Pope Francis I Speaks on Holocaust, Israel and Jews in Only Book

[Meshuga]

Cross-post with the DU Jewish group.

Pope Francis I Speaks on Holocaust, Israel and Jews in Only Book
Pontiff's Unscripted Talk With Rabbi in 'Heaven and Earth'

Within hours of the selection of Pope Francis I as the new pontiff, newspapers quoted the heads of the major Jewish agencies saying that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was committed to building bridges to the Jewish community. Jewish leaders said they expected to have a fruitful relationship with him.

As a bishop and then cardinal, the pope participated in many interfaith meetings. He was praised by the Jewish community for his compassionate response to the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-story building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. As a cardinal, he has preached in a synagogue twice, spoken at holocaust commemorations and has visited Israel.
Remarkably, almost no attention has been paid to the fact that the only book written by the Pope currently in print is a dialogue in Spanish between the then-cardinal Bergoglio and a rabbi.

“Sobre El Cielo Y La Tierra (Regarding Heaven and Earth)” is structured as a transcript of a conversation between then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka, the rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano.

The sweeping book skips quickly from discussions of God, fundamentalism, sin, homosexuality, capitalism, money, the poor and many other topics. The future pontiff addresses the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust, Argentina’s so-called dirty war and the Mideast conflict in an unscripted, eye-opening way that couldn’t be further from the carefully crafted messages that usually emerge from the Vatican
Because of its important insights into the new pope, ‘Sobre El Cielo Y La Tierra’ has shot to the No. 1 slot for books on religion on Amazon.com.

The most intriguing aspect for Jews may be that the first words the world may read by the new leader of the 1.2-billion member church is a constructive conversation with a rabbi, in which both men encourages interfaith amity. The Pope also shows his familiarity with Judaism and Jewish authors, especially the works of Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/173039/pope-francis-i-speaks-on-holocaust-israel-and-jews/?p=all#ixzz2NjN9f3pU

[freshwest]

1. I can't find the English version on Amazon, but want to understand the views.

I have no knowledge of Catholicism or Judaism except by media, internet or word of mouth, and I'd like to see the reasoning behind many controversial things. Without it being theological or authoritarian. An interfaith discussion would go a long way to understand their version of life or reality. Thanks for posting this.

[ucrdem]

2. Now this is intriguing.

Some notable Catholic clerics and thinkers have been discovered, or at least convincingly argued, to have been conversos whose families converted from Judaism under compulsion real or virtual in the 12th-15th centuries. Barotolomé de Las Casas, the 16th century Salamancan priest and "protector of the Indios," comes to mind. I came across a fairly recent (07?) NYU dissertation arguing that Las Casas, like Columbus, was likely a son of conversos whose family histories gave both of them a sense of messianic purpose, in Las Casas' case working itself out by the convert becoming the converter.

And a great converter he was. Why Las Casas hasn't been made a saint I don't know but I imagine it has something to do with the unsavory truths he published about the Spanish encounter with los indígenas americanos, which for centuries after his death in 1566 were considered wild fabrications and defamations, and still are in Spain, notwithstanding that demographers in recent decades have concluded that he was telling the appalling truth.

Anyway I see this as a sign that Francis, whether or not there were conversos in his family, comes to Rome ready to hit the ground running and won't have to spend years reinventing that particular wheel.