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“This is a critically important and timely statement by his Holiness, particularly at a time of increased mainstream anti-Semitism,” declared Rabbi Marvin Hier, Simon Wiesenthal Center Founder and Dean who has led numerous delegations to Vatican City and had audiences with Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor Pope John Paul II. “As I told his Holiness during our November 2005 meeting at the Vatican, “Prior to (The Nostra Aetate), Jews were often held in contempt and derided as an accursed people. Millions suffered through the ages because there were none to defend them.”

“The Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate declared that this was a false teaching, and absolved the Jewish people as a collective from the crime of deicide. The Pope’s new book goes beyond this declaration and shows why the earlier popular reading is not supported by the Gospel texts,” he noted.

“With this statement, His Holiness has added a powerful voice to help stem the tide of Jewish hatred,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center’s Associate Dean. “Some faithful are most impressed by authority. Others want to be convinced,” added Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Center’s director of Interfaith Affairs. “Pope Benedict took his signature strength – the power of his intellect – and trained it on the Gospels to provide Catholics and other Christians with the Scriptural evidence to back up the position the Church took against the charge of deicide in Nostra Aetate.”

Read text of Rabbi Marvin Hier's remarks at private audience with Pope Benedict at the Vatican...


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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).