According to today's NY Post,

CARDINAL BEGS JEWS: FORGIVE US OUR SINS By WILLIAM NEUMAN "John Cardinal O'Connor expressed his "abject sorrow" for the anti-Semitic history of the Catholic Church, in a moving holiday letter to Jewish leaders made public yesterday. "

""He went very far and it's a great gesture of understanding and the quest for understanding," said Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who had the letter printed in a full-page ad in The New York Times. "

""What he says carries a lot of weight with many of his people and they should know what he thinks and what he feels," Wiesel told The Post in explaining why he wanted to make the letter public. "

"The cardinal's letter - sent Sept. 8, just days after he had surgery to remove a brain tumor - was timed to coincide with the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days. "

"It was printed yesterday as Jews were preparing for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, which began at sundown. "

""I ask this Yom Kippur that you understand my own abject sorrow for any member of the Catholic Church, high or low, including myself, who may have harmed you or your forebears in any way," the cardinal wrote in the letter. "

"Wiesel said O'Connor's letter goes beyond the controversial apology made last year by Pope John Paul II for the "errors and failures" of some Catholics during the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. "

""He goes farther than the official line of the church and this takes courage," Wiesel said. "

""He went far in speaking in that he asks for forgiveness. That's a strong message in his letter." "

"O'Connor's spokesman, Joe Zwilling, said the cardinal's letter was "in keeping" with the pope's comments on the church and the Holocaust. "

"Although the letter did not specifically mention the Holocaust, Zwilling said the cardinal was referring to Nazi atrocities as well as other examples of anti-Semitism during the past 2,000 years. "

"In his letter O'Connor referred to the pope's call to make Ash Wednesday of the year 2000 - March 8 - a special day of repentance "for Catholics to reflect upon the pain inflicted on the Jewish people by many of our members over the last millennium." "

""We most sincerely want to start a new era," O'Connor added.

"Zwilling said O'Connor gave permission for the letter to be printed. "

"Wiesel said the cardinal's recent illness gave his words added poignancy. "

"I knew his feelings, I knew his ideas, but because he's sick, he went through a traumatic experience, it touched us deeper," Wiesel said. "

"The actions of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust have come under renewed scrutiny with the publication of the book "Hitler's Pope," by John Cornwell, baring new details of the complicity of Pope Pius XII with the Nazis. "

"Jewish leaders recently praised John Paul's call for a day of repentance over the Church's past anti-Semitism -but they condemned his efforts to have Pius XII made a saint. "

"Many Jewish leaders also were critical of last year's Vatican apology over the role of the church in the Holocaust, saying it didn't go far enough. "

I have a few questions:

1. Will Cardinal O'Connor ask the Jews to apologize for their attacks on Jesus in the Talmud?

2. Does Cardinal O'Connor believe that Jews who deny Christ are anti-Christians and owe Christians an apology?

3. I once saw Weisel on TV saying that some Jews in the Holocaust suffered more than Jesus on the Cross. Will Cardinal O'Connor ask Weisel to apologize?

4. Jews -- through their sponsorship of Communism -- have caused the death of millions of Catholics. Will Cardinal O'Connor ask the Jews to apologize?

5. Cardinal O'Connor was quoted in a recently published book as advising a Catholic of Jewish descent that it was OK to convert to Judaism. Does this -- if true -- make Cardinal O'Connor a heretic?

6. Cardinal O'Connor recently had a joint prayer service at St. Patrick's in which a female jewish rabbi led a prayer. Doesn't this violate the Scriptural admonition to separate from unbelievers?

7. Has Cardinal O'Connor ever witnessed to the Jews about the Good News of Jesus? Does he believe it is necessary for them to believe in Christ to be saved?

8. Does Cardinal O'Connor think it is worse to deny the holocaust or deny the Incarnation?

9. Why doesn't the Pope do something about Cardinal O'Connor?

-- Steve Jackson (SteveJ100@hotmail.com), September 20, 1999

Answers

Not a bad line of questioning, Steve. There is a fine line between these public confessions and plain Kow-Tows to Israel. Inasmuch as the media prefers to dwell upon the bitterness expressed by the major spokesmen for the Jewish community-- and dismiss the utter sincerity of the Popes's ''apology'', I'm frankly tired of hearing all this whimpering. Pope John Paul II was addressing God in heaven; not the Anti-defamation League, as he expressed sorrow for Catholic's sins of past and present. But, if your media filters this out to you through all the Liberal spokesmen, do you get the proper slant? NO. In reality, the Pope isn't bound to react to anything a Bishop (Cardinal) does or says. They are actually quite autonomous, and only MAJOR departures from the doctrines of the Church would motivate action from Rome.

-- Eugene Chavez (rechavez@popmail.ucsd.edu), April 04, 2000.

Why is Jackson so obsessed with Catholic's?

-- @@@ (@@@@.com), June 30, 2002.

Yes, Steve, Jews AND Romans (gentiles) crucified the Lord, for YOUR sins and MINE, according to His divine plan! It was OUR sins that nailed Jesus to the cross, because HE chose to voluntary deliver himself! He said "I could call down legions of angels" His death was VOLUNTARY.

Do you find it your Christian privilege to persecute Jews or blacks? Seems so.

Gail

P.S. Prejudice and racism is a STENCH in the nostrils of God!

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), July 01, 2002.

Why is he obsessed with Catholics, @@@?

I think that he knows, deep down, that he should be one. But he knows how hard it would be to be one, and he knows how humiliating it would be for him to admit how sick his behavior has been. So he searches for any excuse he can find to try to justify his staying out of the Church.

Many Catholic-haters have gone before Steve, and some of them have accepted the grace of conversion. Jacko's time is approaching -- time to be Catholic and fly high, or to stay evil and then die and fry.

-- (No@More.Jackson), July 01, 2002.