The Pope Has Had No Contacts with Polish Jewry or Foreign Jews

Pope John Paul II has up to now shown no interest in Jewish questions and has had no contacts with Polish Jewry or with foreign Jewish delegations on visits to Poland. Catholic clergymen in Cracow, the Pope’s home city in which he was ordained and in which he worked until his election this week, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by phone that former Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as Archbishop of Cracow had “concentrated on running his See” in a Communist country.

Wojtyla, other sources add, had never tried to meet or contact Jewish organizations in Poland or abroad. On his frequent visits to Auschwitz, which is only a couple of hours drive away from Cracow, he generally prayed at the site where Catholic churchmen were killed and has led Catholic pilgrimages to their tombs. In his sermons Wojtyla often mentioned the Jewish martyrdom but generally as part of a wider Nazi-led genocide campaign.

The Pope, these sources said, “is certainly not insensitive to the Jewish question. He was just overwhelmed with immediate problems while running the Cracow See.” They added that he would “certainly have granted audiences to Jewish delegations if any would have made the request. None did,” although, the sources said, many passed through Cracow while on their way to Auschwitz and Birkenau.