In the presence of Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican’s Good Friday Mass, papal household preacher Reverend Raniero Cantalamessa said that Jews “know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms.” Because Passover and Holy Week fall on the same week this year, Cantalamessa said he’s been thinking about Jewish people, and quoted from a letter from a Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote, according to the Times. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”
