The message of the 120-member United Jewish Appeal mission to Pope John XXIII, delivered during a papal audience this week, was given front-page coverage today in Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican organ.
The newspaper calls the message, which praised the Pope’s efforts on behalf of European Jewry during the Nazi period, a “homage to the venerated head of Catholics, reconfirming the profound gratitude of Jewish communities for what the Church did for Jewish refugees and persecuted during the war.”
Summarizing the Pope’s reply, the newspaper recalls the Pope’s intervention as Papal Nuncio in Istanbul, to rescue a ship loaded with children. The newspaper emphasizes that Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi went to Istanbul specifically to thank the Nuncio, and adds that “from such a meeting a note of comfort emerged.”
“Although there is a great difference between those admitting only the Old Testament and those adding the New Testament,” the newspaper states, “nevertheless such a distinction does not suppress the fraternity deriving from the same origin, and uniting all men in the fundamental reality of coming from the same Father and having to return to the same Father.”
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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.
