c. 2005 Religion News Service

COLOGNE, Germany _ Capping off two days of interfaith meetings filled with political importance and religious symbolism, Pope Benedict XVI met with the leadership of Germany’s fast-growing Muslim community Saturday (Aug. 20), a day after a poignant visit to Cologne’s synagogue.

Even the late John Paul II, who made interfaith outreach a hallmark of his papacy, never attempted two such highly symbolic events focusing on other faiths in as many days.

The two visits were part of the Vatican’s ongoing efforts to reach out to other faiths, initiatives that are a natural fit in Germany, where the Protestant Reformation was sparked nearly 500 years ago, where the Nazi Holocaust slaughtered 6 million Jews, and now home to the fastest-growing Muslim population within the European Union.

In Saturday’s meeting, the German-born pope was greeted by a Muslim delegation led by Rydvan Cakir, president of the Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute of Religion, a social and religious advocacy group. Afterward, Benedict said he told Muslim leaders that they had a “great responsibility” to properly educate younger generations about the evils of Muslim extremism.

“I am certain that I echo your thoughts when I bring up the concern of the spread of terrorism,” the pontiff said. “Terrorism is continually reoccurring in various parts of the world, sowing death and destruction, and plunging many of our dear brothers and sisters into grief and despair.”

However, he said he also tried to assuage fears that the battle against Muslim extremism was a proxy for a war between Christian and Muslim civilizations. Benedict called the terrorists “barbarians” who did not represent Islam as a whole.

Afterward, Cakir issued a brief statement calling the meetings “informative and worthwhile.”

The pontiff evidently stayed away from the prickly issue of Turkey’s possible membership in the European Union and the integration of Muslims into European society.

Islam is Europe’s fastest-growing faith, and because of increasing immigration from Turkey, Muslims now total around 3.5 million in Germany _ around one for every seven Catholics in the country. Some Germans blame the fast-growing Muslim population for rising crime and unemployment levels.

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Within the community, the issue of Turkey’s membership in the European Union is important. The topic is a touchy one for Benedict, who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said he opposed Turkey’s membership in the overwhelmingly Christian 25-nation bloc. The then-cardinal argued that multiculturalism was a way of “fleeing from what is one’s own” and he urged Europe to stay true to its Christian roots. He once told the French newspaper Le Figaro that, “Turkey has always represented a different continent, in permanent contrast to Europe.”

Speculation was that the issue may have been pushed back until a future date as a way of getting talks between the two sides off on the right foot.

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For 39-year-old Mohammed Zohir, a Turkish taxi driver living in Germany for the last eight years, the dialogue between Benedict and local Muslim leaders was a positive step, though he doubted it would have any real impact on the day-to-day lives of European Muslims.

“They can shake hands and take photographs,” Zohir said. “But I don’t know how they will make the average European more accepting of his brothers from the East.”

Only slightly less relevant politically, and far more symbolic, was Benedict’s visit to Germany’s largest synagogue in Cologne on Friday. There, the man who was briefly and unenthusiastically a member of the Hitler Youth movement and the Nazi Army while in his teens, decried rising anti-Semitism in Europe and vowed to improve relations between Jews and Catholics.

Benedict was only the second pope to ever step foot inside a synagogue and, like John Paul’s visit to the Rome synagogue 19 years earlier, this visit was flush with symbolism. Cologne’s Jewish community is the oldest in Germany, but had nearly been eliminated during the Holocaust. Nazis had destroyed the synagogue, which has been reconstructed on the same spot from the rubble that remained.

Inside, the first German pope in more than 500 years was greeted by a choir singing “Shalom Alechem,” or “Peace be With You,” before he spoke about brotherly love to a crowd of around 400 local Jews. At least 40 of those on hand were reported to be Holocaust survivors.

“Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and other various forms of hostility toward foreigners,” the pontiff said to a standing ovation.

After a pause, he concluded, “We need to show respect and love for one another,” sparking more applause.

But the event was not without controversy. When Abraham Lehrer, one of the leaders of the local Jewish community, urged Benedict to open secret Vatican archives that would shed light on the church’s role during World War II and the Holocaust, the pontiff stood stone-faced and did not reply.

Later, outside the synagogue, Benedict said that he would strive to reach “a shared interpretation of disputed historical questions” _ a likely reference to the Vatican’s secret files.

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The issue of relations between the Vatican and Nazi Germany has come under the spotlight in recent years, as historians probe the life of Pope Pius XII, who occupied the throne of St. Peter between 1939 and 1958.

Pius was a Vatican diplomat in Munich when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, and critics say he could have done more to stop the Holocaust as pope. His supporters argue he skillfully walked a thin line between protecting Jews when it was possible and without angering the Germans, who could have destroyed the church. Historians believe a definitive answer might be found in the archives.

But to some of the Jews on hand in Cologne, the intrigue around what might be contained in the Vatican’s secret archives was lost amid the powerful symbolism of the afternoon’s events.

“A lady with numbers on her arm, numbers that were given to her in Auschwitz, could never have dreamed in 1944 that in 2005 her son, a rabbi, would be greeted by a German pope at a German synagogue,” Rabbi Netanel Teitelbaum said, speaking of his mother after the meeting, his voice cracking with emotion.

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On Saturday, Benedict also met with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and later with Angela Merkel, Schroeder’s opponent in the Sept. 18 national elections. Merkel’s aides reportedly demanded the meeting on the grounds that talks with only Schroeder could give the liberal chancellor an unfair boost ahead of the elections.

Youths on hand for the event, which will conclude Sunday (Aug. 21), said they didn’t mind that the pontiff’s interfaith activities temporarily took the spotlight off of them.

“Improving relations with other religions, what could be more important than that?” asked Mark Siniscolo, a 19-year-old, part-time student from Oyster Bay, N.Y., one of an estimated 550,000 young people in Cologne as of Saturday afternoon. “If these relations improve, then we will all benefit.”

After watching Benedict drive the “pope-mobile” through the massive crowds after Saturday’s talks, accountant Sergio Haro, 24, from Malaga, Spain, agreed.

“He (Benedict) is doing what he thinks is best,” Haro said. “Who are we to question him on this?”

KRE/JL END LYMAN