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The painful path to contrition By Lior Kodner Tags: Pope Benedict XVI  "The pope is not the chief rabbi of Israel; the problem is that people in Israel find this hard to accept," Father David Neuhaus, the patriarchal vicar for the Hebrew-speaking communities in Jerusalem's Latin Patriarchate, sighed sadly this week. As his somewhat daunting title suggests, Neuhaus is in charge of improving ties between the Church and the nation that dwells in Zion. Against the backdrop of historical residues and mutual suspiciousness, it may yet take hundreds of years to defuse this highly charged relationship. The word "historic" was appended to almost every report this week about Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land. Other frequently used phrases were "grating tones" or "embarrassing incidents" - like the one at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial (the pope did not mention the six million), or at an interfaith meeting at Jerusalem's Notre Dame center (which he left in anger because of the comments by Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi), or at the Western Wall (where he arrived wearing a cross). It is hard to accuse Benedict XVI of sole responsibility for the sense of missed opportunity that accompanied his visit; after all, his papal predecessors also had to tread very warily here and fell into almost every possible trap. The first pope to visit the region after Israel's establishment was Paul VI. Diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican were not established until three decades after his brief 1964 visit, which was categorized as "a private pilgrimage to the Holy Land." With Europe just beginning to digest the horrors of the Holocaust, the name "Israel" was not even mentioned in the speeches delivered by Pope Paul VI, and he refused to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the similarity between the two visits is clear: Paul VI visited the same places, called for peace in the Middle East and, most notably, caused innumerable incidents and misunderstandings, which included praise for Pope Pius XII, who headed the Church during World War II and is accused of failing to intercede on behalf of European Jewry. Advertisement "The spiritual stocktaking the Church has been engaged in for the past 50 years is a genuine and sincere process," says Dr. David Satran, the director of the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "The very establishment of relations with the Jewish people and the recognition of the connection between the Jews and God is a theological revolution. It stems from the lessons of the Holocaust and also from internal pressure by theologians within the Church and external researchers. The real breaking of the ice was the visit by Paul VI. True, he entered by the backdoor for a few hours and paid a very short visit, but that visit opened the door." But even after the establishment of diplomatic relations and the visit by Pope John Paul II in Israel at the turn of the third millennium, thorny issues remain on the agenda. Israel and the Vatican are having difficulty reaching an economic agreement that would consolidate the Church's status in the Holy Land, the Vatican protests the shrinking Christian minority in Israel and the Holy See is adhering to its intention to complete the process of Pius XII's beatification. "The Church no longer contends that the Jews are scattered across the globe because of original sin and their refusal to accept the messiah," Satran says . In his view, the relations between the two faiths and two states are moving in the right direction, though relations of an ideal nature, or at least relations free of confrontations, are not on the horizon. "The true test is the contrition that comes at the end of this process. I am not certain we will see that any time soon. For that, a pope with a very, very special character is needed, one who can muster the strength and bring the process to a close." 'God's Rottweiler' In the view of many, Benedict XVI's personality is one of the main reasons for the grating tones that have accompanied the visit. If John Paul II was received in the Holy Land in 2000 like a rock star, thanks to his warm attitude toward Judaism and his contribution to the fall of the Iron Curtain, his successor is considered a particularly humdrum pope. Joseph Ratzinger, 82, who was a member of the Hitler Youth and a soldier in the Wehrmacht, is viewed as a conservative and an adherent of the rigid line in the Vatican. Since becoming pope four years ago, he has made statements that caused him trouble with the Muslim world and run afoul of the Jewish world with his decision to lift the excommunication of Holocaust-denying English bishop Richard Williamson. Within the Church, too, his unbending opposition to homosexual relationships, contraceptives and abortions has stirred harsh criticism. In fact, when he served as John Paul's prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Ratzinger was sometimes referred to as "God's Rottweiler." In the weeks preceding his Mideast visit, the Vatican assiduously played down any political expectations for the trip. "The pope is