An article by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. during the pope’s visit to Washington, DC, in 2015 touched me deeply and brought back some old memories.
During World War II I was a child in Poland. I am Jewish, and I wanted to live—which was contrary to what the German occupiers had in mind. After a few close calls where we had to hide to avoid being caught and killed or transported to a concentration camp, my brave mother purchased false identity papers from a Catholic priest for my baby sister, me, and herself. She then took us to a town where we were not known and where we would go by our new assumed names and religion. My part was to go to school, attend church, and act like a Catholic child. I was eight years old and had no knowledge of this religion.
Without knowledge of even my own religion due to my young age, I absorbed the new information slowly in school where a priest taught the catechism, as well as by attending church where I observed how others behaved. I did it very carefully because there were always pitfalls that could have given me and my family away. But in spite of living in constant fear, I still had questions, which of course I could only ask my mother. Like how it says in the Bible that you should love your neighbors, and yet I knew ours would give us away if they learned we are Jewish. Also, the idea that babies who are not baptized cannot go to heaven. Why? They did not sin. After all, I too was not baptized, so I also could not go to heaven, according to Catholic teaching.
So my mother, seeing my dilemma of trying to understand this new religion and perhaps thinking I may forget who I was, explained it to me this way: We all pray to the same God but through different religions, and you are Jewish. Her wisdom saved me from a lot of conflicts for the rest of my life.
What is wonderful about Pope Francis is that he is inclusive and loves humanity, and I, as a proud Jew, can embrace him and respect him for all that he stands for.
I respect any belief that makes someone a better person.
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