HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IS "A WARNING, A WITNESS, AN APPEAL"

VATICAN CITY, MAR 17, 2005 (VIS) - Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, librarian of Holy Roman Church, arrived in Jerusalem on March 15 to attend, as the Holy Father's representative, the inauguration of the new Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem Mausoleum. His speech, given yesterday morning, was published today.

  He assured the audience of "the spiritual closeness of Pope John Paul II, as well as the solidarity of the Catholic Church." The Pope visited Yad Vashem on March 23, 2000 during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is a monument to the memory of victims of the Holocaust and contains, among other things, several urns of ashes of victims from various concentration camps.

  "The building that we have just inaugurated," added Cardinal Tauran, "is, for the whole world, a warning, a witness and an appeal. In acknowledging the immensity of Jewish suffering, we come face to face with the obligation to be vigilant, with the need to reject indifference and with the terrifying void of a world without God."

  Quoting from the Pope's Message of January 15, 2005, for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, he stated that "Pope John Paul II repeats once again this morning to all those who are willing to listen that when we remember the 'horrible crime committed against the Jewish nation' that was the Holocaust, we do so because 'these terrible events are for contemporary men and women a summons to responsibility, in order to build our history'."

  "The Catholic Church," affirmed Cardinal Tauran, "respecting the uniqueness of Judaism and remaining linked in faith to its heritage, teaches that there is no place or reason for the hatred of Jews. This would be a sin against God and humanity."
DELSS/HOLOCAUST MUSEUM/JERUSALEM:TAURAN    VIS 20050317 (300)