News in Christian-Jewish Relations:  August 2000

 

This month:


INTERNATIONAL JEWISH COMMITTEE FOR INTERRELIGIOUS CONSULTATION (IJCIC) PROTESTS BEATIFICATION OF POPE PIUS IX

The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations has joined various Italian and Israeli groups in protesting the Vatican's planned beatification on September 3 of Pope Pius IX. Pius IX was a 19th century pope who was involved in the notorious Edgardo Mortara affair, in which an Italian Jewish boy was kidnapped after having been baptized by a family maid and eventually adopted by Pius IX himself. Despite worldwide protests, the pope refused to return the child to his family, and Mortara eventually became a priest. Pius IX was also known as the last pope to have kept the Jewish community confined in a ghetto, and his beatification is also being protested by liberal Catholics who are concerned with the elevation to sainthood of a pope who was known for his reactionary policies and theology.

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