The ceremony took place hours after Cardinal Kasper inaugurated the Kindergarten classroom ”Angelo Roncalli” in the province of Buenos Aires.

The award, a reproduction in scale of the Mural that pays tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, as well as to the people murdered in the terrorist attacks against the Embassy of Israel and the AMIA Jewish community center, installed in April 1997, in the Buenos Aires’ Cathedral by the then Primate of Argentina, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, was presented to Cardinal Kasper by Rabbi Simón Moguilevsky and Malkiel Tenembaum, members of the executive council of the IRWF.

During the ceremony, the Wallenberg Foundation and the Roncalli Committee, created by Baruj Tenembaum, announced the granting of a scholarship to the seminarist Dario Bialer, who will finish his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem. The scholarship, approved by a special commission headed by the vice-president of the IRWF, Natalio Wengrower, was presented to Bialer due to ”his spirit of solidarity and human values at the service of the Jewish-Catholic reconciliation.” It was presented by Mr. Ricardo Faerman, member of the IRWF.

The moving interreligious ceremony was presided by Mario Ringler, President of the Rabbinical Seminary, its Dean, Rabbi Abraham Skorka; Father Horacio Moreno, President of the IRWF and Cardinal Kasper.

Among the people who attended the meeting were Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Adriano Bernardini, Member of the Buenos Aires Parliament, Norberto Laporta, religious dignataries, diplomatic officials and NGO leaders.

After the words of welcome pronounced by Mario Ringler, Rabbi Skorka explained the sense of the Jewish ceremony of ”Abdalá”. An instance that marks the end of the Jewish sacred day and the beginning of the others days of the week.

Father Moreno, a catholic priest, remembered the significance of the Memorial Mural as well as the determination and courage of Cardinal Quarracino who placed it inside the main Catholic temple of Argentina, but also the commitment of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the causes of interfaith dialogue and reconciliation.

Filmmakers Vivian Imar and Marcelo Trotta presented to Cardinal Kasper a special copy of the movie ”First Primate Pilgrim”, a documentary film that narrates Quarracino’s visit to the Holy Land as the first Argentine Primate that officialy visited Israel as such. Imar and Trotta are also the directors of the worldwide-awarded documentary ”Legacy”, a film that tells the story of the Jewish immigration to Argentina, produced by the Wallenberg Foundation.

Cardinal Kasper read a moving speech in which he stressed the imperious need of Catholics, Jews and Muslims alike to promote interreligious dialogue, one of the essential elements for promoting peace in the world.

Among the many letters of endorsement from all over the world it is worth mentioning those sent by the US Congressman, Tom Lantos; Israel Ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur; National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman; the Permanent Representative of Bulgaria to the UN, Stefan Tafriv; the Bishop of the Concepción del Río Cuarto, Monsignor Artemio Staffolani; Archbishop of Ranchi, India, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo; the President of the Pontifical Council of Legum Textibus, Cardinal Julián Herranz and the former President of Guyana, Janet Jagan.

An actual-size replica of the Mural will be installed this year at the ”Vaterunser” church in the city of Berlin. The event is organized by the Wallenberg Foundation and the Evangelical Church of Germany.

Thus I accept this award also in representation of all the others who work in the Catholic Church for this purpose, which, over the last 40 years has become one of the most important tasks of all Christian Churches and their commitment to peace in the world. Therefore I would like to express my highest appreciation and esteem for the work that your Committee is doing in order to overcome old prejudices, and to foster mutual understanding, reconciliation and co-operation between this two monotheistic abrahamic religions.

Indeed, both Judaism and Christianity have in Abraham their common root and their common father in faith. They share a common heritage in what we Christians call the Old Testament, in their monotheistic faith, the Ten Commandments, their messianic hope. The Jews are, as Pope John Paul II put it, our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham. The covenant that God established with his people was never broken; the Jews remain the beloved people of God. We Christians are grafted on this root, which bears and nourishes us. Jews and Christians belong together, since the promise was given to our common father Abraham; because in him all nations will be blessed, Jews and Christians together have a common responsibility for schalom, for peace in the world.

It is one of the deepest and most tremendous dramas in the whole history of mankind that Jews and Christians fell apart, became estranged, developed mutual prejudices so that a language of contempt emerged and they often became enemies. Such anti-Judaism cuts off the Church from its own roots, which nourished her, thus weakening her inner life. Besides, anti-Judaism paved the way to anti-Semitism, which was a stupid and primitive modern not a Christian but a pagan race theory and which finally led to the abominable atrocities of the Holocaust. The Holocaust, or as Jews prefer: the Shoah, not only destroyed individual lives of so many people but still today has also repercussions on the political situation and conflicts in the Middle East, and so on one of the most urgent challenges of today, the relations between Christians and Muslims.

