Christians & the Holocaust.

As someone who was present at Auschwitz-Birkenau with Pope Benedict XVI, I would like to offer the following reflections on his address in light of your editorial ("Benedict at Auschwitz," June 16). The pope should be given credit for the reverential posture he adopted, and there were some genuinely positive aspects to his theological reflections. Yet like the editors, I was disappointed that he did not speak out more strongly and directly about Jewish suffering and contemporary anti-Semitism.

The most serious omission, something that is becoming a pattern with Pope Benedict, was his failure to acknowledge Christian complicity during the Holocaust. Nazism's roots were surely neo-pagan, but they found fertile soil in a Christian seedbed. Pope John Paul II recognized this. Benedict's failure to acknowledge Christian complicity leaves him vulnerable to the charge that he is using Nazism merely to foster his campaign against secularism in Europe. Whatever the legitimacy of concerns about secular trends, it is a mistake to equate secularism with Nazism. This may not be Benedict's intent, but his remarks clearly provide material for such an interpretation.

Unfortunately, Benedict is sometimes not as sensitive to these concerns as he could be. It is disturbing, for example, that he has offered the Polish government as a model for Europe given that government's relationship with ultra-rightist parties and a popular radio station (Radio Maryja), both of which promote vulgar anti-Semitism. I was pleased that Pope Benedict addressed Jewish suffering and anti-Semitism during his May 31 general audience in Rome, but his remarks would have been far more powerful if spoken at Birkenau.

JOHN T. PAWLIKOWSKI, OSM 

Chicago, Ill.