VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis expressed his hope that a new centre for Catholic-Jewish relations in Poland will “foster appreciation of the common heritage, not only of the two religions, but also of the two peoples.”
Speaking to Polish pilgrims at his weekly general audience on October 19, the pope noted the inauguration two days earlier of the Abraham J. Heschel Centre for Catholic-Jewish Relations at the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland.
Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, the United States, spoke in Lublin at the inauguration of the facility named after her father, a well-known rabbi and scholar in the US who fled Poland just before the Nazi invasion of the country in September 1939.
Heschel said that with the Holocaust “Judaism in Poland was nearly destroyed, but its spirit was preserved in my father’s writings.”
She expressed her hope that the centre would encourage research and excellence in teaching, but “above all, cultivate a new spirit of awe at the holiness of different faiths.”
Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, also spoke at the inauguration, saying, “Our history is a history full of painful wounds and we cannot forget this,” but neither can Catholics and Jews forget all the progress made in relationships since the “turning point” of the Second Vatican Council.
While interreligious dialogue and building stronger relations with members of every faith are important, he said, “the dialogue with Judaism is the first and most important because it is a dialogue with our roots.”
Father Miroslaw Kalinowski, rector of the university, said, “The pillars on which the centre’s activities are based can be summed up in a motto: Common Bible, Common Past, Common Future.”