I have mentioned very briefly our present situation only to point out the importance and even the urgency of our Christian-Jewish relations for the Churches themselves and for the peace in the world as well. I am firmly convinced that we can heal one of the worst and deepest wounds of our time only if we go back to its deepest roots and to the very core of the problem: the reconciliation between Judaism and Christianity, which should more and more become the nucleus of a ”trialogue” between Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Reconciliation between Jews and Christians does not mean unification. The definitive solution for the relations between Jews and Christians will only be an eschatological one. Within history Jews and Christians are and will remain different. However, this insight cannot be a pretext for inactivity or resignation. On the contrary, Biblical hope is to be understood as an impulse for active hope. It does not hold us back but encourages us to overcome all forms of old and new anti-Semitism, which unfortunately crop up again. It impels us to recognise our common heritage and to take over our common responsibility. Christians and Jews, even if different, can and must be partners respecting each other’s identity and even so collaborating for the good of all mankind. Together they can and should bear practical witness to their common values: dignity of the human person, sanctity of life, social justice, family values, and –last but not least: hope. All of these are values and attitudes often missing in our modern world but absolutely essential for our survival and the survival of our Judeo-Christian Western culture.

In this context it is not possible to develop a whole theological theory and a whole practical program of Jewish Christian relations. More then programs, which could remain paper and abstract theory, we need living examples, concrete persons witnessing what they feel and think. Your Committee has such a patron, highly esteemed and praised by many Catholics and non-Catholics, by Christians and non-Christians alike: Angelo Roncalli, better known as Pope John XXIII.

Angelo Roncalli was not a man of great theories. He was a Christian, a true Christian who became Pope. He was a saint. He always said and did – mostly in a very simple, but not naïve way – what a Christian should say and do according to the Gospel and inspired by the Spirit. He saved the lives of many Jews, and called Jews his brothers. He cancelled ambiguous and offensive formulations in the liturgy of Good Friday and – on suggestions made to him by Jules Isaak – he decided to initiate what later became the Council’s famous Declaration ”Nostra aetate”, of which we will celebrate the 40th anniversary next year.

”Nostra aetate” is the watershed in the relations between Jews and Christians, a revolution in the original and best sense of the word, a new begin after the dark ages of lack of mutual understanding. We are still at the beginning of this new begin. Some fundamental theological problems remain still unsolved. From a practical point of view, much has been done but much more can and must still be done. As usual in life, setbacks occur and sometimes old prejudices on both sides return. The sad and bloody conflicts in the Middle East – in the Holy Land, in Jerusalem, the city of peace! – are further burdens for our dialogue; it is not always easy to take a balanced position doing justice to the legitimate concerns of both sides.

Nevertheless, the developments of the last 40 years can been considered almost as a miracle from an historical perspective. Relations and visits at the highest institutional level –inconceivable 40 years ago- take place today; today there is a scholarly co-operation between rabbinical and Christian theologians and institutes; a great deal of symposiums, conferences, meetings and institutions like yours and our modest Pontifical Commission for religious relations with the Jews are organised; there are mighty signs and symbols as the memorial of the Holocaust in the cathedral of Buenos Aires; and –most important of all– friendships are developing, which represent the basis and core of any human relations and communities. Angelo Roncalli is the exemplary realisation of such hearty relations. He is the very patron of Jewish-Christian relations and friendship, and –in this- Pope John Paul II is his true successor, who gave many further impulses to the dialogue between Jews and Christians.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me come to a conclusion on an issue which has not yet found a conclusion. I thank you for the honour of this award; I thank you for your commitment -in the footsteps of Angelo Roncalli- to this task, which is essential for the Jewish-Christian reconciliation and for the peace in the world. Indeed you are working for the peace in the world in a special and decisive way.

The Letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament explains something very important for the Jewish-Christian dialogue. It affirms that the dividing wall between Christians and Jews, between Church and Synagogue has broken down. It says that Christ has come and made peace. This peace is the goal we are attempting to achieve. The peace process between Jews and Christians is irreversible, it goes on, even if so little is said about it at the moment because of the conflict in the Middle East and even if much more needs to be done. ”Schalomisation” we could call it. The Letter to the Ephesians tells us that this is not an illusion or an utopia: this is authentic hope. Let’s go on. Schalom!