Critics Slam Pope Francis for Snubbing European Rabbis

ROME — Critics have accused Pope Francis of snubbing a group of European rabbis amidst of a resurgence of antisemitism.

Writing Tuesday in the Italian daily La Stampa, historian Lucetta Scaraffia notes that Pope Francis opted not to read his prepared discourse to a meeting with European rabbis in the Vatican Monday, saying he wasn’t feeling well.

“Despite the official explanations, it is very difficult to believe that the failure to read the speech to the European rabbis was caused by a health problem,” Scaraffia writes, since this issue “does not seem to have arisen during the other various papal commitments during the day.”

The episode, which comes “at a time when the shameful flame of anti-Semitism is rekindled in Europe and America, constitutes a worrying sign,” she asserts, and this “makes the already unclear situation of relations between Bergoglio and the Jewish world even more complicated.”

Scaraffia — who edited the monthly insert “Donne Chiesa Mondo” in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper from 2012 to 2019 — goes on to state the pope’s ambiguous attitude is not limited to Israel, but affects other conflicts as well.

The real problem, she asserts, is Francis’ “refusal to express a moral judgement, to clearly point out the difference between victim and aggressor,” an criticism shared by other pope watchers.

One might even suspect that the pope is no longer entirely sure that the victims of a sudden and unjustified attack at least have the right to defend themselves, Scaraffia suggests, “just as the suspicion arises that his declared antipathy for the United States prevents him from feeling sympathy for the attacked countries that enjoy American protection.”

In an October 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “The Incoherence of Pope Francis,” writer Bill McGurn similarly said that the pope “offers confusion instead of clarity in Gaza” and other parts of the world, such as Ukraine and China.

The pope’s “insistence on defining the problem as war itself” rather than unjustified armed aggression “suggests moral equivalence,” McGurn wrote, which leaves people confused as to the Vatican’s commitment to justice.

I continue to follow with great sorrow what is happening in Israel and Palestine. I renew my appeal for the freeing of the hostages and I strongly ask that children, the sick, the elderly, women, and all civilians not be made victims of the conflict.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) October 15, 2023

In the written text distributed to the European rabbis Monday, Pope Francis calls for a laying down of arms in the pursuit of peace, a clear reference to the current conflict in Gaza.

“In this time in which we are witnessing violence and destruction, we believers are called to build fraternity and open paths of reconciliation for all and before all,” the pope wrote.

“Not weapons, not terrorism, not war, but compassion, justice and dialogue are the fitting means for building peace,” he said.

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