ROME — Pope Francis has denounced all violence committed in the name of God during a visit to Rome’s main synagogue, joining the oldest Jewish community in the diaspora in a sign of interfaith friendship at a time of religiously-inspired attacks around the globe.
During a visit Sunday marked by tight security and historic continuity, Francis also rejected all forms of anti-Semitism and in called for “maximum vigilance” and early intervention to prevent another Holocaust.
He repeated several times that Jews are the “elder brothers and sisters” of Christians, repeating the words first uttered by St. John Paul II during the first-ever papal visit to the synagogue 30 years ago.
Francis began his visit laying a wreath at a plaque outside the synagogue marking where Roman Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in 1943 and at another marking the slaying of a 2-year-old boy in an attack by Palestinians on the synagogue in 1982.
He met with members of the boy’s family and survivors of the attack before entering the synagogue, the seat of the oldest Jewish community in the diaspora.
The visit comes amid a spate of Islamic extremist attacks in Europe, Africa and elsewhere.
“The hatred that comes from racism and bias or worse which uses God’s name or words to kill deserves our contempt and our firm condemnation,” Ruth Dureghello, president of the Rome’s Jewish community, said in introductory remarks.
Francis’ visit is meant to continue the tradition of papal visits that began with St. John Paul II in 1986 and continued with Benedict XVI in 2010. It also highlighted the 50th anniversary of the landmark shift in Christian-Jewish relations that was represented by the Second Vatican Council.
The council document “Nostra Aetate” revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with Jews by among other things repudiating the centuries-old charge that Jews as a whole were responsible for the death of Christ.
The Argentine Jesuit has a long-standing friendship with the Jewish community in Argentina from his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires.
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