On the second day of the conclave, the Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was selected to become the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.CreditCredit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
Barry Shaw: Why I am more concerned than charmed by a new pope
With the introduction of a new pope in Rome, I am reminded of a previous pope.
When Pope Paul VI criticized Israel, during a private audience with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, she replied to this pope;
“Do you know what my earliest memory is? A pogrom in Kiev, when we were merciful and when we had no homeland and when we were weak. We were led to the gas chambers.”
Golda Meir was too polite to remind this pope of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions and Expulsions of Jews throughout the Catholic world.
You are invited to leaf through the records in the Anusim Center at the Netanya Academic College.
It makes for chilling reading.
Or how the Vatican eagerly assisted top Nazis escape justice at the end of World War Two, including enabling the chief executioners of the mass murderers of Jews, such as Eichmann, Mengele, and Klaus Barbie, to escape to South America.
So pardon me if I am more concerned than moved by the ordination of a new Pope in Rome.
The thought running through my head, as he was introduced to the adoring masses in St Peter’s Square, was what lies in store for my people and my country under the ministry of the new pope.
Believe me. I have nothing but trepidation following his predecessors’ examples.
Barry Shaw,
The View from Israel.
