POPE BENEDICT CLEARS JEWS OF JESUS' DEATH

Pope Benedict and the Vatican have taken a very promising step in Judeo-Christian relations, by recognizing that the Jewish community was not guilty in the death of Jesus in a new book:

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

In "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict uses biblical and theological analyses to explain why there was no basis in Scripture that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

While the Vatican has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said Wednesday the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was significant and would help fight anti-Semitism today.

"There's a natural human tendency to take things for granted, and very often this tends to lead to a lapse in awareness and consciousness" about the risk of anti-Semitism, said Rabbi David Rosen, head of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee and a longtime leader in Vatican-Jewish dialogue.

He noted that the Vatican issued its most authoritative document on the issue in its 1965 Second Vatican Council document "Nostra Aetate," which revolutionized the Catholic Church's relations with Jews by saying Christ's death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today.

Benedict comes to the same conclusion, but he explains how with a thorough, Gospel-by-Gospel analysis that leaves little doubt that he deeply and personally believes it to be the case.

Rosen said the pope's words might make a bigger, more lasting mark because the faithful tend to read Scripture and commentary more than church documents, particularly old church documents.

"It may be an obvious thing for Jews to present texts with commentaries, but normally with church magisterium, they present a document," he said. "This is a pedagogical tool that he's providing, so people will be able to interpret the text in keeping with orthodox Vatican teaching."

The book is the second installment to Benedict's 2007 "Jesus of Nazareth," his first book as pope, which offered a very personal meditation on the early years of Christ's life and teachings. This second installment, set to be released March 10, concerns the final part of Christ's life, his death and resurrection.

The Vatican's publishers provided excerpts Wednesday.

In the book, Benedict re-enacts Jesus' final hours, then analyzes each Gospel account to explain why Jews as a whole cannot be blamed for having turned him over. Rather, Benedict concludes, it was the Jewish leadership, the "Temple aristocracy" and a few supporters of the figure Barabbas who were responsible, but not Jews as a whole.

I'm not sure if this is a perfect explanation either, but I suppose it's getting somewhere in making clear that the majority of the Jewish community did not turn him in or condone his death at the hands of the Romans.

"How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus' death?" Benedict asks.

He deconstructs one particular account which has the crowd saying, "His blood be on us and on our children" — a phrase frequently cited as evidence of the collective guilt Jews bore and the curse that they carried as a result.

The phrase has been so incendiary that director Mel Gibson was reportedly forced to drop it from the subtitles of his 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ," although it remained in the spoken Aramaic.

But Benedict said Jesus' death wasn't about punishment, but rather salvation. Jesus' blood, he said, "does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all."

Benedict's writings could possibly help to defuse the propaganda Gibson's reprehensible film wallowed in. There's still a lot more that the Christian world could do to help mend fences with Jewish society, but I think it's fair to say that Pope Benedict has made a helpful step in the right direction.