Several German-speaking rabbis and Christian theologians have sharply criticised Benedict XVI for his newly published article on Catholic-Jewish dialogue, which appears in the current issue of the international theological journal Communio.

One rabbi went so far as to say that the article encourages “a new anti-Semitism,” while another said it was “most problematic” that the former Pope insists that Christians instruct Jews on how the Old Testament is to be interpreted from a Christological point of view. Benedict’s new text, Grace and Vocation Without Remorse, appeared in the German edition of the July-August issue of Communio, a major theological journal Joseph Ratzinger co-founded in 1972 with Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac.

The 18-page article is dated Oct 26, 2017 and is signed “Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.” It was originally written as a reflection on the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 declaration on the Church’s relations with non-Christian religions.

It was intended as an internal document for the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, which is under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, the pontifical council’s president since 2010, convinced Benedict to have the article published in Communio. The 68-year-old Swiss cardinal provides a one-page introduction to the former Pope’s reflections.

“After going over it very carefully… I came to the conclusion that the theological reflections it contained ought to be introduced to the future dialogue between the Church and Israel,” Koch wrote.

But several leading scholars on Jewish-Catholic relations in the German-speaking world reacted negatively to the article’s publication.

The first was Father Christian Rutishau-ser, provincial superior of the Society of Jesus in Switzerland and scholar of Jewish studies. The 52-year-old Jesuit said Benedict’s newly published article is “hardly a contribution to dialogue with the Jews.”

In a seven-page critique of the article that appeared on July 8 in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), he concluded that it was highly problematic for the former Pope to insist that Christians continue to push their interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures on the Jews.

The long-simmering Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has been back in the headlines following new allegations against Theodore McCarrick, the former arch-bishop of Washington, D.C., who resigned from the College of Cardinals. Pope Francis accepted the resignation — reportedly making McCarrick the first cardinal in church history to resign over allegations of sexual abuse. In addition, some church officials have been accused of having long known about at least some of the allegations against McCarrick.

Even before news stories about McCarrick came to light recently, U.S. Catholics were increasingly unhappy with the church’s handling of the sex abuse scandal. A January 2018 Pew Research Centre survey found that just 45% of U.S. Catholics said Pope Francis is doing an “excellent” (13%) or “good” (33%) job addressing the crisis, down from 55% who said this in 2015, the last time the question was asked. The same recent survey also found that 46% of American Catholics said he is doing only a “fair” (27%) or “poor” (19%) job handling the sex abuse scandal, up from 34% three years prior.

The 2018 survey was conducted just days before Pope Francis’ January trip to South America, which included a stop in Chile, where questions also have been raised about the church’s handling of widespread sex abuse allegations there.

The survey also found that U.S. Catholics’ ratings of Pope Francis had become less positive on some other issues, including spreading the Catholic faith and standing up for traditional morals. But seven-in-ten still said he was doing an excellent or good job in these areas. And an overwhelming majority (84%) expressed a favorable opinion of the Pope overall, roughly unchanged in recent years.

Christ’s commandment to love God and neighbour is a path trodden by those who have the desire to become saints, Pope Francis told thousands of altar servers from around the world.

“Yes, it does take effort to keep doing good and to become saints,” the Pope told the young people July 31. “You know that the path to holiness isn’t for the lazy, it requires effort.”

The Pope presided over an evening meeting and prayer service with some 60,000 altar servers making an international pilgrimage to Rome. The majority of young men and women came from Germany, but there also were pilgrims from Italy, France, Austria, the United States and other countries.

After circling St Peter’s Square in his popemobile, Francis smiled brightly as Bishop Ladislav Nemet of Zrenjanin, Serbia, waved his arms and urged the young men and women to welcome the Pope with cheers and applause.

“You are very courageous to be here since 12 p.m. in this heat!” the Pope told the young people before responding to questions posed by servers from Luxembourg, Portugal, Antigua and Barbuda, Germany and Serbia.