Vatican City, 28 July 2015 (VIS) – “A
blessing to one another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People”
is the title of an exhibition opening today in the Vatican
(Charlemagne Wing, 29 July to 17 September), previously displayed in
a number of state capitals in the U.S.A., where it received more than
a million visitors.
The exhibition, presented as a gift to
John Paul II for his 85th birthday, was inaugurated at the Xavier
University of Cincinnati, Ohio, on 18 May 2005, just a month after
the Pope's death. It then arrived in Rome, and while in Europe its
organisers wanted it to visit Krakow, the Polish city where Karol
Wojtyla was archbishop.
“A blessing to one another”
describes the steps the Pontiff took to improve the relationship
between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and reflects the
continuing relevance of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate”,
issued fifty years ago, in which the Catholic Church expresses her
appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principals of
universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination.
Funded by various universities and
private individuals and bodies who see interreligious dialogue as a
source of progress for humanity, the exhibition narrates John Paul
II's relations with those whom he defined during his historic visit
to the synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986 as “our elder brothers”.
It is divided into four sections and consists of photographs, videos,
recordings and other interactive sources.
The first section illustrates Karol
Wojtyla's early years in his birthplace Wadowice, what would become a
lifelong friendship with the young Jew Jerzy Kluger, and the
relations between Catholics and Jews in Poland during the decade 1920
to 1930. The second section is dedicated to the Pope's university
years in Krakow, and his work not far from his friends in the Ghetto
who knew the horrors of the Shoah. The third describes his priestly
and episcopal life, Vatican Council II and the change of direction it
represented in relations between Jews and Christians, and the close
link between the cardinal archbishop of Krakow and the Jewish
community in his archdiocese.
The final section considers the figure
of Wojtyla as the Successor of Peter, his visit to the Synagogue of
Rome, and his trip to Israel in the year 2000 when he left a prayer
in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment
that Jews had received in the past and reaffirming the Church's
commitment to a path of fraternal continuity with the People of the
Covenant. Visitors to “A blessing to one another” are invited to
write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the Wall. They will
be gathered and deposited in the Western Wall without being read.