Pope meeting sparks Jewish condemnation

Press, 27 June 1987, Page 10

Pope meeting sparks Jewish condemnation

NZPA-Reuter Vatican City President Kurt Waldheim has broken a year of international. isolation by a meeting with Pope John Paul that has raised a storm of anger from Israel and Jewish groups throughout the world. Yesterday’s audience at the Vatican, sealed off from protesters chanting “Shame,” marked Dr Waldheim’s first official visit abroad since his election 12 months ago amid allegations, which he denies, of involvement in Nazi war crimes.

In an exchange of official speeches, the Pope made no reference to the controversy that has swirled round Dr Waldheim, but praised his work over 10 years as Secretary-General of jthe United Nations. . ! The Austrian leader said after that the meeting had shown there was every reason to be confident about relations with Western countries —

many of which have made clear he would be unwelcome.

"I see no real problems for the future,” Dr Waldheim said.

Criticism of his visit was discussed only in passing during his 35-min-ute private audience. “I am deeply impressed by this visit, in particular by the cordiality of the reception given me by the Holy Father,”, he told Austrian journalists.

Jordan announced yesterday that Dr Waldheim will begin an official visit there on July 1. In Israel, the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, condemned the meeting as an outrageous act which had dealt a “terrible, horrifying blow” to confidence in human justice. Jewish leaders elsewhere warned of harm to relations with the Catholic Church, saying the meeting was an insult to the memory of six million Jews killed in the Nazi holocaust. 6

Vatican City saw one of the biggest security operations mounted for a Papal audience, with the whole of St Peter’s Square and its access roads sealed off

by the Italian police and scanned from helicopters. More than 50 demonstrators; including Italian former concentration camp inmates and Jewish activists from Europe and the United States, stood behind police lines shouting “Shame” and “Hangman” as Dr Waldheim came and went.

Later in the day about 300 protesters gathered at Rome’s main synagogue near the banks of the Tiber before marching across the river to the Vatican, blocking main roads and bringing traffic to a standstill. Prevented from entering St Peter’s Square by a police cordon, the protesters staged a torchlit sit-in just outside, singing Jewish songs and chanting anti-Waldheim slogans.

The demonstration later broke up peacefully. Protests also took place outside the Vatican Embassy in Washington and the offices of the Papal Nuncio (envoy) in Jerusalem. The Vatican has expressed surprise and sadness over reaction to the

visit, which it said was part of normal diplomatic exchanges with predominantly Catholic Austria, where the Pontiff will pay a second pastoral visit next June.

It has also emphasised the Pope’s condemnation of Nazism, anti-Semitism and the death camps where the holocaust was perpetrated. The Pope’s failure to raise the same theme with Dr Waldheim was condemned by Israel Singer, the general secretary of the World Jewish Congress, which has led the campaign against Dr Waldheim.

Speaking in New York, he said Jewish dialogue with the Catholic Church had been a failure "because the most important subject of dialogue was trying to convey Jewish pain over the the saddest chapter in the history of the Jewish people.”

Dr Waldheim is due to return to the Vatican for a private visit to its library and institutions historically linked to his country. He returns home today.