Learning from the Jews

Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Ed Kessler contends that the current pope is not seriously interested in Catholic-Jewish interchange:

The central problem for Pope Benedict resides in his vision of the Catholic church. He sees it as a totally completed institution that does not need to learn anything new theologically from dialogue with other Christians or other religious groups. Consequently, interfaith relations are reduced to symbolic conversation rather than genuine dialogue.

I'm not a huge fan of Benedict's, but the following remark of his, from a Q&A with journalists on the way to Amman Saturday, suggests otherwise.

The important thing is that in reality we have the same roots, the same Books of the Old Testament which is - for the Jews as for us - the Book of the Revelation. But naturally, after 2,000 years of different, even separate, history, it is not surprising that misunderstandings should arise. Highly diverse traditions of interpretation, language, and thinking have been formed - what we could call very different "semantic universes" - so that the same words have different meanings for each tradition. With the use of these words, which over the course of history have taken on different meanings, misunderstandings are obviously born. We must do everything to learn one another's language, and it seems to me that we are making great progress. Today it is possible for young people, the future professors of theology, to study in Jerusalem, in the Hebrew University; and the Jews have academic contact with us. Thus these "semantic universes" meet. We learn from one another and we progress along the path of true dialogue. We learn from each other and I am convinced we are making progress. This will also help peace, and what is more, reciprocal love.