ROME -- Saying "we humbly ask forgiveness," Pope John Paul II on Sunday delivered the most sweeping papal apology ever, repenting of the errors of his church over the past 2,000 years.
"We cannot not recognize the betrayal of the gospel committed by some of our brothers, especially in the second millennium," the pope, dressed in purple robes for Lent, said in his homily. "Recognizing the deviations of the past serves to reawaken our consciences to the compromises of the present."The public act of repentance, solemnly woven into the liturgy of Sunday Mass inside St. Peter's Basilica, was an unprecedented moment in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, one that the ailing 79-year-old pope pushed forward over the doubts of even many of his own cardinals and bishops. He has said repeatedly that the new evangelization he is calling for in the third millennium can take place only after what he has described as a churchwide "purification of memory."
To underline the religious significance of the apology, seven cardinals and bishops stood before the pope and singled out some of the key Catholic lapses, past and present, including religious intolerance and injustice toward Jews, women, indigenous
peoples, immigrants, the poor and the unborn.
The pope also mentioned the persecution of Catholics by other faiths. "As we ask forgiveness for our sins, we also forgive the sins committed by others against us."
At the beginning of his pontificate, John Paul's boldest gestures were on the political front, confronting communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America and also challenging human rights violations and the economic injustices of capitalism. But the apology is theologically more daring.
His effort to cleanse his church's conscience for the new millennium has already drawn fire, but it is almost certain to mark his legacy.
"The apology does not just apply to individuals but the church as a whole, and that is very important," the Rev. Lorenzo Albacete, who teaches theology at St. Joseph's seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., said. "Because it reflects this pope's desire to reconcile with other Christians and other religions, people are tempted to view it as a tactic, but its immense spiritual importance to this pope lies in the fact that it did not come within a diplomatic or theological agreement, but in the liturgy of the Mass during Lent and the Holy Year."
The pope, broadening a process of reconciliation that began in the 1960s during the Second Vatican Council, has issued apologies before, notably regretting in a 1998 document the failure of many Catholics to help Jews during the Holocaust. That document, "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," disappointed many leading Jewish groups, which complained that the pope did not go far enough in apologizing for the silence of church leaders, including the wartime pope, Pius XII.
Sunday, in the prayer dedicated to "confession of sins against the people of Israel," John Paul did not mention the church's behavior during the Holocaust, just as he did not specify other sins of the church. He said, "We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called Sunday's apology a "bold and important step forward" but added that he was disappointed that the pope had not mentioned the Holocaust explicitly. "The church still wants to steer clear of dealing with the role of the Vatican during World War II," he said.
The pope's act of repentance was so unprecedented that many Catholics predict that it will take time for its full importance to sink in.