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Pope Renders An Apology
Posted by Preet Mohan S Ahluwalia Send Email to Author on Monday, 3/13/2000 1:11 PM MDT
Pope Seeks Pardon for Catholics
Updated 1:26 AM ET March 13, 2000

By JULIA LIEBLICH, AP Religion Writer

http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000313/01/news-vatican-pardon

VATICAN CITY (AP) - It was what Pope John Paul II didn't say during a solemn Day of Pardon Mass that has elicited the most impassioned responses. While many welcome the pope's appeal for God's forgiveness, some had hoped for more explicit apologies.

Israel's chief rabbi, Meir Lau, said he was "deeply frustrated" by the pope's failure to mention the Holocaust in the eagerly awaited "mea culpa" Sunday.

A Catholic mission that ministers to the Roma, or Gypsies, in Rome, asked: "Why is the Holocaust of the Gypsies not mentioned?"

At Sunday's special Mass, the pope asked God's forgiveness for the sins of Catholics through the ages, including wrongs inflicted on Jews, women, and minorities. But he spoke mostly in general terms, not mentioning the Holocaust, the Inquisition or Crusades by name and listing few specific groups.

The Rev. John Pawlikowski, professor of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, said the pope "pushed the envelope far as he could, given the opposition to the apology" among Catholics who feared tarnishing the church's reputation.

Still, Pawlikowski, who participated in a 1998 closed-door Vatican meeting to advise the pope on the pardon and Judaism, said he would have preferred more direct language.

"I would have liked the pope to express regret for the centuries of anti-Judaic teaching that has been conveyed through preaching, catechesis and religious art," Pawlikowski said. And he would have liked the pope to state that some people who committed sins against Jews "were leaders of the highest level."

Despite the criticism, the apology was a personal landmark for the frail, 79-year-old pope, who vowed to cleanse and reinvigorate Catholicism for its third millennium.

John Paul and the five cardinals and two bishops who also delivered the confession of sins with him were dressed in heavy purple robes, the color of penitence. The pope leaned on his silver staff, his voice clear but his hands trembling, a symptom of Parkinson's.

At the end of the confessions, he embraced a large crucifix on the altar for the special Mass, imploring God's forgiveness.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy recalled the "sufferings of the people of Israel" and asked divine pardon for "the sins committed by not a few (Catholics) against the people of the Covenant."

After a moment of silent prayer, the pope responded: "We are deeply saddened by
the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood."

When it comes to women's issues, Sister Donna Quinn, director of Chicago Catholic Women, said she is less concerned about the language used to discuss discrimination than the actions that follow.

If the pope "is sincerely asking for forgiveness, he would have to change the policies of the Catholic Church that discriminate against women, such as ordination," she said.

Rick Garcia, director of Equality Illinois, a gay civil rights group, said he "was deeply touched" that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles discussed gays and lesbians in his public apology last week, but was not surprised that the pope did not.

"I don't think that Rome is willing to make amends for the horrible way it treats gay and lesbian Catholics," he said.

Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a Holocaust survivor and head of Israel's secular Shinui party, was among those who wanted the pope to apologize directly to the victims.

"It is high time for the pope to ask for forgiveness from the Jewish people," he said, "not only for the silence of (Pope) Pius XII during Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but for all the sins that the church committed toward the Jews in 2,000 years of a very sad history."

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls had warned that the pope's intention was
never to ask for forgiveness from people. The pope, he said, asks for forgiveness from God.

Lau and other Israelis expressed hope that the pope will talk about the Holocaust when he visits Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, during his March 20-26 pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

But Pawlikowski noted that the pope could "cause more problems if he offers a
spirited defense of Pius XII."

Many Jewish leaders have said that Pius failed to speak out against the Nazis during the Holocaust, while the Vatican has consistently defended him. The issue remains a source of tension on the eve of the papal visit.

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