Holocaust scholar pays tribute to Pope John Paul

January 17, 2011

Michael Berenbaum, a rabbi and Holocaust scholar, has praised the Vatican announcement of Pope John Paul II’s beatification.

“Jews have no right to register an opinion on whom the Roman Catholic Church beautifies [sic] and whom it considers a saint,” he writes. “Nevertheless, this has not stopped us from asserting our disapproval of the efforts to canonize Pope Pius XII, the man who served as Pope during the Holocaust.”

“Though I have no vote,” he concludes, “were I to have [a] vote, I would be honored to consider Pope John Paul II a saint, not a saint without flaws, or human fallibility but a saint nevertheless.”

 

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Further information:

• Celebrating the Beatification of John Paul II (Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles)
• Michael Berenbaum (Wikipedia)