Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement told the head of the Maronite church on Friday that his planned trip to Jerusalem to accompany Pope Francis would have “negative repercussions”. Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai has said he will join the pope on his May 24-26 tour of the Holy Land, drawing criticism in Lebanon which remains in a…
(JTA) — Popes John Paul II and John XXIII are being declared saints of the Roman Catholic church on April 27, which is also the eve of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a coincidence but a notable one. These two post-Holocaust pontiffs revolutionized relations between Catholics and Jews, fostering interfaith dialogue and embedding…
The late Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, who will be made saints on Sunday, did so much to end two millennia of Catholic anti-Semitism that a Jewish human rights group calls them “heroes to the Jewish people”. Both pontiffs marked the world’s largest church in such varied ways that most Roman Catholics would…
Pope Francis treated a Jewish delegation from his native Argentina to a private lunch catered by one of Rome’s top kosher restaurants. On Thursday, proprietors of the restaurant Ba’ Ghetto brought Roman Jewish specialties to the Vatican, where the pope hosted the group of rabbis and Jewish leaders at the Santa Marta guesthouse, his residence….
Pope Francis announced on Sunday that he will visit Holy Land sites in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in May, his first trip to the area as pontiff. The May 24-26 trip to Amman, Jerusalem and Bethlehem will mark the 50th anniversary of a landmark trip there by Pope Paul VI in 1964, the…
Well, another International Human Rights Day has come and gone. The December 10 holiday usually passes without much fanfare, but not this year. This year was pretty special. The holiday commemorates the adoption in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the landmark charter of worldwide freedoms. In…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Vatican audience with Pope Francis reportedly invited the pontiff to visit Israel. Netanyahu on Monday presented the pope with a book about the Spanish Inquisition written by his father, the late historian Benzion Netanyahu. No date has been set for a visit by Francis to Israel, Vatican spokesman Father…
The puffs of white smoke had barely cleared from above the Sistine Chapel before we started learning about Pope Francis I. We learned that Francis, 76, is a profoundly humble man who insists on carrying his own bags and riding the bus home. We also learned that he plans to bring a breath of fresh…
אינעם שמועס באַטייליקן זיך יניבֿ גאָלדבערג, מיכל יאַשינסקי און חיים וואָלף.
