The world said goodbye to Pope John Paul II this week. The largest television audience in history tuned in as thousands lined up to view his body lying in state in the Vatican. The Jewish people, too, stood among the chief mourners.
Throughout his 27-year reign, the Polish-born pontiff was a true and steady friend of the Jews.
We will miss him.
No pope in the 2,000-year history of the Roman Catholic Church did more for Jewish-Catholic relations than did John Paul II.
Whether speaking out against anti-Semitism, establishing relations between Israel and the Vatican, meeting regularly with world Jewish leaders or praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, this pope stood with us.
His heartfelt connection to the Jewish people goes way back, long before his ascendancy in the church. As a youth, Karol Wojtyla risked his own safety in war-torn Poland to rescue his Jewish neighbors. He lived a life of service to humankind and his papacy reflected that.
John Paul II showed courage standing up to communist tyranny in his native Eastern Europe. He showed courage after being gravely wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt. And he showed tremendous courage as his body, ravaged by multiple medical problems, slowly succumbed. In life and in death, John Paul taught us a lesson about human dignity.
There are some in the Jewish community who will always view the Catholic Church with suspicion. After all, this pope seemed at times too cozy with the late Yasser Arafat, which was unbecoming of a relatively neutral Vatican policy vis-à-vis the Middle East.
Moreover, the church historically has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the history of anti-Semitic acts. From the Crusades to the Inquisition up through the Holocaust, the church bears indirect and in some cases direct responsibility for high crimes against the Jewish people.
The remarkable thing about John Paul II is that he owned up to it. Under his leadership, the church began the long and painful process of reconciliation. It hasn’t been a perfectly smooth road, and the church must do more to achieve a full accounting of past sins, including opening the Vatican archives to historians and Jewish researchers.
But John Paul II began a process of dialogue that no future pope is likely to reverse. For that, Jews should be grateful for his life and cherish his memory.
And so we echo the words of President Bill Clinton speaking at the funeral of Yitzak Rabin 10 years ago: Shalom, chaver. Goodbye, friend.