Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – The audience conceded by the Pope to the chief Rabbis of Israel yesterday 15 September has been viewed practically as "routine". This is a sign of the normalization reached in religious ties between the Catholic Church and Judaism. A meeting like the one held yesterday is no longer a "historic event" – as it would have been defined in the past – but an encounter which fits naturally in the context of now advanced inter-religious dialogue with Hebrew communities around the world; among these, the State of Israel occupies first place.

Traditionally the Holy See always wished to make a clear distinction between religious ties with Judaism and links of another kind – diplomatic and juridical – with the State of Israel. Today, however, this distinction is no longer upheld with the same firmness. At this point, it seems that the majority of Hebrews in the world are to be found in Israel. And in Israel, the chief Rabbis are anyhow state officials. Theirs is essentially a post created by state legislation and inserted into the civil service. They still belong to the "orthodox" faction of Judaism, which makes their desire to be received by the Pope even more significant. Until recent times, such a meeting – with the head of a religion considered by many Orthodox Jews to be a kind of polytheistic idolatry – would have been regarded as illicit in their milieu. On the occasion of one previous visit to the Vatican, a leader of Orthodox Judaism in Israel had to justify himself with his religious peers, saying he had gone to visit the Pope only "to save Hebrew lives". In fact, he had asked for the humanitarian intervention of the Holy See to bring home Israeli military troops who had disappeared years before in Lebanon.

That the chief Rabbis now wanted to "videre Petrum", is an indisputable sign of progress achieved in relations, for which merit should go first of all to the Pope himself and to his unforgettable immediate predecessor. In their speeches and in their teachings, they both paid great, very great attention to dialogue with Judaism.

But dialogue cannot, indeed it must not, stop here. Beyond specifically inter-religious dialogue with the rabbis, a wider dialogue with the Hebrew people is called for: in their large majority, they do not follow orthodox religion in Israel, being "unbelievers" or at least "not practicing", in any case, "secular".

Hence what emerges as necessary is not institutional dialogue among leaders but a "broad" dialogue among exponents, protagonists and sectors of "civil society", of culture, of the world of work and so on. To take this ahead, the presence of an appropriate ecclesial subject is called for in Israel, which will be well inserted in society and which will have the ability and the will to undertake discussion with Hebrew society. The aim of all this would be to reveal the richness of concepts of Christian civilization, while at the same time demonstrating an openness to be aptly enriched by genuine values developed and upheld by the "secular" expression of the Hebrew nation reborn in its historic homeland.

This ecclesial subject "of Hebrew expression" – visible, free and effective – has yet to be built from scratch. It is the next challenge, the next commitment of the Church on the road of dialogue with the Hebrew people.