Church in the World

Auschwitz priest says wounds are still unhealed

Poland

A German priest who works at Auschwitz has said next month?s historic visit by Pope Benedict XVI will symbolise a new ?accounting of conscience? for his fellow Germans, and highlight the Church?s awareness of ?still-unhealed wounds? between Christian and Jews.

?Benedict XVI is coming to Auschwitz above all as Pope and pastor of the universal Church ? his task will be to testify that God never left this land,? said Fr Manfred Deselaers, from Germany?s Aachen diocese, who has worked at Auschwitz since 1990. ?The final word at Auschwitz belonged not to Hitler, but to God. I think that?s the message the Pope will bring.? In an interview with Poland?s Church-run Catholic information agency (KAI), the 50-year-old priest said the Pope?s brief stopover would be of the greatest importance for Germany and its Church, and a ?summons to peace? for all Catholics.

?Benedict XVI is a son of the German nation, so his presence will call for an accounting of consciences,? said Fr Deselaers, who works at Auschwitz?s inter-faith Centre for Dialogue and Prayer, as well as teaching at Krakow?s Papal Theology Academy. ?Auschwitz is still an open wound between the Polish and German, and the German and Jewish peoples, as well as between Christianity and Judaism. The very fact the Pope wanted to come here shows he knows about this.?

Benedict XVI visits the former Nazi-run death camp on 28 May, at the end of his four-day Polish pilgrimage, which will include visits to the nearby Marian shrines of Jasna Gora, Lagiewniki and Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, as well as the Wadowice birthplace of John Paul II, who prayed at Auschwitz in 1979. The camp, 90 per cent of whose estimated 1.2 million victims were Jewish, has been a focus for periodic Christian-Jewish disputes since a Carmelite convent was established there in 1984. The convent was relocated in 1993. In 1999, Polish police removed over 300 crosses placed at the camp by Polish nationalists.

Fr Deselaers told KAI that the Church still needed to atone for past Jewish sufferings, despite its condemnation of anti-Semitism at the Second Vatican Council and expressions of regret in 2000. ?The fact that the greatest Jewish cemetery is on Polish territory isn?t the fault of Poles, but of Germans. I repeat this to all my countrymen who come here,? said the D?sseldorf-born priest, whose father was a Nazi Party and Wehrmacht member.
Jonathan Luxmoore in Warsaw