Papal Reckoning

By Eugene J. Fisher - The New York Times - 12/7/1997

''The Pope's in a Confessional, and Jews Are Listening'' (Week in Review, Nov. 30), focusing as it does on the single word ''apology,'' may leave the impression that the Roman Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II have yet to begin ''an honest reckoning'' with regard to the Holocaust.

In fact, the Holy See, through the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, has spent the last decade investigating these issues in dialogue with Jewish scholars. Symbolic of the Pope's concern are his historic 1986 visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome and the 1994 Vatican Concert in memory of victims of the Holocaust.

Typical of the Pope's numerous statements on the issue is this: ''For Christians the heavy burden of guilt for the murder of the Jewish people must be an enduring call to repentance; thereby we can overcome every form of anti-Semitism and establish a new relationship with our kindred nation of the Old Covenant.''

This, in a nutshell, has defined church policy since the Second Vatican Council.

EUGENE J. FISHER
Assoc. Dir., Secretariat for
Ecumenical & Interreligious Affairs
Natl. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Washington, Dec. 4, 1997