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27 February 2006
BERLIN – Leading Vatican and German cardinals are to meet for talks next month with the Jewish rabbis of Germany for the first time, it was announced in Berlin on Saturday.
In the past, Catholic contacts with Judaism have been conducted mainly through the German Council of Jews, a lay organization, although German-born Pope Benedict XVI visited and prayed at a Cologne synagogue in August last year.
The Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation said the March 9 meeting in Berlin would be attended by the President of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is German.
The chairman of the German Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, and chairman of Germany’s Protestant Church Council, Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber, would also attend.
“There has been a wish often expressed to meet in future with the rabbis who work in Germany,” said Lehmann. The meeting is a highlight of a “fraternal week” between the two faiths starting March 5 in Berlin.
DPA
Subject: German news