VATICAN:POPE BENEDICT XVI's personal preacher has likened accusations against the pope and the Catholic Church in the sex abuse scandal to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.
Fr Raniero Cantalamessa said in a Good Friday homily, with the pope listening to him in St Peter’s Basilica, that a Jewish friend wrote to him to say the accusations remind him of the “more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism”.
Quoting from the letter from the friend, who wasn’t identified, the preacher said he was following “‘with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world’.”
Fr Cantalamessa, noting that this year the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter fell in the same week, said Jews throughout history had been the victims of “collective violence” and drew a comparison with attacks on the church over the scandal.
He read the congregation a part of a letter he received from a Jewish friend who said he was “following with disgust the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope . . . The use of stereotypes, the shifting of personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism,” he quoted.
Victim support group the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests condemned the comments.
“Those who hatefully disparage Jewish people do so because of myths about their spiritual beliefs that harm no one. Those who thoughtfully question the Catholic hierarchy do so because of facts about their callous misdeeds which harm hundreds of thousands.”
This week’s celebrations leading up to Easter Sunday have been clouded by accusations that the church covered up the sexual abuse of children by priests. – (AP, Reuters)