American Catholic and Jewish leaders and community members gathered April 16 at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., to reflect on Catholic-Jewish relations 40 years after Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome.
On April 13, 1986, Pope John Paul II did what no other pope had ever done when he entered the synagogue and was welcomed by Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff. There, he notably declared that “with Judaism we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion.”
Most memorably, he went on to say “you are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”
At the commemorative event co-sponsored by the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism and the St. John Paul II National Shrine, Eric Cohen, president and CEO of the Tikvah Fund, an influential Jewish think tank, extolled Pope John Paul II as “one of the greatest philosophers, religious leaders, and statesmen of the modern era.”
Likewise, Catherine Szkop, director of public affairs at the Embassy of Israel to the United States, recalled her Polish father recounting to her that “in Poland you can say that you donʼt like Jesus and someone will say, ‘Thatʼs your opinion,’ but if you say you donʼt like Pope John Paul II, theyʼll ask in very colorful language, ‘Whatʼs wrong with you?’”
Catherine Szkop speaks at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2026. | Credit: Tessa Gervasini/EWTN News
In addition to being the first pope in nearly 2,000 years to visit a synagogue, Szkop noted that John Paul II was also the first pope to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem and established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel in 1994.
Cohen described antisemitism as “a perverse inversion of the election of the Jews to have a unique role in history, to be a light unto the nations, and to bring the biblical vision of the good to the world,” adding that “it is the use of the Jewish people as an instrument in a campaign for nihilism and or a campaign for a version of the Almighty that seeks not covenant but radical submission through the sword.”
“I believe Jews and Christians have a summons and a calling to stand together against this revolt against the Bible and to stand for the covenantal renewal of the West,” Cohen said.
“And I believe in that project, America is unique,” he added.
America as a uniquely Hebraic and providential nation
Cohen recalled the 1790 letter of the nationʼs first president, George Washington, to congregants of the Jewish synagogue of Savannah, Georgia.
Washington wrote: “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors planted them in the promised land — whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation — still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”
In addition to defending religious freedom, Cohen pointed out, Washington conspicuously advanced “the idea that you canʼt understand America if you donʼt see it as a providential nation made in the image of the Israelites. That it is the almost chosen nation.”
‘Elder brother’ perspective
Speaking specifically from the perspective of an “elder brother in faith,” Cohen urged both Jews and Christians to remember that “a theology of love, a theology that seeks peace, is not a denial of the reality of evil.”
“Evil is real, and evil has to be opposed sometimes by strength and force, and the Hebrew Bible teaches that,” he said. Referencing Catholic just war theory, Cohen asserted that now more than ever, “we need a reaffirmation and re-explanation of that just war tradition.”
He warned both his Catholic and Jewish listeners in attendance, which included diocesan and Dominican clergy as well as members of the American Sephardi Federation, to “not give up on the teachings of the Bible about why force is sometimes necessary.”
Cohen also urged Jews and Catholics to work together “for the religious education of our children.”
Calling it “the great civil rights fight of our age, he said: ”We have to stand together to have a renewal and a renaissance of religious education. That should be the norm in America. And tragically, it is a very, very tiny minority of young Americans who are educated in religious schools.”
Cohen attributed this state of affairs to the country having a system that has until recently been designed against religious schools and “in favor of secularism.”
“We have to stand together in believing that if weʼre going to pass down our faiths, we need an America that welcomes and celebrates religious education,” he emphasized.
On being ‘a blessing to each other’
“The relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community have never been more hopeful or positive than they are today,” Szkop said.
George Weigel, a Catholic theologian and author of “Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II,” said both the Catholic and Jewish communities “are providentially entangled, not simply because weʼre living in the same space, trying to straighten out the same country, trying to defend the same good things in the world.”
Papal biographer George Weigel speaks at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2026. | Credit: Ken Oliver/EWTN News
“Weʼre providentially entangled religiously,” Weigel continued. “Thatʼs going to take a while for us to wrap our common heads around, but I believe that conversation has started over the past six decades [referring to the 1965 Vatican II document Nostra Aetate] and I think it can only be enriching for both sides.”
“The full meaning of that entanglement will only be revealed in the fullness of the kingdom of God, for which both Jews and Christians must hope,” Weigel concluded.
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