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This week, we observe the most sacred part of the Church's year. This is Holy Week, in which we walk with Christ from Palm Sunday to the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, to His Passion and death on the cross of Calvary on Good Friday, to His entombment and glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday.

From my childhood days, I have wonderful memories of the liturgical celebrations commemorating these sacred events of our Christian faith. How surprised and saddened I and many Catholics were to learn from the Jewish-Christian dialogues which emerged following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s that, for the Jewish community - especially those raised in Europe - our Holy Week was the scariest time of the year.

Frequently, rocks were thrown through the windows of their homes and businesses. They were reviled by shouts of, "Christ-killers," and some suffered physical attack, even death, since some of the prayers and readings in the Church's liturgy easily became an incitement to anti-Semitism.

Papal book
That is why the recent book by Pope Benedict XVI titled, "Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection," is so important. It underscores that generations of Christians have been wrong to blame Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus.

This anti-Semitic attitude began to change significantly when "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican Council's decree on relations with non-Christian religions, specifically instructed that "Jews should not be presented as rejected or cursed by God, as if this followed from the holy Scriptures."

However, problems remained with the two most commonly-employed Passion narratives: that of Matthew's Gospel, usually read on Palm Sunday, and John's Gospel on Good Friday.

There was intense interest, then, when Pope Benedict XVI completed his two-part study on the life of Jesus and turned his attention to those problematic passages in particular.

More specific
In his book, Benedict follows the scholarly consensus that "the Jews" mentioned in John's Gospel as calling for Jesus to be executed cannot possibly refer to the whole population of Israel at the time, but rather refers to the Jerusalem Temple authorities alone - and not even all of those.

But the greater problem is presented by Matthew's account, which refers to the demand of "the whole people" that Jesus be crucified and which - alone of the four Gospels - has them cry out, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

This verse kept Christian anti-Semitism alive for many centuries, and was the basis for the charge of deicide or "Christ-killing" laid against all Jews, alive or dead.

In his new work, Benedict simply rejects Matthew's historical accuracy, preferring the account in John and Mark. Matthew, the Pope states, had gone "beyond 'historical considerations' and is certainly not recounting historical fact here."

Rather, the Pope suggests, Matthew is employing a theological lens with which to account for the fate of the Jewish people in the forthcoming Jewish-Roman war.

O Jerusalem
In other words, Matthew is attempting to account for the terrible fate of the people of Israel in the Jewish war, when land, city and temple were taken from them.

He is thinking here of Jesus' prophecy concerning the end of the temple: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken" (Matthew 23:37).

Furthermore, seen through the eyes of Christian faith, Jesus' shedding His blood has the purifying power of redemption, so that the words attributed to the crowd, "Let His blood be on us and on our children," are not a curse, but redemption, salvation.

His blood heals
The Pope posits that, when in Matthew's accounts the "whole people" say, "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 7:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus' blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Hebrew 12-24): It does not cry out for vengeance and punishment; it brings reconciliation.

It is not poured out against anyone; it is poured out for many, for all: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. God put [Jesus] forward as an expiation by His blood" (Romans 3:23,25).

Read in the light of faith, then, Matthew's reference to blood means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love, which is Christ's blood. Only when understood in terms of the theology of the Last Supper and the cross, drawn from the whole of the New Testament, does this verse from Matthew's Gospel take on its correct meaning.

Jewish reaction
The initial reaction to the Pope's new book and his interpretation has been favorably received by many within the Jewish community. The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, led a chorus of Jewish welcome for the Pope's book, praising his "clarity and courage."

To some Jewish scholars, the Pope's book represents an act of theological disarmament, reinterpreting certain passages in the Gospels that, in the past, had buttressed anti-Jewish teachings and made the New Testament - in the eyes of the 21st-century Orthodox Jewish theologian Eliezer Berkovits - the most dangerous anti-Semitic tract in history.

Nowhere is Benedict's exegetical creativity more evident than his understanding of the people's cry in Matthew, "His Blood be upon us and upon our children," as a kind of invocation of salvation, rather than a pretext for vengeance.

The Pope's biblical commentary follows the path of reconciliation opened by "Nostra Aetate," which removed the taint of collective responsibility for the death of Jesus from the Jewish people and asserted that God holds them "most dear."

This perspective was subsequently advanced by Pope John Paul II, whose pilgrimage to Israel in 2000 gave Christian-Jewish rapprochement its most iconic image: his prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Many impressed
Major American-Jewish organizations issued statements to acclaim this work, while Andrei Glotser, a spokesperson for the Russian-Jewish Communities Federation, commented, "The Pope's position will play an essential role in fighting anti-Semitism."

What has impressed many Jewish observers is that, where "Nostra Aetate" represented a statement of principles, "Jesus of Nazareth" offers an authoritative guide to Catholics on how to read the Scriptures in the light of these principles.

Edward Kessler, co-founder and CEO of the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, suggests that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the example of Blessed Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI will lead to further progress through exploring shared positive values: for example, through programs of joint biblical study.

"You have to deal with negative issues, but you can't build good relations upon them," Mr. Kessler stated.

In fact, there have been recent signs of growing Jewish interest in the Christian Scriptures. Rabbi Sidney Brichto's English translation of the New Testament, published recently, reflected a belief that Jews should have some understanding of the spiritual patrimony of Christianity, not least because of its broader impact on civilization.

Simon Rocker, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has taken the initiative to encourage many rabbinical leaders and academics within the Jewish and Catholic communities to interact with one another more positively by engaging our mutual spiritual heritage. Hopefully, this invitation will be widely accepted by the Jewish community and embraced enthusiastically by the Catholic community.[[In-content Ad]]

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