|
World Jewish News
Italian Rabbis Announce Boycott
14.01.2009
The Rabbis of Italy, disappointed by the attitude of the Head of Catholic Church towards interconfessional dialogue, announced yesterday a boycott of annual celebrations in Vatican.
The key reason of worsening Jewish-Vatican relations is the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to resume the usage of Easter Latin Mass, which the Rabbis consider offensive to Jews.
"Despite a number of corrections in the text of the prayer, its essense still demonstrates disrespect to our religion," notes the chief rabbi of Venice, Elia Enrico Richetti in the article published in the Popoli magazine, "and if we recollect the recent talks of canonization of Pius XII, it becomes clear that the Head of Catholic Church treats the interconfessional dialogue with disdain."
The statement of one of senior Vatican officials, Cardinal Renato Martino, who compared the situation in Gaza with a Nazi concentration camp, did not benefit the situation either.
The scandal that burst out afterwards made Martino lump the blame onto journalists, who had supposedly quoted his words incorrectly, but Italian rabbis believe it to prove the tendency of worsening relations between the two confessions.
"The decisions of Pope Benedict are wiping out 50 years of progress in development of trust and mutual respect between the Jews and Catholics," Richetti places the blame.
|
|