arriving as the head of the Catholic Church and not as the head of the Vatican state. Do not expect a political side. It must all be seen through a religious lense," the apostolic nuncio to Jerusalem and Palestine, Archbishop Antonio Franco, said more than once. Nevertheless, the Church representatives were taken aback by the vehemence of the criticism, which in closed conversations was termed petty. "Maybe the reactions were ready even before the poor man opened his mouth," Father Neuhaus says. "Of course, it does not help that he is German, that he went through the Nazi period and that he is not John Paul II - he does not have that charisma. But what we have here is mostly a failure of communication. People here know in advance what they want to hear. The problem is that if someone tells them something different, they stop listening." In fact, a comparison between the speeches delivered by John Paul and Benedict shows a positive development in relations. "We must strive always and everywhere to present the true face of the Jews and of Judaism, as likewise of Christians and of Christianity," John Paul II said nine years ago. This week, his successor sounded a good deal more determined: "The Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to ... a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews .... I pray that God ... will continue to enlighten us with his wisdom, so that we may follow his commandments to love him with all our heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves." According to Satran,"I hear many people expressing disappointment or talking about a missed opportunity. Maybe it is something in our national character. The Church's big advantage is its long-term view. They examine developments over years, and from this point of view there has indeed been great progress in relations." Similarly, Rabbi David Rosen, who was instrumental in bringing about the warming in relations between Israel and the Vatican, is largely satisfied. "Like his predecessor, he cannot admit that the Church is to blame for historical anti-Semitism and for preparing the ground for the Holocaust," Rabbi Rosen says. "He cannot say that the Church bears responsibility for the catastrophe of the Jewish people. I have known him for years and met him five times since he became pope, and I know that he is not capable of doing that." The hope of resolving the dispute over Vatican property holdings in Israel before the visit was shattered. Despite a great effort, the agreement was not signed. Still, the Israeli side believes that 95 percent of the outstanding issues have been settled. According to Ronen Gil-Or, the director of the Foreign Ministry's general law department, the agreement will be signed within a year at the most. In the final analysis, Israeli officials view the visit itself as a considerable achievement. The Foreign Ministry is still hoping to enlist the pope in the effort against Iran's nuclear project, and the Tourism Ministry is looking forward to a wave of Christian pilgrims and tourists in the wake of the papal visit. The pope's meeting with members of the family of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit was also termed "significant." "In contrast to his predecessor, the present pope did not engage in gestures or dramas. For him, the maximum was to say that anti-Semitism is a sin against God and man. That is not negligible, because the whole of Christendom will hear that it is important to fight anti-Semitism," Rabbi Rosen says. Ongoing improvement Pope Benedict XVI will leave the Holy Land today and go back to dealing with the internal problems of the Church, for which conservatism remains the official policy. Processes in the Catholic Church take years to unfold, but Christian circles expect a rapid revolution in this stultified body due to the demographic changes that are occurring among the more than 1 billion believers. With Europe undergoing intense secularization and the Catholic presence in many countries there dwindling, the future of the Church is to be found in South America and Africa. For that reason, and contrary to the prevailing view in Israel, the pope's German origin is actually an advantage. "It may very well be that after Benedict, we will see the end of the era of popes who are occupied with the Jewish issue," Rabbi Rosen notes. "There are very few Jews in the third world. Accordingly, the historic responsibility will no longer be on the agenda of the heads of the Catholic Church. A pope from Honduras or Ghana will not feel the same urge to visit Israel and show himself to be a friend of the Jewish people." Still, most researchers believe that the inevitable process of an improvement in relations is bound to continue. "A non-European pope might introduce a new atmosphere into the Church, but there will be no return to the past," Father Neuhaus says. "We are in an era in which Jews and Christians live side by side." Bookmark to del.icio.us   A new Mideast solution Obama looking to persuade Arab states to begin taking steps toward normalization. Iran missile test Tehran says it successfully test-launched a missile capable of reaching Israel.

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