A statement on the Passion Sunday Lenten sermon preached by Pope Paul VI was issued here today by the American Jewish Committee. The statement read: “We were both astonished and concerned to read the text of the Pope’s Lenten homily as it appears in Osservatore Romano and as reported in the American press.
“It appears to us that it sharply deviates from the Declaration on the Jews which received such an overwhelmingly affirmative vote last November at the third session of the Ecumenical Council in Rome. In this Declaration, it was stated that the Jews could not be held responsible, then and now, for the death of Jesus. We quote from the official statement on the Jews, ‘All that happened to Christ in his Passion cannot be attributed to the whole people then alive, much less to those of today. Besides, the Church held and holds that Christ underwent his passion and death freely because of the sins of all men, and out of infinite love.’
“We urgently hope that further clarification will allay the sadness and disappointment engendered among Jews and all men of goodwill.”
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