01/05/2001
When I took over the office of President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, at the beginning of 1990, the relations between the Commission and Jewish Organisations were at a very low ebb. I would not wish, however, to give the impression that this was in any way due to the lack of dedicated commitment to this task on the part of my distinguished predecessor, His Eminence Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, or to those who were his close collaborators: His Excellency Bishop Pierre Duprey and Monsignor Pier Francesco Fumagalli. In fact, solid progress had been made within the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee between the Vatican Commission and IJCIC following on the Second Vatican Council, as is well illustrated in the publication Fifteen Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue 1970-1985, published in 1988 by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana and the Libreria Editrice Lateranense.