St John Paul II’s example as a strong bridge-builder between Catholicism and Judaism should be used against enduring antisemitism, especially in the wake of the 7 October, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to a theologian and papal biographer George Weigel.
He gave a keynote address to 230 people closing a half-day conference 10 March on Catholics and antisemitism sponsored by the New York-based Philos Project and the Catholic Information Center in Washington.
Panelists from other sessions highlighted the value of meaningful interactions between Catholics and Jews, from sharing kind words of concern following the 7 October attacks, to attending each other’s religious services or asking questions about each other’s faith practices they have read about.
Among the panelists were those who highlighted the need to push back against social media-driven antisemitism, and those who shared why the church—particularly in the light of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and the role of the laity to “perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel”—calls Catholics to fight the scourge of antisemitism.
Weigel noted that St John Paul, throughout his more than 26 years as pope, “saw himself, and he conducted himself, as an heir of the Second Vatican Council, and its teachings on the filial debt that Christianity owes its parent, Judaism.”
Weigel said St John Paul believed “a new springtime,” following the 20th century—”a century of tears” as the pope called it, with its Holocaust, two world wars and Cold War— would include the state of Israel, and hoped that recognition would intensify Catholic and Jewish theological dialogue.
He recounted St John Paul’s early life having grown up in Poland with Jewish friends and neighbors into young adulthood during World War II. During that war, Poland lost one fifth of its population, including nearly its entire Jewish population during the Holocaust (also known as the Shoah in Hebrew). Weigel said the war formed in the future saint, then young Karol Wojtyla, “a commitment to defend the dignity and value of every human life.”
“If we would honor (St John Paul’s) memory, let us commit our minds, hearts and souls to advancing that collaboration,” he said, calling it “ever more urgent today than it was 40 years ago.”
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