Vatican ambassador on Israel: 'Better when there were no diplomatic relations'

The Vatican's former ambassador to Israel has some frank words about his faith in relations with the Jewish state.

Italians have a wonderful phrase they use when things don’t work out as they had hoped: “It was better when it was worse.”

That was the thrust of controversial comments about the Catholic Church’s relations with Israel by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, currently the Vatican’s nuncio (ambassador) to the United States and formerly the papal envoy to the Jewish state.

Sambi, who was nuncio in Israel from 1998-2005, could not have been clearer about his discontent: “If I must be frank, relations between the Catholic Church and the state of Israel were better when there were no diplomaticrelations.”

He goes on in a long interview with www. terrasanta.net, an Italian on-line publication of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. FaithWorld has more of his opinions in English.

I want to pause here and note how easy it would be to turn this into a watershed moment for Catholic-Jewish relations, a revert back to 1960 or, worse, 1492. Sambi, it seems, is not trying to incite a pogrom or propagating the blood libel. He is reflecting on his experience with the Israeli government. (Yes, this is certainly questionable timing considering the peace summit at Annapolis next week.)

The Catholic culture regarding Jews has significantly improved during the last two papacies. Pope John Paul II was, of course, beloved by Jewish leaders, not least for his memorable visit in 2000 to Israel and the Western Wall. The German-born Pope Benedict XVI, who served in the Hitler Youth, also has proven a better friend of world Jewry than many expected.

Was Pope John Paul II allowed to die?

An Italian doctor has the Vatican defending that Pope John Paul II was not allowed to kill himself by denying necessary medical treatment, which in his case was the administration of a feeding tube. The pope, who died in April 2005 after a long bought with Parkinson's, didn't receive a tube until three days before his death.

The physician leveling the mercy killing allegation, Dr. Lina Pavanelli, heads the intensive care medical school at Italy's University of Ferrara.

"The doctors had done something, the doctors didn't inform the pope completely, or the pope decided," Pavanelli told CBS News. "These are the three conclusions that I reached."

If true, such an action would violate the Catholic Church's own doctrine. During the Terri Schiavo drama the following winter, a Vatican bishop said: "The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life."

The problem is Pavanelli reached her conclusion with no more information than I had: Watching the pope's deterioration on TV. I'm probably being a cynic, but it sounds like a certain doctor was looking for some attention.