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Holocaust

Peres in bid to smooth pope's ruffled plumage


By Stan Goodenough
December 01, 2008

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, will reportedly visit Israel in May.

According to the Israeli press Sunday, the pontiff has been invited by Israeli President Shimon Peres in a bid by the latter to smooth Vatican feathers ruffled by Jewish expressions of outrage at the planned beatification of Pope Pius XII.

Jews know Pius as a cowardly cleric who refused to publicly protest Hitler's extermination of European Jewry; and who remained silent even when Jews were transported from Rome to the death camps.

Benedict has countered such charges, claiming that Pius did save some Jewish lives.

Peres, a superdove, is understood to want to make nice with Benedict, perhaps to try and "explain" to him why turning Pius into a saint does not sit so well with the Jewish people.

Despite Peres' figurehead status, the event is likely to be turned into a political visit that will include a papal stop in Bethlehem, behind the Israeli security wall.

And depending on where things stand at that time with the US-led and EU-pushed land-for-peace process, Benedict may well use the occasion to give the Vatican's blessing to the global effort to rob the Jews of their ancient heartland.

If the visit takes place, it will be the third by a pope to the Jewish national homeland since its rebirth 60 years ago.

Interestingly, it was dogma for centuries in the Roman Catholic Church that the Jews would not return from exile to their homeland until they accepted that Jesus was the Messiah.

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