Indelible image.

The Examined Life ("Never again," November) by Meinrad Scherer-Emunds about Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the synagogue in Cologne during his recent pilgrimage to Germany is remarkable on several counts. First is the fact that U.S. CATHOLIC printed such a report altogether. For a Jewish reader, it is noteworthy that this particular event is thus highlighted. This is surely not "standard journalism." Second is the tone of the report, which touches gingerly but constructively on one of the special issues of the relationship between Jews and Germany, namely a growing distancing by increasing numbers of Germans from the very fact of the Shoah.

There is an unmistakable trend to say "enough is enough." The reminders in the article of the courageous acts by Msgr. Meinertz and of the Catholic bishops' statement of the year 2000 were welcomed as evidence of a response to the Nazis that must not be forgotten.

One can understand Scherer-Emunds' wish that the pope had included a confession in his address, but, at least to me, the memorable aspect of the visit is the picture of the pope sitting in a seat of honor in the synagogue during a religious ceremony. I was reminded of the powerful image of Pope John Paul II praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Such images have a profound impact all of their own, and here, seeing Pope Benedict XVI in a synagogue in his native Germany conveys a lasting imprint of those changes that, while long in coming, are finally and hopefully permanent.

Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman

Chicago, Ill.

I congratulate Scherer-Emunds for his perceptive editorial regarding Pope Benedict XVI and the Holocaust. Benedict certainly will stand strong against anti-Semitism, and he clearly is sensitive to the magnitude of Jewish suffering under the Nazis. But the editorial has it right regarding his seeming avoidance of Christian responsibility during the Holocaust.

On a strictly ideological level, Nazism definitely was neo-pagan. But it could not have gone as far as it did without classical Christian anti-Semitism, which provided a crucial seedbed at the grassroots level.

Pope Benedict's failure at Cologne to mention either the 1998 Vatican document on the Holocaust or the statements of Christian responsibility from the French and German bishops' conferences is a matter of deep concern.

Father John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M.

President, International Council of Christians and Jews 

Chicago, Ill.