Rabbi urges pope to reaffirm that Jews 'didn't kill Jesus'

JERUSALEM -- One of Israel's two chief rabbis urged the pope Thursday to publicly reaffirm that Jews are not to blame for the death of Jesus, saying he fears Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" could revive such beliefs.

Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger said he is sending a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to reiterate a Roman Catholic Church decision in the 1960s that reversed the centuries-old doctrine that Jews were behind the Crucifixion.

"The Vatican and the pope must explain today ... that the Jewish nation, the Jewish people didn't kill Jesus," Metzger said.

Vatican officials responded by saying the church's opposition to anti-Semitism is clear, as expressed by its 1965 document on the matter.

They added that the pope has on many occasions reiterated this view, notably when he visited Israel in 2000 and when he went to Rome's synagogue in 1986.

"The Passion," a bloody depiction of Christ's final 12 hours and his death, opened in American theaters on Wednesday. Directed, produced and co-written by Gibson, the film has received mixed reviews from critics. Some have praised Gibson's commitment to his subject. Others see it as excessively bloody, obsessed with cruelty and unfair in its portrayal of Jews.

Gibson maintains the film is a faithful biblical narrative meant to make viewers realize the extent of Christ's sacrifice. In an interview this month for ABC's "Primetime," he said the movie was not anti-Semitic, but about "faith, hope, love and forgiveness."

"To be anti-Semitic is a sin," the actor-director told Diane Sawyer. "It's been condemned by one papal council after another. To be anti-Semitic is to be un-Christian, and I'm not."

Still, Jewish leaders fear the movie will fuel anti-Semitism. The belief that Jews were behind the Crucifixion has generated anti-Semitism for centuries.

Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League also asked the Vatican to restate its view on the Crucifixion. A Vatican official at the time said no such statement was planned.

Gibson is a member of a movement known as traditionalist Catholicism, which rejects the modernizing reforms made at the Second Vatican Council, a series of meetings from 1962-65 that led to a landmark document, "Nostra Aetate," Latin for "In Our Time."

In the document, the Vatican deplored anti-Semitism in every form and repudiated the "deicide" charge that blamed Jews as a people for Christ's death.

The reversal has been credited with improving relations between Christians and Jews. The idea of Jewish guilt had generated anti-Semitism for centuries.

On Wednesday, an Israeli lawmaker called for a ban on Gibson's movie, an unlikely prospect as the Israeli film board rarely takes such action.

The pope saw the film in his apartment in early December and reportedly said, "It is as it was." John Paul's secretary later denied he ever endorsed the film.

Metzger, who first met the pope at the Vatican in January, said he fears the movie could be a setback for efforts to build stronger ties between the two faiths.

"All of us, we are the sons of the same God, the sons of the same father, Abraham," Metzger said.

The chief Israeli rabbi for Sephardic Jews, Shlomo Amar, was not available for comment.

Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial authority for the 6 million Jewish victims of the World War II Nazi Holocaust, told The Associated Press that though the film "does have an element of anti-Semitism," it is not connected to the Holocaust, and Yad Vashem has not taken a formal position on it.