VATICAN:Pope Benedict VI began a three-day visit to Austria yesterday with a prayer for "repentance" at a Vienna memorial to the 65,000 Austrian Jews murdered by the Nazis.
His 10-minute visit to the memorial on Judenplatz - a concrete bunker surrounded by the names of Nazi concentration and death camps - was welcomed by Austria's Jewish leaders as a gesture of friendship after months of strain.
Jewish groups around the world expressed concern in recent months that the revival of the Latin liturgy might include prayers for the conversion of Jews. Meanwhile, the pope was criticised for receiving Fr Tadeusz Rydzyk, head of Poland's Radio Maryja, which regularly broadcasts anti-Semitic views.
At the memorial, an exhausted-looking pontiff prayed for several minutes before bowing, protected from the streaming rain by a transparent umbrella. On a nearby plaque erected nine years ago, Austrian bishops accepted their "share of responsibility for the persecution of Jews".
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, said in a speech that Christians must never forget the Jewish roots of their faith.
"The tragedy of this city is that these roots were forgotten and even denied, leading to the godless will to destroy the people first loved by God," he said.
The Austrian episcopate supported Austria's 1938 annexation into the Third Reich and Hitler as the legitimate leader. As a consequence, they declined to support resistance to the regime - even from their own clergy.
After the war, bishops compounded the problem by championing priest "martyrs" killed by the Nazis rather than addressing the actions of perpetrators. That practice continued until a more critical assessment began after the 50th anniversary of annexation in 1988.
Before the second World War, the Austrian capital's Jewish population numbered 185,000, today it numbers less than 7,000.
The Judenplatz visit was the only political item on the pope's agenda. Tomorrow he will celebrate the 850th anniversary of the Mariazell, a place of pilgrimage 100km from Vienna.