John Paul II's Reach
In an act of equal historic significance, this pope broke with all his predecessors since 1948 and recognized the State of Israel as they had declined to do. As he put it, "It must be understood that the Jews, who for 2,000 years were dispersed among the nations of the world, have decided to return to the land of their ancestors. This is their right. " Contrast an official Vatican publication in 1948: "Modern Israel is not heir to biblical Israel. The Holy Land and its sacred sites belong only to Christianity as the true Israel."
Pope John Paul II was the first to visit Israel, the first to see Yad Vashem, the memorial to the Holocaust, in a tearful expression of solidarity with Jewish suffering. At the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, where Christian pilgrims once came to gloat about the fall of the Temple, he prayed and deposited a prayer he had composed for a liturgy of repentance, asking divine forgiveness for the sins Christians had committed against Jews through the ages. This prayer is memorable: "God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations; we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer and ask your forgiveness; we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant."
When interviewed years ago by the French author Marek Halter, the pope was asked what happened to his Jewish friends when the Nazis overwhelmed Poland. The pope said they were almost all killed. When asked what he did to help them, the pope answered, in effect, "Not enough." Now this man with rare gifts of wisdom, morality, and spirituality has surely done enough.
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