Catholics and Jews: All good, at least on the surface - The Jewish Chronicle

Everything seems better than ever in relations between the Catholic Church and world Jewry. A new declaration emphasising that the faithful should abandon all hope of converting the Jews has finally been issued. We are, after all, the elder brothers and sisters of Christianity.

And yet, I wonder. No one doubts that Pope Francis is keen on, indeed passionate about, having good brotherly relations with the older faith, and he has made strenuous efforts to ensure that his Papacy has been at the forefront of such developments. His warm welcome to the Chief Rabbi in the autumn showed that.

But can an antisemitic Catholic priest suddenly feel the same way? Could a Polish peasant churchgoer whose family have hated Jews for generations - for no other reason than that was what they were taught they should do - suddenly start loving them?

That was the question I posed to the senior priest who is, in effect, the Pope's man on Jewish affairs. We met in the Vatican just before the new declaration was promulgated.

Father Norbert Hoffman, a German priest who is secretary of the Political Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, was less than forthcoming when I put those questions to him.

The 56-year-old priest is, when a political commission is not in session, heading the office of relations with Jews.

In fact, he IS the office of relations with the Jews - a one-man band who likes to stress the importance of his work.

But if it is so important, why is he the only one involved?

His office, just outside the Vatican walls, is in the kind of nondescript building at one time loved by lesser local authorities in Britain. He knew I was coming to interview him for a piece in the JC and possibly a book on the subject.

It was not a meeting that was exactly radiating warmth. That was for the street outside on which the sun shone brilliantly.

It was - as former Conservative MP Michael Portillo once described his appointments, as Defence Minister, with people he was about to fire - a meeting without coffee. It was also without desks. We sat in a rather uninviting waiting room, as the reverend father, wearing a smart pair of jeans, talked about the number of languages he spoke - ranging from English to Ethiopian - and his travels. It was not the usual way in which representatives of an international newspaper are usually treated.

Was this symptomatic of something? A misunderstanding of priorities perhaps?

Maybe that is being unfair but I couldn't help wondering whether getting to the grass roots of the problems that have existed through the years is actually his priority - or that of the more senior members of the Vatican hierarchy.

I pressed him about his inter-faith activities. He says he goes all round the world meeting Jews. In fact, when Chief Rabbi Mirvis came to the Vatican before Rosh Hashanah, he was in Brazil.

Wouldn't that have been a meeting (at which the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster was also present) he should have attended? He told me he meets the World Jewish Congress and organises conferences. "I have dialogues with the chief rabbis of Israel.'' Certainly this is true - he actually spends a lot of time in Israel and speaks modern Hebrew.

And he believes in getting over the message to non-Jews. As he told me: "I taught Tanach (the complete Hebrew Bible) to Christians."

He emphasised: "For us, the Old Testament is a revelation. The Book of Isaiah, yes our Bible puts a different interpretation on it -because we read it as revealed in the Greek." The Talmud? "To us, that doesn't exist." But he has studied mishnah.

When he has his meetings, they discuss the issues of the day, the economic problems of the world as faced by the two religions, like abortion and much else.

"I think relations between us are very good. Orthodox Jews are more open to relations with us than they used to be. There are problems with the Charedim, but I don't think they could be solved." We were in agreement about that.

But there was that problem about parish priests and the ordinary Catholic who sits in the pew. "That is easier for us than it is for you," he told me. "We have a hierarchy [with instructions] that have to trickle down, and they do.

''If the Pope orders something to be done, it is done and Pope Francis is determined on rooting out antisemitism, for instance. The Jews have no hierarchy, so there is no way they can be instructed [by a central authority] on how they should deal with relations with the Catholic Church."

He said that the real problems of antisemitism and anti-Jewish activities were in Eastern Europe. "That is much worse than the situation in France, as far as ordinary people are concerned."

The French Church would have no problem in carrying out the wishes of the Pope." The problem for Catholics in Israel was very much part of the general situation. "For instance, a seminarian cannot easily go to see his Bishop."

A recent survey showed that Latin American relations are very good, he told me. "The Pope has many Jewish friends."

But, to use his expression again, does it really "trickle down"?

"You cannot change what's in people's hearts," he said. That is indeed the problem. And maybe that is exactly what should be tackled.

Is he convinced that no priest will speak badly of Jews any more? No he is not. As he said, "A crazy antisemitic priest is usually crazy about everything."