Rabbi Elio Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome, today hailed the Vatican statement on Catholic-Jewish relations submitted to the Ecumenical Council as a document of “very great historic and moral importance with regard to the past, present and future.”
Addressing a press conference here today, Rabbi Toaff explained that the document denying Jewish responsibility in the crucifixion of Jesus admits the tragic error of the past, because of which thousands and thousands of Jews had suffered persecution and martyrdom.
The document, he said, also establishes a new basis for future relations between Catholicism and Judaism. “We are grateful to Pope Paul VI who presented this document to the Council, and we pay homage to the memory of the late Pope John XXIII who personally wished that this most important document be brought up in the Council,” Rabbi Toaff declared.
Asserting that anti-Semitism had always sought justification in many areas and in all periods, and found a convenient alibi in the Christian teaching which charged the Jews with decide, the religious leader noted that an Italian judiciary chronicle only recently had to report a case of s periodical that launched the accusation that the Jews were “actual decides.”
Rabbi Toaff expressed the hope that the clear words of the Vatican document will help fight anti-Semitism in the moral and religious fields. While it is understood that the document, forming a separate chapter of the Schema on Ecumenism, could treat this subject only from the strictly religious point of view, Rabbi Toaff added, an explicit condemnation of anti-Semitism in all its forms and allegations, such as the condemnation adopted in its time by the Conference of Protestant and Orthodox Churches in New Delhi, would be welcomed by the world. He said it is not to be excluded that it may be placed in another suitable Council document.
Rabbi Toaff also stressed the importance of the document in that it confirmed that the origin of the Church is in God’s covenant with Abraham.
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.
