Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit Israel

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI told American Jewish leaders Thursday that he plans to visit Israel in May, coupling the long-awaited announcement with his strongest condemnation of Holocaust denial.

The 81-year-old pope assured the group that the Catholic Church was “profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism,” helping to ease Jewish furor that followed the pope’s reinstatement of an ultraconservative bishop who questioned the extent of the Holocaust.

“Such warmth, with an outstretched hand,” said New York Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a Holocaust survivor, after the audience in the frescoed Consistory Hall. “The visit is on — no hesitation, reservations.”

There has been only one other official visit by a pope to the Jewish state. Both sides said it will take place in May.

The trip, talked about since the start of the German pope’s papacy in 2005, has been up in the air for some time due to problems raised by both sides. The latest jolt came when Benedict last month lifted the excommunications of four ultraconservative bishops — one of whom denied that Jews were gassed by the Nazis during World War II.

Protests by Jews, the pope’s own bishops in Germany and German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the Vatican to demand the bishop recant, easing tensions and leading to Thursday’s meeting with more than 60 representatives of American Jewish organizations.

Addressing the group in English as they sat in chairs before him, Benedict called the slaughter of 6 million Jews a crime against God.

The Vatican said Benedict did not know about the views of Bishop Richard Williamson when he agreed to lift the excommunication, but he clearly referred to him Thursday.

“The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity,” Benedict told the visiting leaders, using the Hebrew term for the Holocaust.

Jewish leaders applauded his comments, most saying the crisis with the church over Williamson’s comments was over.

Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the Vatican should excommunicate Williamson again because of his remarks.

Pope John Paul II made the first official visit in 2000, moving many when he prayed at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.