When I first heard about the election of Pope Francis in March 2013, my first reaction was one of wonder and awe. The conclave of cardinals elected a man with a reputation for caring for the poor, the environment and persecuted minorities; the new pope was also someone clearly eager to continue the search for peace in many places, including in Israel and Palestine.
I said to myself: Here is a man with a very strong and religiously grounded ethical compass who will broadcast a clear moral message to his believers around the world and to people of other faiths, including my own.
The former Cardinal Bergoglio took the name of Francis, in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, as a sign of his commitment to peace. He refused to live in the papal palace, preferring a simple apartment. And he is still deeply concerned about the poor within his own church and around the world and about the environment, so much so that he issued a special encyclical about this, “Laudato Si’,” in which he expressed concerns about the negative impacts of global warming and climate change on the earth and on humanity.
In addition to his universal concerns, Pope Francis has continued the path of the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council by reaffirming the importance of dialogue with Jews (as well as with leaders of other religions), based on the famous Vatican proclamation known as “Nostra Aetate” (“In our time”), released in October 1965. This groundbreaking document changed the discourse in the field of Jewish-Christian dialogue in particular, and interreligious dialogue in general in the contemporary period.
Not only did “Nostra Aetate” open up a new dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, but it initiated a dialogue between the Catholic Church and other religions, including Islam. Indeed, it made dialogue between leaders and followers of the major monotheistic religions “kosher” (legitimate) and mainstream. It is now accepted practice for leaders of religious communities at all levels to be in dialogue with each other in many places in the world, and to work together in common cause wherever possible to heal the world.
Jewish-Catholic dialogue
I participated in Jewish-Catholic dialogue for many years. As a result of this involvement and the reputation I earned for being an honest dialogue partner, I was invited to the signing of the “Fundamental Agreement between the State of Israel and the Holy See” at the end of December 1993, a few months after the signing of the Oslo Accords (Sept. 13, 1993).
This was a watershed in contemporary Jewish-Catholic relations. Not only did the political entity known as the Vatican recognize the State of Israel, but the tiny Jewish state, which in some ways represents Jews all over the world, recognized the Vatican. This was the culmination of many years of persistent dialogue, which is why the preamble to this document sets this diplomatic achievement within the context of the unfolding dialogue between Catholics and Jews since the end of World War II.
I recently read Life: My Story Through History, a book that includes many important reflections from Pope Francis, including on Jewish-Catholic dialogue. I found the book to be a fascinating look at his thinking over many years and at key periods in contemporary history. At the end of the very first chapter, where he talks at length about his memories of World War II and the need to be welcoming to immigrants today, he is mindful of the Jews:
I want to repeat this, I want to shout it out: Please, let us welcome our brothers and sisters when they knock at the door. Because if they are properly integrated, if they are supported and looked after, they can make a big contribution to our lives. Like those Polish immigrants I knew as a child who fled the war, today’s migrants are just people looking for a better place who often find death instead. Too often, sadly, these brothers and sisters of ours, who want a little peace, encounter neither welcome nor solidarity, only an accusing finger. It is prejudice that corrupts the soul; it is wickedness that kills, and it is a dead end, a perversion. Let us not forget, for example, what happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters. And in their case, memories are plentiful.
Pope Francis then devotes an entire chapter to “The Extermination of the Jews.” In this personal and poignant reflection, he recalls his earliest memories of learning about the Holocaust:
I have become fully aware of this drama, thanks to my teachers at school, my family, the study of history, and above all thanks to the stories of survivors who over the years have told me of their experiences of imprisonment in those death camps, places where human dignity was utterly crushed. I have heard many such stories, some of them from my friend, Rabbi Abraham Skorka.
The friendship of Pope Francis with Rabbi Abraham Skorka has resulted in another book that they wrote together, 2013’s On Heaven and Earth.
In 2014, in remembrance of all the Jews who suffered during the Holocaust, Pope Francis paid a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in Jerusalem. In his address there, he expressed very clearly his concern about the Catholic past:
Remember us in your mercy. Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry, of having destroyed our own flesh, which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. Never again, Lord, never again.
Pope Francis was very clear that we humans today, including himself and all Catholics, must not forget what happened to the Jewish people under the Nazi regime. He also recognized that Jews in our time continue to be stereotyped and persecuted, to which he responded: “This is not Christian; it’s not even human. When will we understand that these are our brothers and sisters?”
Responding to Jews in Israel in time of war
During the months of the recent war between Israel and Hamas, Pope Francis expressed his concern for what was going on in a profound way. In response to an open letter sent to him in November 2023 by a group of scholars and rabbis from Israel and other parts of the world, he wrote to “my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel,” saying:
My heart is torn at the sight of what is happening in the Holy Land, by the power of so much division and so much hatred. The whole world looks on at what is happening in that land with apprehension and pain. These are feelings that express special closeness and affection for the peoples who inhabit the land which has witnessed the history of Revelation.
