VATICAN CITY — Italy’s rabbis said Tuesday they were pulling out of the Italian Catholic Church’s annual celebration of Judaism, saying recent decisions by Pope Benedict XVI were negating 50 years of interfaith progress.
The chief rabbi of Venice, Elia Enrico Richetti, cited the pope’s decision to restore a prayer for the conversion of Jews, deemed offensive to Jews, in Easter Week services of the old Latin Mass.
Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the Italian bishops’ commission on interreligious dialogue, said the history of Jewish-Catholic relations cannot just be “canceled,” the ANSA news agency reported.
“If there are difficulties, which undoubtedly there are in Italy, they should become an occasion to recast the dialogue even more strongly,” ANSA quoted him as saying.
