Through its spokesman, Father Hans Langendörfer, the German Bishops’ Conference, answered the Ambassador on 6 March through an official declaration, in which it is pointed out that in “all his speeches…, Cardinal Karl Lehmann expressly underlined the right for the State of Israel to exist, even though this right is still questioned by some parties, also with reference to the threat of terrorism suffered by its citizens”. Therefore, he added, “one cannot talk about the fact that the German bishops demonized one part of the conflict and had double standards: it is rather the opposite”. As for the comments of some bishops, and in particular, in relation to the reference to the ghetto of Warsaw, Langendörfer recalls that those statements sprang from the “emotional involvement of single individuals”, and that those words had already been “corrected in a self-critical way”. On deploring “the note out of tune insinuating itself” in the journey, the spokesman of DBK urged to avoid “questioning the extremely positive impulse given by the bishops, by visiting both the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, both the representatives of the governments and the populations”. (To be continued)