He further noted that “this war has also produced divisive attitudes, sometimes taking the form of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. I can only reiterate what my predecessors also clearly stated many times: the relationship that binds us to you is particular and singular, without ever obscuring, naturally, the relationship that the Church has with others and the commitment towards them too.”
The church, Francis wrote, rejects every form of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, “unequivocally condemning manifestations of hatred towards Jews and Judaism as a sin against God. Together with you, we, Catholics, are very concerned about the terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world. We had hoped that ‘never again’ would be a refrain heard by the new generations, yet now we see that the path ahead requires ever closer collaboration to eradicate these phenomena.”
Pope Francis went on to stress the importance of pursuing peace as a religious obligation:
In times of desolation, we have great difficulty seeing a future horizon in which light replaces darkness, in which friendship replaces hatred, in which cooperation replaces war. However, we, as Jews and Catholics, are witnesses to precisely such a horizon. And we must act, starting first and foremost from the Holy Land, where together we want to work for peace and justice, doing everything possible to create relationships capable of opening new horizons of light for everyone, Israelis and Palestinians.
Together, Jews and Catholics, we must commit ourselves to this path of friendship, solidarity and cooperation in seeking ways to repair a destroyed world, working together in every part of the world, and especially in the Holy Land, to recover the ability to see in the face of every person the image of God, in which we were created.
Rather than taking one side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Pope Francis reaffirmed his commitment to both the Jews and to “all the people who inhabit the Holy Land,” his way of referring to Palestinians. At the same time that the pope was mindful of the attacks on Jews on Oct. 7, 2023—and of increased anti-Semitism in the world since then—he was also concerned about all of God’s children.
I deeply appreciate Pope Francis’ persistence in pursuing peace while so many other people are mired in the misery of war. Like him, I have been pursuing peace between Israelis and Palestinians for many years; there is, in my view, nothing more important. Peace is always possible and we must always keep that flicker of hope for peace alive.
During my career of over 30 years in interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding, I was often asked: Is peace possible between Israelis and Palestinians? My answer was always yes, although it has become much more difficult to say this, especially during the last 16 months, since the massacres by Hamas of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war.
During the hopeful 1990s—characterized by peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as historic peace agreements between Israel and the Vatican and between Israel and Jordan—it was much easier to say with confidence that peace was possible. After all, the Oslo Accords of 1993 had proved that reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinian people was in fact possible.
But after the second intifada (uprising) between 2000 and 2005, mutual trust between Palestinian leaders and Israeli leaders was deeply damaged. Efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table during the presidency of Barack Obama did not succeed. In fact, the last diplomatic agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was made in 1998 at the Wye River Plantation outside of Washington, DC, under the tutelage of the U.S. President Bill Clinton, with Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat signing the document for each side. (If Mr. Netanyahu could sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians once, he could do so again.)
Is peace still possible?
I still think that peace is possible. Why?
First, we have learned from contemporary history that some seemingly intractable conflicts can actually come to an end. Who would have imagined back in 1977 that President Anwar Sadat of Egypt would come to speak in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, and announce his willingness to make peace with Israel? Egypt had been Israel’s archenemy since the latter’s establishment in 1948, and had fought several major wars with the young Jewish state. Who would have believed that Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization—which had committed terrorist attacks against Israel for decades—would change course and announce his commitment to enter into negotiations with Israel in 1988, and then to actually do so in 1992 and 1993 with the historic Oslo back-channel negotiations, and then the Oslo Accords?
Similarly, who could have thought that peace between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was possible after decades of horrifying terror and counter-terror called “the Troubles?” And yet, in April 1998, a surprising peace agreement was reached between the conflicting sides, with American intervention, that has lasted to this day. Similarly, it once seemed inconceivable that the oppression of the Black population in South Africa would ever end. But Nelson Mandela rose to the occasion, as did Frederik Willem de Klerk, the leader of white-ruled South Africa, and they made a historic agreement which ended the apartheid regime in that country.
As a result, I do not accept the political determinism of many pundits in our region (and outside of it) who say that peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is impossible. On the contrary, I believe that it can and must happen, for the mutual welfare of both peoples. And I believe that all of the peacebuilders that I know well and have worked with for many years share this deep belief despite all the challenges and obstacles they continually face.
Because of this belief, I am profoundly grateful for Pope Francis’s letter for his Jewish brothers and sisters from February 2024, especially his emphasis on the need to pursue peace for all of God’s children in Israel and Palestine, Jewish and Arab alike.
