Vatican to send cardinal to local Holocaust event

Cardinal Walter Kasper

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the top Vatican liaison to the Jewish community, has agreed to attend a Holocaust memorial ceremony in Braintree on March 25. The event will mark the move of a memorial menorah from the former chancery in Brighton to the new pastoral center in Braintree. It was scheduled by Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley to help demonstrate the Catholic Church's commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations and repudiation of Holocaust denial following the controversy over Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies that the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews. Kasper previously visited the area in 2002, speaking and meeting with students and community leaders at Boston College and Brandeis University.