Vatican responds to Israeli rabbi who criticized pope’s comments on war with Iran

A Vatican official responsible for interfaith dialogue tells a member of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate will “develop among many challenges and matters” after the rabbi criticized the language used by the pope in the context of the US-Israel war against Iran, the Times of Israel has learned.

On Sunday, Rabbi Eliezer Simcha Weisz, a member of the Interreligious Committee for Relations with the Vatican, addressed a letter to Pope Leo, expressing his concern over what he described as the pope’s neutrality and moral equivalence between Israel and its aggressors.

“You stated that God ‘does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’ By applying these verses broadly, you created a moral equivalence between those who initiate slaughter and those who are religiously compelled to defend the sanctity of life,” Weisz wrote. “On Easter Sunday […] you specifically characterized the defense of our people against existential threats as a ‘delusion of omnipotence.’ To speak of ‘omnipotence’ today is to forget the catastrophe of our powerlessness only eighty years ago.”

Today, Archbishop Flavio Pace, who serves as Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and Vice President of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, responded to the letter (the text of his response was shared with The Times of Israel by a Rabbinate spokesperson).

“Toda Raba [thank you very much in Hebrew] dear Rabbi,” Pace writes. “Today is the 40th anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Great Synagogue of Rome. I am sure that our relation[ship] will develop among many challenges and matters to be discussed.”

It is not immediately clear whether the message was sent on behalf of the pope or as a personal response.