Benedict

[asterroc]

Before Benedict became pope, the Catholic Church had begun a far deeper reckoning with Christian roots of the Holocaust, and that led to a profound shift in basic claims made about the Jewish religion. Most importantly, the church had affirmed the permanent integrity of God's covenant with the Jewish people, leading to the renunciation of the ancient impulse to convert Jews. But last March, in an address delivered at St. Peter's Square, Benedict issued ``a summons to all Israel to conversion," urging Jews ``to allow themselves to be reunited in a new covenant, full and perfect accomplishment of the old."

James Carroll, The Boston Globe