Pope Benedict XVI, highly respected for his careful scholarship and keen intellect, has made a major contribution to positive Roman Catholic-Jewish relations with the forthcoming publication of his new book “Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem To the Resurrection,” the sequel to the Pope’s 2007 bestseller “Jesus of Nazareth.”

According to press reports from Vatican City the book makes “a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus,” contradicting the belief that was used for centuries to brand Jews as “Christ-killers” or guilty of “Deicide.”

For centuries, the erroneous assumption that “the Jews” were responsible for the Crucifixion of Jesus, based on a reading of the Gospel of St. John in the New Testament, was used to justify the persecution of the Jewish people. In 1965, at the Vatican II Ecumenical Council, the Catholic Church officially adopted the document “Nostra Aetate,” or “In Our Time,” which specifically stated that neither all Jews at the time of the Crucifixion nor those in subsequent years were to be held responsible for the execution of Jesus, which took place when Judea was a Roman province under the control of a cruel Procurator, Pontius Pilate.

In his new book, Pope Benedict XVI confronts the issue squarely: “Who insisted that Jesus be condemned to death?” he writes, noting that the Gospel of St. John states simply, “the Jews.” Benedict states that this expression “does not at all indicate-as the modern reader might tend to interpret it-the people of Israel as such, and even less does it have a ‘racist’ character.” Very significantly, the Pope adds that Jesus and all of his original followers were Jews, and that the reference in the Gospel of St. John refers specifically to some members of Sanhedrin, the Jewish administrative body who might have sought the death of Jesus.

Century after century, “Passion Plays,” such as the one at Oberammergau, Germany and the depiction in the controversial Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” depicted angry mobs of black-garbed Jews shouting demands that Jesus be crucified as an ineffectual Pontius Pilate turned over the decision to those gathered in the Jerusalem square. In point of fact, the Sanhedrin was under the complete control of the Roman occupiers headed by Pilate and lacked the authority to sentence anyone to death. Also of note is the fact that Pilate was responsible for the crucifixion of thousands of Jews during his tenure, and was so cruel that he was later removed from office by the Emperor of Rome.

Pope Benedict’s new book carries forward and reaffirms the historic decisions at Vatican II in 1965 which absolved the Jewish people collectively at the time or in later years for the death of Jesus. The Pope is carrying that message forward to present and future generations of Catholics who might not be familiar with the Nostra Aetate documents.

Of added significance is the fact that Pope Benedict was born in Germany, and as a child was forced to join the Hitler Youth. He later served in the German Army, but deserted before the end of World War II. Following the example of his esteemed predecessor, Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, Benedict made a point to travel to the site of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, to reiterate that “anti-Semitism is a sin” and to visit the State of Israel, where he visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Memorial Museum to the victims of the Holocaust. He also repeated Pope John Paul II’s historic gesture of visiting the Grand Synagogue in Rome.

The Pope’s new book has been applauded by leading figures in the Jewish community, including Elan Steinberg, of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants; Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (himself a Holocaust survivor) and Rabbi Marvin Hier, a founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles. Foxman said that Benedict’s statements were important for rejecting “the previous teachings and perversions that have helped to foster and reinforce anti-Semitism through the centuries.”

Pope Benedict’s historic outreach to the world Jewish community is consistent with the efforts in St. Louis by Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, who has met with Jewish leaders under the umbrella of the Jewish Community Relations Council to foster cordial relations and constructive dialogue with the local Jewish community.

We warmly applaud Pope Benedict’s new book and the efforts by Archbishop Carlson to nurture a warm and constructive relationship between the Roman Catholic and Jewish communities.