Pope Benedict's visit to the Holy Land next week will provide another test to the often tense relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community.One topic that the pontiff will be expected to address is the Holocaust, which has proved to be a bone of contention in the emotionally charged history of ties between Jews and the Holy See.
"We expect that Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem will include a reference to the memory of the Holocaust in the present as well as in the future," said Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem's chairman of the directorate.
Shalev recalled that Benedict spent his childhood as a member of the Hitler Youth and later enlisted in the Wermacht. "It is impossible to claim that these things do not have an impact," he said.
"A person's habitat bears an influence on him, despite the fact that immediately after the war he disengaged from these things and devoted himself to studying religion."
Shalev made the comments during a briefing for reporters in the run-up to the pope's visit to Yad Vashem.
"We have very clear expectations of the speech that Pope Benedict XVI will give at Yad Vashem this coming Monday," Shalev said.
"We hope that his statements in the Hall of Remembrance will make reference to the Holocaust and to the memory of the Holocaust in the present as well as the future."
Catholic-Jewish relations have been extremely tense since Jan. 24, when Benedict lifted excommunications of four renegade traditionalist bishops in an attempt to heal a schism that began in 1988 when they were ordained without Vatican permission.
One of the bishops, Richard Williamson, denies the full extent of the Holocaust and says there were no gas chambers.
Shalev spent much time in reflecting on the matter of Holocaust denial. He quoted the Holy See's envoy to Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco, who told a Yad Vashem symposium that anyone who denies the Holocaust cannot be considered a Catholic.
"This certainly was not a slip of the tongue, but a statement that was coordinated with his superiors," Shalev said.
He also reminded reporters that pressure from Yad Vashem and the Israeli government compelled the Vatican to force Williamson to acknowledge that the Holocaust did indeed take place.
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