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POPE JOHN PAUL II AT JERUSALEM -
MARCH 2000
Yad Vashem Speech
It follows the full text transcript of
Pope John Paul II's speech, delivered at the Yad
Vashem Museum at Jerusalem, Israel - March 23, 2000.
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The words of the
ancient Psalm rise from our hearts: |
I have become
like a broken vessel.
I hear the whispering of many – terror on
every side! –
as they scheme together against me, as they
plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are
my God'.
(Ps 31:13-15)
1. In this place of memories, the mind and heart
and soul feel an extreme need for silence.
Silence in which to remember. Silence in which
to try to make some sense of the memories which
come flooding back. Silence because there are no
words strong enough to deplore the terrible
tragedy of the Shoah. My own personal memories
are of all that happened when the Nazis occupied
Poland during the War. I remember my Jewish
friends and neighbors, some of whom perished,
while others survived.
I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the
millions of Jewish people who, stripped of
everything, especially of their human dignity,
were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a
century has passed, but the memories remain.
Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in
Europe, we are overcome by the echo of the
heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women and
children cry out to us from the depths of the
horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed
their cry? No one can forget or ignore what
happened. No one can diminish its scale.
2. We wish to
remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose,
namely to ensure that never again will evil
prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent
victims of Nazism.
How could man have such utter contempt for man?
Because he had reached the point of contempt for
God. Only a Godless ideology could plan and
carry out the extermination of a whole people.
The honor given to the “just gentiles” by the
State of Israel at Yad Vashem for having acted
heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the point
of giving their own lives, is a recognition that
not even in the darkest hour is every light
extinguished. That is why the Psalms, and the
entire Bible, though well aware of the human
capacity for evil, also proclaim that evil will
not have the last word. Out of the depths of
pain and sorrow, the believer’s heart cries out:
“I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my
God'.” (Ps 31:14).
3. Jews and
Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony,
flowing from God’s self-revelation. Our
religious teachings and our spiritual experience
demand that we overcome evil with good. We
remember, but not with any desire for vengeance
or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to
remember is to pray for peace and justice, and
to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world
at peace, with justice for all, can avoid
repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of
the past.
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle
Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the
Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of
truth and love and by no political
considerations, is deeply saddened by the
hatred, acts of persecution and displays of
anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by
Christians at any time and in any place. The
Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of
the image of the Creator inherent in every human
being (cf. Gen 1:26).
4. In this place
of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our
sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people
suffered in the twentieth century will lead to a
new relationship between Christians and Jews.
Let us build a new future in which there will be
no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or
anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather
the mutual respect required of those who adore
the one Creator and Lord, and look to Abraham as
our common father in faith (cf. We Remember, V).
The world must heed the warning that comes to us
from the victims of the Holocaust and from the
testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem
the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our
souls.
It makes us cry
out:
“I hear the
whispering of many – terror on every side! –
But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are
my God'.” (Ps 31:13-15).
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