"It falls to believers to seek out each other and to cooperate in making divine love more visible for humanity; and to carry out concrete gestures of closeness to counter the growth of indifference," he said.
American Jewish Committee President John Shapiro thanked Pope Francis for agreeing to open Vatican archival files related to World War II and the papacy of Pope Pius XII. Pope Pius XII was pope from March 1939 until his death in October 1958. The archived files will be open in March 2020.
The pope's comments on anti-Semitism come one day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to condemn various forms of hate speech, especially anti-Semitism.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that condemned bigotry against "African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others."
The resolution was widely seen as a response to a series of comments from freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) which have been broadly condemned as anti-Semitic.
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The resolution was initially drafted as a condemnation specifically of anti-Semitism and a rebuke of Omar's comments, but was amended to include numerous other forms of discrimination. The resolution did not specifically name Omar.
While it passed by a wide margin, twenty-three members of the House of Representatives voted against the resolution, saying that a more explicit denunciation of overtly anti-Semitic rhetoric is needed.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who voted for the resolution, said on Twitter that the revised text was a "deceitful" attempt "to give cover" to specific statements made by Omar.