Scottish Catholic Observer

Four years after publishing his first acclaimed portrait of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI returns to his theme this Easter in Jesus of Nazareth—Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection. Extracts can be read in Friday’s edition of the Scottish Catholic Observer.

In the book the Pope a guides the reader through the Easter story and in one section exonerates the Jewish race of blame for the Crucifixion of Christ. He explains that the mob in St Matthew’s Gospel demanding the execution of Christ does not represent the Jewish people, but sinful humanity in general. In doing so he reiterates the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 rejection of idea of the collective culpability of Jewish people for the death of Christ in Nostra Aetate.

“Only in this second volume do we encounter the decisive sayings and events of Jesus’s life,” Pope Benedict said. “I hope that I have been granted an insight into the figure of Our Lord that can be helpful to all readers who seek to encounter Jesus and to believe in Him.”

Archbishop Kevin McDonald, Archbishop Emeritus of Southwark, Chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Catholic Jewish Relations said: “Pope Benedict’s new book offers a profound reflection on the meaning of the death of Jesus Christ. It provides a very fertile preparation for the celebration of Holy Week.

“As far as the Jewish question is concerned, it is important to see these reflections against the background of the very positive approach that the Pope has adopted to Catholic-Jewish dialogue both in his words and deeds.”

Senior clergy within the Church have suggested that readers should view the book as having been written by the theologian Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and not by Pope Benedict XVI.

The book will published in the UK on March 10 by the Catholic Truth Society.

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