On October 16, 1943, the Jewish community resident in
Rome was forcibly expelled. As history
would later play out, the community did indeed return but the scars inflicted
at that time have not been forgotten. Commemorating
the 70th anniversary of that dark day in history, the Holy Father,
Pope Francis received a delegation of the Jewish community currently resident
in Rome at the Vatican today.
Here is an English-language translation of the official
Message which His Holiness shared with the Chief Rabbi, Doctor Riccardo Di Segni
and other members of the Jewish community who were in attendance for today’s
audience.
Message
of His Holiness, Pope Francis
Commemorating the 70th
anniversary
of the deportation
of the Jewish Community of Rome
Distinguished Chief Rabbi,
Esteemed Members of the Jewish Community of Rome,
I wish to unite myself, with spiritual closeness and prayer,
to the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the deportation of
the Jews of Rome. While going back in our memory to those tragic hours of
October, 1943, it is our duty to keep present before our eyes the destiny of
those deported, to perceive their fear, their sorrow, their despair, so as not
to forget them, to keep them alive in our memory and in our prayer, together
with their families, their relatives and friends, who have mourned their loss
and remained dismayed in the face of the barbarism to which a human being can
sink.
To remember an event, however, does not simply mean to
have a memory of it; it also means, above all, to make an effort to understand
the message it represents for our day, so that the memory of the past can teach
the present and become a light that illumines the way of the future. Blessed
John Paul II wrote that the memory is called to play a necessary role in the process of building a future in which
the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah is
never possible again (Introductory letter to the document: Commission
for Religious Relations with Judaism, We Remember. A Reflection on the
Shoah, March 16, 1998) and Benedict XVI said, at the Auschwitz
concentration camp, that the past is
never only passed. This concerns us and indicates to us the ways we should not
undertake and those we should undertake (Address, May 28,
2006).
Hence, today’s commemoration could be described as
a memoria futuri, an appeal to the new generations not to
level their own existence, not to let themselves be drawn by ideologies, and
never to justify the evil we meet, not to lower the guard against anti-Semitism
and against racism, regardless of their sources. I wish that, from initiatives
such as this one, networks of friendship and fraternity between Jews and
Catholics will be able to be intertwined and nourished in this our beloved
city of Rome.
Through the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah the Lord says: For I know the plans I have for you, plans
for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).
May the memory of the tragedies of the past become for all a commitment to
adhere with all our strength to the future that God wishes to prepare and build
for us and with us.
Shalom!
From the Vatican, October 11, 2013
FRANCIS
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