John Paul's Jewish Dilemma

Paul Elie

April 26, 1998

In this New York Times Magazine article, Paul Elie examines how Pope John Paul II has used the turn of the millennium, and the Catholic Church's celebration of a year of Jubilee, to reflect on Christian-Jewish relations, particularly in reference to the Holocaust. Elie discusses how the Second Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate document profoundly shifted the relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism in a positive direction. Nonetheless, John Paul II remains haunted by the actions - or lack thereof - taken by Pope Pius XII during the Holocaust, and the article concludes with a reflection on what an official papal apology might mean for the next century of Christian-Jewish relations.

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