U.S. rabbi: Pope's theological expertise helps relations with Jews

Published: 2007-09-06

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's theological expertise will help bring Catholic-Jewish dialogue to a deeper level, said a U.S. rabbi. Rabbi Eugene Korn, executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., said that with Pope Benedict "we have a great man now who can blaze the theological trail" left behind by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Rabbi Korn, together with Anthony J. Cernera, the president of Sacred Heart, presented the center's "Nostra Aetate" award to the pope at the end of his Sept. 5 general audience to mark his contribution to Jewish-Christian relations. The award presentation was part of the center's Sept. 1-8 prayer and study tour in which a group of rabbis and bishops traveled from the United States to Poland's Auschwitz death camp and to Rome for meetings with Vatican officials. Rabbi Korn said that when he told the pope the group had visited Auschwitz "I saw in his eyes how important that was to him."

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