The world Jewish community will be paying close attention following the stunning announcement that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning his papalcy, the first pope to do so in almost six centuries.  Indeed, there’s already been strong words uttered by a Jewish leader concerning one of the apparent leading candidates to succeed Benedict.  

Benedict had a tough act to follow as the successor to the charismatic and extroverted Pope John Paul II, who enjoyed traveling the world over as a visible and engaging ambassador of good will for his world-wide flock.

The challenge for Benedict was particularly tough in meeting his predecessor’s lifetime of positive ties to the Jewish community, which began in his homeland of Poland.   During World War II,  John Paul was actively opposed to the Nazis even after the invasion upon his native country.  As Archbishop of Krakow, he cultivated positive relations with the local Jewish community.

As Pope, John Paul established full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel.  During a papal visit to Israel, John Paul prayed at the Western Wall and  placed a prayer for peace  between the cracks in its ancient stones.  Later,  he visited the site of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, where he  stated that “anti-Semitism is a grave sin”.

As the first German Pope, Benedict faced even more pressures regarding relationships with Jews than did John Paul.  Official biographies of Joseph Ratzinger note that he was born into an “anti-Nazi Catholic family,” but like most non-Jewish German children was forced to join the Hitler Youth.  He was drafted into the German Army during World War II, but later deserted.

Benedict’s official legacy includes several steps built upon the record of John Paul.  Like  his predecessor, Benedict visited the Great Synagogue in Rome, where he and Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni sat on identical  thrones.

Benedict also  visited the site of Auschwitz and reiterated John Paul’s definition of  anti-Semitism as a grave sin. He later visited the State of Israel where he too prayed at the Western Wall, the outer retaining wall of the Second Temple  and Judaism’s  holiest site.

Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Benedict’s “clear voice against racism  and anti-Semitism and a clear voice for peace.”  In the same statement,  Peres  said “Relations between Israel and  the Vatican are the best they  have ever been.”

Both Benedict and John Paul attended the opening session of the historic Second Vatican Council in 1962 (“Vatican II”), where the historic document Nostra Aetate (“In Our Time”) absolved Jews of the false charge of “Deicide” in connection with the crucifixion of Jesus.

Despite  remaining faithful to the overall principles of  Nostra Aetate and Vatican II, however, Benedict created concern among Jewish theologians when he revived the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass that explicitly calls for the “conversion of the Jews.”  Some were also skeptical when he advanced  the prowwcess towards sainthood for the  Holocaust-era Pope  Pius XII, whose role during the Holocaust has been  the subject of bitter controversy.  

Also troubling to Jews was the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to revoke the excommunication of four of the ultra-traditional faction, the Society of St. Pius X, including one bishop who turned out to be a Holocaust denier.  

There’s already talk about whether the next Catholic leader will embrace the path aggressively taken by John Paul and mostly followed by Benedict. For instance, after hearing that Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras could be a leading candidate, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz chimed in on the discussion. In a letter to the Miami Herald, he wrote: “He has blamed the Jews for the scandal surrounding the sexual misconduct of priests toward young parishioners! He has argued that the Jews got even with the Catholic Church for its anti-Israel positions by arranging for the media — which they, of course, control”, he said — to give disproportionate attention to the Vatican sex scandal. He then compared the Jewish controlled media with Hitler, because they are ‘protagonists of what I do not hesitate to define as a persecution against the Church.’”

After being called out on such statements in 2002, Maradiaga apologized and claimed he intended no anti-Semitic intent. Nevertheless, his statements — which also suggested a Jewish effort to deflect attention from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — are on their face so utterly disturbing that Maradiaga would have to go a long way to disabuse the Jewish world of a malevolent intention on his part.

From a Jewish perspective, we hope the cardinals will choose a leader who continues to further emphasize interfaith harmony and actively denounce the matters that led to historical friction. A solid underpinning of Jewish-Catholic relations will go a long way toward diminishing anti-Semitism across the globe.