The Vatican said Saturday that it is “surprised and profoundly grieved” that the planned meeting of Pope John Paul II with President Kurt Waldheim of Austria at the Vatican June 25 has raised doubts about “The Holy Father’s respect for the Jewish people.”
The Vatican statement, which quoted extensively from the Pope’s speeches on his recent visits to West Germany and Poland strongly condemning the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in all its forms, left no doubt that the Pontiff is determined to receive Waldheim in audience next Thursday regardless of accumulated evidence of his complicity in Nazi atrocities and persecutions during World War II.
The announcement last week that Waldheim will be granted a papal audience shocked and outraged Jews all over the world. They have been urging the Pope to reconsider. Theo Klein, president of the French Jewish community, stated in a letter to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Caseroli, that if the meeting takes place, “European Jewry will speak out about the Catholic Church’s silence during the Second World War while Jewish families were annihilated.”
JEWISH LEADERS ASK EARLY MEETING WITH POPE
Tullia Zevi, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, was quoted widely in the Italian media over the weekend as remarking that the Pope “is honoring a man upon whom a war crimes inquiry is pending.”
The Italian government has repudiated Waldheim’s visit.
In the United States, representatives of major Jewish organizations called Friday for an early meeting with the Pope to clarify his decision to receive Waldheim. At the same time, the American Jewish Congress announced withdrawal of its sponsorship of a meeting American Jewish leaders had scheduled with the Pope in Miami next September 11.
Six other organizations released a statement asserting that the scheduled meeting has become “an inappropriate forum to discuss this (Waldheim-Pope meeting) and other urgent issues of Catholic-Jewish relations.”
The statement added, “In the light of these circumstances, we urge that an early meeting with the Pope take place to clarify for us, and all those who share our dismay, the motivation for imparting the honor of Papal audience to Kurt Waldheim.” The statement was signed by the Synagogue Council of America; the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith; the American Jewish Committee; the World Jewish Congress; B’nai B’rith; and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.
In a separate statement, Ruth Popkin, president of Hadassah, called on the Pope to cancel the audience. “We urge you to join with the government of Italy in rejecting Waldheim’s proposed visit and to heed the protests of the Jewish community in Rome which speaks eloquently for those who survived the crimes of the Holocaust,” Popkin said.
The Italian government, which said last week that Waldheim would be received with all of the ceremony accorded a visiting head of state, issued a statement Friday distancing itself from Vatican policy on the issue.
The statement noted that “The only government officially proclaiming its willingness to receive Waldheim is that of Tripoli (Libya). Italy will certainly not be the country to follow this example… There are no longer any historical necessities for foreign heads of state to have contacts with Italy during their visits to the Holy See.”
The statement apparently referred to the revised Concordat between the Vatican State and Italy, signed last year, which defines distinct and independent relations between Italy and the Vatican.
The Vatican, for its part, denied that an invitation had been extended to Waldheim. “It is against Vatican policy to invite heads of state,” a spokesman said.
According to informed sources, Waldheim’s audience with the Pope was requested by the new Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Croer, and Vienna’s Auxiliary Bishop, Kurt Kreen. It is said to have been supported by Dr. Alfons Stickler of the Roman Curia who heads the Vatican Library.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
