You gotta admire a man who gave his elders respect

This was some pope. Yes, imperfect like all of us. But he had some inspired moments when it came to Jewish-Christian relationships. Remember his 1997 Christmas Eve pronouncement? A small clue: the general subject was the "elder brothers" of Christianity. Believe it or not he meant us.

When the man in the Vatican talks, a billion Catholics pay strict attention and another billion or so Protestants listen with interest. The pope has a dedicated audience that exceeds the combined viewership of "Saturday Night Live," Letterman, the Super Bowl and The Shopping Channel. The breadth and depth of his followers is immense. Four million souls showed up in Manila, 1995, on World Youth Day for a glimpse of this leader who is seen by his worshipers as semi-divine — a link to the Almighty Himself.

His Christmas Eve pronouncement in 1997 had a major effect on Jewish-Christian relationships — forcing Catholics to rethink an old wound with Judaism. Not a scar but a wound. John Paul II hailed Jews as the people who gave Jesus Christ to mankind. He called us "Christianity's elder brothers": Not Christ-killers, not participants in an obsolete covenant, not believers in an "Old" (implicitly archaic) Testament, but elder brothers. Elder implies wiser, which theologically is a major concession and compliment. We should remember that the historical bitterness between "us" and "them" is due not only to our rejection of Jesus' divinity but the common roots of the two religions and the early competition for believers. This pope told his flock that Moses, Sinai, Elijah, David and Isaiah were essential to Jesus Christ and the church that sprang from his teachings. This is equivalent to Pope Urban VIII admitting to Galileo that maybe the Earth did orbit the sun and not vice versa. (In fact, it was John Paul II who, in 1992 officially proclaimed, 350 years after the scientist's death, that the trial was flawed.)

"Israel, the people of God of the old covenant, was chosen to bring to the world ... the messiah, the savior and redeemer of all humanity." That's part of what the pope said. Yes we still disagree with portions of that statement but nevertheless he changed the official face of Catholicism into a smile when it looked upon Judaism. He was the first pope to visit a synagogue.

Also, for the first time in history, a Chanukah candle was lighted in the Vatican menorah, thereby making the man in the white satin gown and topped off with a yarmulke, a better Jew than some of my unaffiliated Jewish friends. Last Chanukah there were plenty of Jewish homes with a gloomy dining room, unilluminated by the light of Chanukah.

And we shouldn't forget that Karol Wojtyla took three bullets from an alleged KGB assassin for his belligerent defiance of a political cult, now in the junkyard of history, called communism.

Pope John Paul II was truly a statesman. Not only did he offer a papal kiss of reconciliation to Jews, but in his spare time he was a heavy hitter in the demise of communism. No less an authority than Mikhail Gorbachev awarded this credit to the Polish pope.

In 1993 he normalized Vatican-Israeli relationships. In the fall of 1997, transcending his parochial Polish background, he issued a major statement condemning anti-Semitism. (Martin Luther wouldn't have favored this any more than he favored 16th century indulgences.) And why shouldn't the Pope smile on his "elder brothers," as he called us. Peter, the first pope, was Jewish. If he'd had a wife, she would have joined Hadassah.

Pope John Paul II, from near Krakow, Poland, was the first non-Italian Pope since Adrian VI, a Dutchman. Almost five centuries of Italian pontiffs! You'd have thought we Jews would have done better with the Italians. There always seemed to be an ethnic affinity between the two Mediterranean clans — even in the underworld of both societies. Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano; Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. Remember? But it took Karol Wojtyla, a Pole from Krakow to bind up old wounds.

Make no mistake. The Vatican doesn't qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize. The annals of the church and Judaism read like military history, not romance. We engendered Joshua: Greek name, Jesus, who founded Christianity. But we also rejected his divine credentials. The papacy struck back. Heaven is full of Jewish martyrs testifying to the ferocity of Christianity in its belligerent adolescence.

Even in recent times, the pope was no Zionist. Not one pope from Peter to Pious knew the lyrics to both verses of "Hatikvah." And though they condemned terrorism, they usually tilted toward the Palestinians, especially when the topic was Jerusalem.

But who would believe that after centuries of relentless persecution, the man in Rome — this pope — would call us "elder brothers" and celebrate a Jewish Jesus as the gift of the children of Israel. Next thing you know, the church will proclaim the Sh'ma instead of the Hail Mary as their benediction of repentance. It hasn't come to that yet, but the times they are a'changing. A leader of the church who lit Chanukah candles instead of torches to incinerate us?

So, let's say something like Kaddish for John Paul II. I'm sure that about now he's enjoying a long talk with Simon Ben Jonah (Peter, to Christians), the first pope — and as Jewish as the Western Wall, as Karol Wojtyla would quickly admit.




Ted Roberts is a humorist based in Huntsville, Ala.




POPE JOHN PAUL II, 1920-2005
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