|
|
| By: Associated Press |
| Published: November 30, 2005 |
| |
Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that the Nazi concentration camps, in which millions of Jews were sent to their deaths, remained "an indelible shame in the history of humanity."
During the sermon of his weekly public audience, dedicated to an interpretation of the biblical Psalms, the German- born pope linked the laments of the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people as expressed in Psalm 136 to the deportation of Jews to the death camps during World War II.
"It is almost an anticipation of the extermination camps to which the Jewish people, in the century which we have just left behind us, were sent in an infamous operation of death, which has remained an indelible shame in the history of humanity," the pope said in Italian to the several thousand pilgrims and tourists gathered in a rainy St. Peter's Square.
Since his election as pope in April, Benedict, 78, who was a member of the Hitler Youth as a young seminarian in his native Bavaria, has publicly condemned the Nazi regime and recalled the tragedy of the Holocaust on several occasions.
He has also met with numerous Jewish groups and visited the synagogue in Cologne, which was destroyed by the Nazis, during a trip to Germany in August. Benedict has declared the continued improvement of relations between Catholics and Jews, following up on the efforts of his predecessor Pope John Paul II, one of the priorities of his pontificate.
In a speech to the English speaking groups present in the square on the same theme, the pope called the Psalms' evocation of Babylon as a place of "slavery and sorrow" a "symbolic foreshadowing of the horrors of the death camps." |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
