Yesterday, Friday, April 18, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI paid a visit to the Park East Synagogue in New York City.It was a brief visit. The pope gave the synagogue as replica of a medieval Jewish manuscript from the Vatican library. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, in turn, presented Pope Benedict with a seder plate, a Passover haggadah, and a box of matzoh.
There was music. People said nice things to and about each other.
The pope spoke for approximately three minutes. (So, what was the matter? He didn't have more time? He had someplace more important to be?)
In his three-minute address, he is said to have "offered warm remarks." In other words, he said nothing of any consequence. Benedict did not mention the church's historic anti-Semitism; he did not refer to the fact that the Roman Church recently recanted that anti-Semitism and even pronounced the validity of the Jew's covenant with God; and he did not say anything about what appears to many a backward step-the newly-restored prayer in the Latin Mass prayer which stresses the Jews' need to accept Christ to be saved.
Not once did Benedict mention the Holocaust, nor did he offer the promise of closer Roman Catholic-Jewish relations.
How very curious. Is this one of those times when silence speaks louder than words?
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