Vatican City/Bern (KNA) A letter from Jewish rabbis to Pope Francis has caused a stir. The Vatican newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” published extracts from the friendly letter on Thursday evening. On the political level, there had been criticism from the Israeli side shortly beforehand of statements made by the Pope’s chief diplomat Cardinal Pietro Parolin on the Gaza war.
The letter of praise from the Jewish religious representatives to the Pope was written before these statements were made, as the Catholic News Agency (KNA) in Rome learnt on Friday. However, the authors are now backing Israel’s criticism of Parolin.
After an event in Rome on Tuesday evening, he described Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as disproportionate and spoke of a “bloodbath”. On Wednesday, the Israeli Embassy to the Holy See rejected the words of the Cardinal Secretary of State: only the radical Islamic Hamas was responsible for death and destruction in the Gaza Strip; fewer civilians were killed in the military operation compared to other wars.
On Thursday evening, the “Osservatore Romano” then reported on a letter to Francis under the headline “Rabbis and academics thank the Pope”. The letter is available to KNA. It is dated 12 February, i.e. before Parolin’s statements.
In the letter, the rabbis and Jewish academics are “moved” by the closeness that Pope Francis expresses towards Jews and recognise his condemnation of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, the group “fully agrees” with the political criticism of Parolin, one of the signatories told KNA.
