On this day: Israel and the Vatican establish diplomatic relations

For many it was a sign of a gradual rapprochement between the Jewish world and the Roman Catholic one. This process had started in 1965 when the Second Vatican Council released a statement absolving the Jews of deicide, but recognition of Israel remained a key obstacle.

The relationship between Catholicism in Judaism is still fraught in places. Questions remain as to the extent of Vatican knowledge of what the Nazis were doing to Jews during the Holocaust, and why the Vatican never unequivocally condemned what was happening.

The proposed beatification of controversial wartime Pope Pius XI has caused tension, while in 2005the appointment of Pope Benedict, once a part of the Hitler Youth, raised eyebrows. Likewise, there was outcry over the pope’s re-admittance of four excommunicated bishops, including Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson.

Nevertheless, the move in December 1993 was certainly, as the JC headline read, an “historic pact”.

What the JC said: Seen in its historical perspective, yesterday’s signing of an agreement of mutual recognition between the Vatican and Israel, with the declared intention of exchanging ambassadors in the near future, is a revolutionary development…For Jews, the significance is in the implicit acknowledgement and rectification of a long, historical and theological distortion.

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