According to the official biographer of San Juan Pablo II, George Weigel, living in the Poland occupied by the Nazis was “the most formative experience of the life of Karol Wojtyla”, since he shaped the permanent commitment of the then future Pope with the defense of human dignity.
On Monday, at a conference entitled “Catholics and anti -Semitism: facing the past, shaping the future,” Weigel reflected on the “clearly personal” relationship of John Paul II with the Jewish people.
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Sponsored by Philos Catholic, the event took place at the Catholic Information Center in Washington DC (United States). Philos Catholic is a branch of Philos Projecta non -profit ecumenical Christian organization that advocates the pluralism and peaceful existence of Israel in the Middle East.
Weigel’s inaugural discourse followed the round tables on the Catholic approach of anti -Semitism throughout history and from the attacks of October 7, 2023. Among the panelists were Trent Horn, founder of Catholic Answers; Catholic writer Mary Eberstadt; the executive director of the Tikvah Fund, Jonathan Silver; and the history professor of Benedictine College, Richard Crane.
Karol Wojtyla, raised in a small town on the outskirts of Krakow, had many Jewish friends and lived in an apartment owned by a Jewish family. He maintained friendship with some of them for the rest of his life, Weigel said. Many died in the Shoá. The father of John Paul II, Karol, transmitted his faith in a free Poland that welcomed the minority communities, while retaining their identity and cultural integrity.
“That hotbed of hate and violence was, I think, the most formative experience of the life of Karol Wojtyla,” said Weigel, referring to Poland during the war. “Thanks to that experience, he came to dedicate himself to the defense of human dignity and freedom through the priesthood of the Catholic Church.”
“The years between 1939 and 1945 turned Karol Wojtyła into a human diamond, whose edge could cross the apparently impenetrable, such as the Berlin wall,” he added.
In fact, throughout his pontificate, Weigel said, John Paul II was “determined” to formalize diplomatic relations between Israel and the Holy See and Israel’s neighbors to recognize the “permanent reality” of the Jewish state. The Pontiff visited the regret wall and the Holocaust commemoration center, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem in March 2000.
“As a firm enemy of anti -Semitism,” he said, “John Paul II would be dismayed, sad, disconsolate and very angry at the resurgence of that ancient plague that we have discussed today, in the form of an exterminating antisionism that the world has witnessed since October 7, 2023. And I would like to name that evil for what it is.”
Ultimately, Weigel said, the “desire” of John Paul II was that “Jews and Christians were a blessing to each other”, focusing not only on the “pain of the past” but also on “the possibilities of the future.”
“If we want to honor your memory, we compromise our minds, hearts and souls to promote that collaboration,” he concluded.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Low Elhabbal
Madalaine Elhabbal is a CNA journalist based in the Washington DC office in EWTN. He has published articles in Catholicvote and has also worked as a foreign language assistant in France. She is a graduate of Benedictine College.