews have been in turmoil since Benedict refused to abolish a prayer in the Latin mass on Good Friday -- the day that commemorates the death of Jesus Christ -- in which Catholics pray for the conversion of Jews.
The 16th century "Prayer for Jews" was dropped in the 1960s, but reappeared last year after Benedict restored the Latin Rite mass, including the controversial prayer.
Benedict decided in early February to keep the prayer, which was toned down to try to allay Jewish fears, but it retains the call for Jews to be converted. Cardinal Walter Kasper, who coordinates Catholic dialogue with the Jews, said the prayer is theologically correct.
But he said this did not mean that the Vatican was encouraging proselytizing among Jews or does not respect their faith. He has called for a sincere and respectful dialogue between the two religions.
"There was a lot of alarm in the Jewish community when Benedict was elected three years ago, because they felt John Paul II had been a great friend and they weren't sure where this new guy was going to go," veteran Vatican-watcher John Allen told AFP."There have been some good moments, but there have also been some rocky moments, including most recently the controversy over the Good Friday prayer."
In early April the Holy See said it wished to give an assurance that the new formulation of the prayer "in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews."
It stressed the "unique bond with which the people of the New Testament is spiritually linked with the stock of Abraham and rejects every attitude of contempt or discrimination against Jews, firmly repudiating any kind of anti-Semitism."
Abraham Foxman, who heads the US-based Anti-Defamation League, was not convinced.
"On this issue the Vatican has taken two steps forward and three steps backward," Foxman said in a statement.
"It is reassuring that the Catholic Church remains committed to the ideals of Nostra Aetate," Foxman said, in reference to a document repudiating the concept of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus.
"Yet it is troubling that the statement still does not specifically say that the Catholic Church is opposed to proselytizing Jews. According to Foxman, the church's statement "does not go far enough to allay concerns about how the message of this prayer will be understood by the people in the pews."
Also fueling Jewish mistrust is the Catholic move to beatify Pope Pius XII, who led the Church from 1939 to 1958 - which includes the years of World War II - despite controversy over his alleged silence in the face of the Holocaust.
In the Catholic Church, beatification is the first step leading to sainthood. In a historic speech delivered in 2006 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in southern Poland, where 1.1 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust, Benedict paid homage to the victims and said the German people had been "used and abused" during World War II by a criminal regime -- Hitler's Nazis.
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