Pope Francis’ legacy regarding the Jewish world is something of a polyhedron — an image he liked to evoke. His pontificate, marked by contrasting interactions and events with the international Jewish community, has been a reflection of the complex religious, theological, geopolitical and sociological realities in which the universal Church evolves today.

From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis’ long-standing ties with the Jewish community in his native Argentina — particularly his close friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka — set the foundation for a promising development in Jewish-Catholic dialogue. These fruitful personal connections, however, have not translated into a broader theological or institutional deepening of Catholic-Jewish ties. Nor have they shielded the pontificate from moments of friction and misunderstanding, which experts attribute to Francis’ non-European provenance.

This shifting of the Church’s center of gravity away from Europe toward regions where Jewish communities have historically been less present could also, over time, challenge the special status of Judaism in Catholic thinking. One rabbi warns that such an upheaval could jeopardize the future of Judaism in the West, particularly in an environment of growing hostility.

 

The Strength of the Personal Bond

Pope Francis’ deep connection with the Jewish community was shaped by his experience as the archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998-2013), where his pastoral work regularly intersected with interfaith dialogue. This was especially true after the devastating 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA), which killed 85 people and left a lasting scar on Argentinian society.

As highlighted by ACI Prensa’s Julieta Villar, then-Archbishop Bergoglio strongly and publicly advocated for justice for the victims of the AMIA attack. In 2005, he was the first signatory of the manifesto “85 victims, 85 signatures,” calling for accountability and justice for the victims’ families.

Quoting Rabbi Daniel Goldman, one of his close collaborators in interfaith dialogue, the article emphasized that the success of Archbishop Bergoglio’s work lay not so much in institutional actions but in personal relationships that generated profound changes. His work created a model where coexistence evolved into true “living together,” where the motto was “I cannot live without the other living.”

This was also evident in his deep friendship with Rabbi Skorka, with whom he co-wrote the 2010 book On Heaven and Earth, which set the tone for his early engagement with the Jewish world after his election in 2013.

His visit to Israel in 2014 as a newly elected pope, accompanied by Rabbi Skorka and Muslim leader Omar Abboud — whom he embraced after praying at the Western Wall — remains a highlight of his pontificate. Two years later, in July 2016, he visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp, walking through it in solemn silence and later imploring, in the Book of Honor, God’s forgiveness for “so much cruelty.”

Francis’ commitment extended beyond symbolic acts. He has condemned antisemitism unequivocally and affirmed the enduring validity of the Jewish covenant with God — a theological position rooted in Nostra Aetate (1965), the Vatican II declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, which reshaped the Church’s stance toward Judaism.

 

Theological Misunderstandings 

A remark about the Torah in 2021, however, cast a shadow over previously harmonious Jewish-Catholic relations. During a general audience, Francis said that the Torah “does not give life; it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of fulfilling it.” This statement sparked controversy and led to Vatican clarifications that it should be understood within the overall framework of Pauline theology.

Similarly, the recurrent use of the term “Pharisee” in homilies, in reference to religious hypocrisy, has troubled some Jewish voices, who associate it with painful moments in their shared history with Christians. 

“On occasion, [Pope Francis] referred to the rabbinic tradition in problematic language, but some of these terms can be attributed to papal speechwriters who are perhaps not as sensitive as they should be in preparing their texts,” commented Jesuit Father David Neuhaus — a professor of sacred Scripture at the Latin Patriarchate seminary in the Holy Land and a Jewish convert to Catholicism — in an interview with the Register. He added that these incidents highlight the need to deepen the Church’s post-Vatican II understanding of Judaism.

But it was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — rekindled by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military response — that crystallized the most serious tensions. The Vatican’s formal recognition of the Palestinian state under his pontificate in 2015, despite Israeli opposition, had already slightly strained relations.

Francis’ condemnation of violence “on both sides” in 2023, intended to position the Church as a voice for peace and justice, was perceived by some Jewish figures as morally inadequate given the brutality of the Hamas-led attack. 

His letter of support, in February 2024, assuring his “Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel” of the Church’s solidarity with the Jewish people and calling for rapid reconciliation in the Holy Land, only temporarily eased tensions.

In his book Hope Never Disappoints, published in November 2024 ahead of the Jubilee 2025, Francis called for an investigation into whether Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza, drawing strong criticism from Italian rabbis.

For Rabbi David Meyer, professor of rabbinic literature at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, the tipping point occurred when, at the end of November 2024, Pope Francis omitted to name Israel by its name when alluding to the state as behaving with the “arrogance of the invader” in Palestine. 

“I felt like we Jewish people were somehow denied our very name, and the state of Israel its very existence, which came as a shock to me,” Meyer told the Register. He added that, although “Israel is obviously not without fault,” “the outbursts of hatred we’ve seen over the last year and a half towards [the Jews] in North America, England, France, Italy, Belgium, etc., awakened a fear for [our] future.”

While understanding the rabbi’s reaction, Father Neuhaus, the Scripture scholar, pointed out that the Holy Father has consistently expressed concern for Israeli victims and hostages. Some Jewish leaders, he noted, valued the Pope’s compassion for Palestinian suffering and supported his call for an end to religious and ethnic conflict in the Holy Land. 

Both men agree, on the other hand, that the pontificate of Francis, the first non-European pope in modern history and a symbol of the Church’s move towards the Southern Hemisphere, has marked a turning point in the dialogue between the Church and the Jewish world.

 

Is Catholicism’s Shift a Threat to Western Jews?

For Father Neuhaus, the Church’s historically “Eurocentric” focus gave Jewish-Christian dialogue a certain exclusivity due to Judaism’s deep historical roots in the Old Continent and the long-lasting wound of the Holocaust. But this dynamic has shifted under Pope Francis, whose South American background reflects the Church’s growing engagement with the Global South.

“This means that Catholics coming from places where there is no historical Jewish presence are interested in other forms of dialogue, specifically with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists,” he said. “This is also a positive trend for the Church that is guided by Nostra Aetate, published 60 years ago.”

Rabbi Meyer, however, is less optimistic. He warns that this shift could have profound consequences for Jewish communities in the West. 

“I hope that the Church has understood that it is the guarantor of the survival of Judaism in the Western world. I don’t dare imagine what our future will be as Jews in the West if, for the Church, Jews no longer represent a central part of its identity, because they’ve been marginalized by demography.”

Meyer views Francis’ pontificate as a foreshadowing of what the demographic shift of the Church could mean for Jewish-Catholic dialogue. He fears that this relationship, once hard-won through dialogue and reconciliation, could become some kind of historical footnote in the Catholic Church’s evolving identity. 

This shifting landscape also raises challenges for Pope Francis’ successor. How can the Church hold together the global and local dimensions of its identity while safeguarding the theological and historical bonds with Judaism? 

For Father Neuhaus, the next Pope will have to “move forward, try and get beyond the misunderstandings that plague the dialogue at present.” It will be about revitalizing the biblical, theological and spiritual aspects of the dialogue so that it can be relevant for the whole Church. 

He emphasized, however, that within this relationship, the Church should remain “free to express its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its commitment to justice, peace and equality for all the peoples in Israel and Palestine and throughout the Middle East.”

Francis’ legacy in Jewish-Christian relations will likely be measured by the Church’s ability to hold these tensions together — to balance a global moral vision with the historical weight of Jewish-Christian ties in Europe.