THE JT NEWS – VOICE OF JEWISH WASHINGTON, Seattle (formerly The Jewish Transcript)
April 29, 2005
Letters: A POPE NOT SO POPULAR?
Regarding Josh Basson’s letter of praise for the late Pope John Paul II (letters, April 15): While Karol Wojtyla deserves posthumous praised for doing more to promote improved Catholic-Jewish relations than any of his predecessors, his tenure regarding Jewry was marked by one step back for every one forward.
Two beatifications during his tenure resulted in enormously strained Jewish-Catholic relations: Edith Stein, who converted to Catholicism as an adult, was murdered as a Jew at Auschwitz. According to the Catholic website St. Anthony Messenger, she was canonized as St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, confessor and martyr.
There was also the recent uproar over the beatification of Sister Anne
Emmerich, a 19th-century "mystic" nun most highly regarded (by some) and reviled (by others) as the source of inspiration of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ.
The movie is regarded as anti-Semitic by many Jews and has its detractors among many Catholics. Among the latter is Father John Pawlikowski, a scholar at Catholic Theological Union, who has been a tireless campaigner towards improved Catholic-Jewish relations.
John Paul’s refusal to open the Vatican’s World War II-era archives to scholars, Jewish and Christian alike, continues as a gaping wound in improved Catholic-Jewish relations.
But it was the Pope’s oratory of support for the world’s impoverished poor on one hand, and his actions of support on behalf of the powerful oligarchical families and military governments which ran countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, that shows us the greatest failure of this Pope’s moral and ethical leadership.
John Paul turned his back on priests who advocated "liberation theology" and who worked tirelessly on behalf of millions of poor and destitute peasants and workers and their families in Central and South America. He directed the repression of those priests.
While he spoke passionately of the need for the world’s powers to assist the global poor, his actions spoke louder than words: his policies resulted in the murder of scores of priests and nuns and the massacre of hundreds of thousands of impoverished peoples, including Indians, by the right-wing military regimes, their armies and their death squads.
His papacy was directly responsible in supporting those regimes which used war crimes against humanity to enforce their power and suppression of the quest for basic human rights for their citizens.
Akiva K. Segan
Seattle