Religijny, polityczny i społeczny wymiar wizyty Jana Pawła II w naczelnym rabinacie Izraela

Abstract

During his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2000 John Paul II visited the Kingdom of Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel. The Pope emphasized that his pilgrimage had exclusively an religious meaning. Any pope’s journey to the places connected with the life of Jesus Christ, however, will always be not only religious, but it is bound to have interreligious, social and political character. The special meaning for Christian-Jewish reconciliation had John Paul H’s meetings with Israeli President Ezer Weizman, Chief Rabbis of Israel Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron and Meir Lau at Hechal Shlomo, the headquarters of the Chief Rabbinate and his visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s principal Holocaust memorial. To begin with the article presents the meeting at Hechal Shlomo and analyses the addresses of John Paul II and C hief Rabbis. One of the results of the meeting, two years later, in 2002, was establishment of the Bilateral Committee of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The following part describes the history of the Committee and analyses its documents. During the first five years of the Committee’s existence the two delegations have centered on the important problems of the modern society: the sanctity of human life and the necessity of respecting religious freedom. In particular the Committee has expressed its opposition to mercy-killing (euthanasia) and to the use of religion for political purposes, especially to justify terrorism. Referring to the fundamental human rights, the members of the Committee usually quoted Gn. 1: 26-27. Engagement in social and moral problems from the theological perspective is the hopeful sign for the future of Christian-Jewish relations.