Jewish and Roman Catholic leaders from 16 countries have agreed that a major inititiative is needed to combat anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported in Thursday editions. The agreement came in Prague, Czechoslovakia, at the first formal meeting in five years of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. The four-day meeting was scheduled to end Thursday. Archbishop William H. Keeler of Baltimore told the Times the conference's closing statement would call for Catholic repentance and stress that anti-Semitism ``is a sin against God and humanity.'' It also will recognize ``the special problems of anti-Semitism in Eastern and Central Europe,'' said Rabbi Jack Bemporad, chairman of the Interreligious Affairs Office of the Synagogue Council of America. Open anti-Semitism is said to be on the rise in the region, as the fall of totalitarian Communist regimes allows people to express their views more freely. Participants at the meeting recommended that other Eastern European countries follow the lead of Poland and Czechoslovakia in setting up Catholic-Jewish liaison committees. It also urged rapid translation and dissemination of recent Vatican statements on Catholic-Jewish relations. Eastern European churches lacked either permission or resources to publish these documents. Also recommended by participants are systematic efforts rid textbooks of religiously or racially divisive material, establishment of seminary courses and training programs for priests to counter anti-Semitism, and new efforts to defend religious liberty and monitor any outbreaks of anti-Semitism. Vatican officials also reaffirmed their intention to prepare a major document on the church and the Holocaust, a project pledged in 1987 but delayed. Catholic-Jewish relations are ``back on track,'' Seymour Reich, chairman of the Jewish committee, told The Times. The Jewish committee was established in 1967 as an umbrella group for discussions with the Vatican. Its membership includes the Synagogue Council of America, B'nai Brith International and the World Jewish Congress.
