On the eve of his departure today for Rome, where he will be ceremoniously elevated to cardinal, Baltimore Archbishop Lawrence J. Shehan addressed a packed audience in a synagogue here last night, and told the congregation that the Catholic Church was entering “a new world of relationships with the Jewish people.”
The cardinal-designate told the Jews at Chizuk Amuno Congregation that the new era of Catholic-Jewish relations will result from the Ecumenical Council’s adoption of a declaration clearing the Jewish people of the charge of deicide and condemning anti-Semitism. He was one of the American prelates at the last session of the Council who had pressed for the adoption of that declaration.
Like the audience in the synagogue, both Archbishop Shehan and the congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Israel Goldman, said they were pleased with the fact that, for the first time here, a high Catholic churchman appeared before a synagogue audience. The archbishop called his appearance “momentous.” Rabbi Goldman said it was “unforgettable.”
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