Where there’s SMOKE there’s --- A PAPAL ELECTION! And now the age-old question, “Is it Good for the Jews?”

The first time I watched the throngs of the devoted in St. Peter’s Square awaiting the white smoke, I was nine years old. It was June of 1963 and, thanks to the Telstar Satellite, I was able to sit mesmerized in front of my portable black and white television set and watch it all unfold.

This time, I sat in front of my computer watching live pictures and up-to-the-minute “tweets” scrolling on the side of my screen. On the radio I listened to speculation by broadcasters, and finally, the white smoke. And then there was silence. No one expected the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and a Jesuit, as the new Pope, soon to be known as Pope Francis.

As modern Jews in America, we don’t usually think much about the “Papal Connection” but it has been a point of speculation in ‘higher’ Jewish circles ever since Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement. Who would the new Pope be and would he be “Good for the Jews?”

Thursday afternoon I was asked to participate in a conference call briefing on the recently selected Pope Francis and his views, set up by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the America Jewish Committee. We were briefed by Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations, who discussed Pope Francis’s views on the Jewish community, including anti-Semitism and Israel as well as his history and interaction with the Jewish community in Argentina.

I would like to give you a brief synopsis of the highlights, in bullet points, of that conference call, which was, all-in-all a very positive and informative experience. Let me begin by saying that Rabbi Marans expressed that “regarding Catholic/Jewish Relations we have been given the most positive results we could want for positive relations.”

• There had been concern that the potential Pope might emanate from a place where Jews have not lived side by side with Catholics.

• As Archbishop of Buenos Aires he is the first Pope in recent history to live among a “living, vibrant, thriving Jewish community that was known to him and where he participated in more than just commemorations.”

• Argentina has a Jewish population of 200,000 (with most living in Buenos Aires) which is the 7^th largest Jewish population in the world. He has had a very positive relationship with the Jewish community there.

• He wrote a book, along with Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer, the head of the Conservative Seminary in Buenos Aires, dealing with issues such as Inter-religious perspectives on God, the Holocaust, and homosexuality.

• He was vocal and in solidarity with the Jewish community after the 1994 bombing of the ‘Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina’ building, where 85 persons were killed and hundreds wounded in a terrorist attack.

• As Archbishop, he was strongly aware of the pro-Zionist tilt of the Jews of Argentina. However the Vatican has been very cautious in Israel-Arab relations; not outspoken in a judgmental way. Catholic –Israeli political relations is not a primary thing… rather inter-religious relations.

• He has already visited Israel, and there is every reason to believe he will go again, being the third Pontiff in a row to visit Israel.

• President Shimon Peres, during a meeting at his Jerusalem residence with the leaders of the Catholic Church in Poland, congratulated the new Pope. President Peres invited the new Pope to visit Israel and said, "I would like to take this opportunity to invite the newly elected Pope to pay a visit to the Holy Land at the earliest possibility. He'll be a welcome guest in the Holy Land, as a man of inspiration that can add to the attempt to bring peace in a stormy area. All people here, without exception, without difference of religion or nationality will welcome the newly elected Pope."

• Addressing relations with the Vatican, President Peres said, "The relations between the Vatican and the Jewish people are now at their best in the last 2000 years and I hope they will grow in content and depths. I strongly hope to be able to contribute to the progress that the relations between Jews and Catholics have known since the Second Vatican Council, in a spirit of renewed collaboration and in the service of a world that can always be in more harmony with the will of the Creator.”

• Pope Francis reached out immediately to the Chief Rabbi of Rome to attend his Consecration on Tuesday. In his first day as Pope, Francis I wrote to the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of Rome, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, inviting him to his Inauguration on March 19, and expressing his hope of a renewed collaboration with the Jewish Community.  

We are certainly about to enter a new era in Catholic- Jewish Relations. We’ve had an evolving relationship for 2,000 years. With a non-European Pope, there is hope that we can forge a new relationship with the Vatican, and the next few years should be fascinating as that relationship unfolds.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose