New Pope Leo tells Jews he wants to strengthen dialogue

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Leo XIV has told the world's Jewish communities he wants to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church’s dialogue with them, in a message coming after a souring of relations between the Vatican and Israel over the war in Gaza.

The first U.S.-born pope sent a letter to Rabbi Noam Marans, the Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, who posted the letter on the social platform X late on Monday.

“Trusting in the assistance of the almighty, I pledge to continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Aetate,” Leo said in the letter.

Nostra Aetate was a landmark document in the 1962-1965 Council that repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus and urged dialogue with non-Christian religions.

The brief document revolutionized Catholic relations with Jews after centuries of persecution and mistrust. Dialogue that ensued over the following two decades made it possible for Pope John II to become the first pontiff to visit a synagogue, giving a speech in Rome’s main temple in 1986, where he called Jews “our beloved elder brothers”.

After years of often tense relations, the Vatican and Israel signed a “fundamental agreement” in 1993 and exchanged full ambassadors the next year.

A Vatican source said Marans would attend Leo’s inaugural Mass on Sunday. More than a dozen other Jewish leaders from around the world were also expected to attend, the source said.

It was not yet clear if any Israeli government leader would attend the Mass.

While the late Pope Francis often condemned antisemitism, relations between the Vatican and Israel soured after the start of the war in Gaza in 2023.

Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages to Gaza. More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since then, Palestinian authorities say, and swathes of the heavily built-up enclave have been laid to waste.

The Israeli delegation to Pope Francis’ funeral last month was headed by its ambassador to the Vatican Yaron Sideman, which sources said at the time was an intentionally low-level representation because of Francis’ comments about Gaza.

Francis, who visited the Holy Land in 2014, suggested last November that the global community should study whether Israel's military campaign in Gaza constituted genocide, in some of his most explicit criticism of Israel's conduct in its war with Hamas.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella, editing by Alvise Armellini and William Maclean)