The Pope's trip to Jerusalem must not be about damage control but humility and penitence, theologians and academics said today before his inaugural visit to the city.In essays published to coincide with next week's event, they urge Benedict to be humble when he visits key Jewish and Muslim sites and to take inspiration from his predecessor, John Paul II, whose visit to the Holy Land won praise from Catholics and Jews alike and significantly improved relations between the two religions.
The 35 writers, who are Christian, Jewish or Muslim, also warn that papal blunders are sending out "divided messages" on antisemitism and inter-faith activity.
Their concerns focus on the fallout from several public relation disasters, including the decision to lift the excommunication of the Holocaust-denying Catholic priest Richard Williamson, the reinstatement of a prayer calling for the conversion of Jews, and the Regensburg address in 2006, when the Pope quoted a Byzantine emperor who described Islam as "evil and inhuman".
Stephen Smith, director of the Holocaust Centre and contributor to No Going Back, the collection of essays, said: "There is a seeming acceptance of Holocaust denial. The Pope was outspoken about this but the time it took for him to be outspoken and the lack of leadership was something that concerns our authors. It was damage control, he didn't talk about tackling antisemitism. There's no clear leadership on this issue. There's an increase in antisemitism and very little activity on the part of the [Roman Catholic] church."
Benedict's visit will attract intense scrutiny across the political and religious spectrum as his four-year papacy has severely undermined Catholic-Jewish relations, most recently over the Williamson affair, but also over the likely canonisation of the wartime pope, Pius XII, who is accused of ignoring the Holocaust and failing to challenge Hitler.
His itinerary features stops at the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount and the Church of the Nativity. He will greet faith leaders - including the grand mufti of Jerusalem and the country's two chief rabbis - and the prime minister and president of Israel. He will also travel to Ramallah, where he will meet the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and pay a visit to the Aida refugee camp.
Carol Ritter, a Catholic nun in the US who is a specialist in Holocaust and genocide studies, said the trip should not be seen as damage control.
"He should go as a penitent pilgrim. He should ask for forgiveness, he should go to learn and listen and not necessarily to pontificate, he should go with humility," she said. "It's a bit disingenuous to say he didn't know about Williamson when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which had been dealing with the Lefebvrists [a breakaway group of traditionalist clerics] from the very beginning."
Benedict will also go to Jerusalem knowing that he will need to restore the confidence and goodwill created by his popular predecessor.
The visit of Pope John Paul II in 2000 marked an important change in the Vatican's relationship with Israel. He visited the Western Wall and left a note, which was later placed at the Holocaust Museum. More significantly, he made a speech acknowledging the tragedy of the Holocaust and prayed for forgiveness for those who participated.
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