Pope urged to convert Jews and others
By Reuters
ROME - A leader of an ultra-traditionalist Catholic group that broke with the Vatican said yesterday that Pope Benedict should tell Jews and members of other religions to convert because they are part of "false systems."
Father Franz Schmidberger, a top official of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), also called on the Pope to invalidate excommunications imposed when its founder, the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained bishops without permission.
The SSPX rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. It sticks to the old Latin mass and opposes recognizing the validity of other religions, particularly non-Christians.
"Other religions, as such, are false systems," said Schmidberger, who is the right-hand man of the traditionalists' current head, Bishop Bernard Fellay.
"Instead of leading their members to our Lord Jesus Christ, to Baptism and the confession of faith in his divinity, they refrain from this and so we consider these other religions as very dangerous," he told a news conference presenting a biography of Lefebvre.
"St. Peter, the first pope, preached to the Jews and told them that `if you want to be saved you must do three things: you must regret your sins and convert, believe in our lord Jesus Christ and, thirdly, be baptized,'" he said.
"We expect that every pope who claims to be the successor of St. Peter should take the same stand in meetings with leaders of other religions and tell them the same three things," Schmidberger said.
Fellay and Schmidberger held talks with Benedict last August. But while Benedict shares the SSPX's concern for some parts of Catholic tradition and has encouraged wider use of Latin in the Church, he has vowed to continue the dialogue with other religions begun by his predecessor John Paul.
Benedict has met Jews, Protestants and Muslims. In August he visited a synagogue in his native Germany.