The retired Pope Benedict XVI, who died December 31 at the age of 95, visited Rome’s majestic Tempio Maggiore — Great Synagogue — on January 17, 2010. It was the second visit by a pope to the synagogue, located across the Tiber River from the Vatican, after the historic visit made by his predecessor Pope John Paul II in 1986.
Benedict and Rome’s chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni addressed a crowded sanctuary from in front of the synagogue’s ornate Ark.
The main focus of both Di Segni’s and Benedict’s speeches was a reaffirmation of commitment to the Jewish-Catholic dialogue launched by the Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate declaration of 1965 and fostered by John Paul II.
The towering synagogue is located on the bank of the Tiber River, in the old ghetto area where Papal edicts force Jews to live from 1555 until 1870. Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1986 was a milestone in Catholic-Jewish dialogue.
The synagogue, with its soaring squared dome, was designed in a lavish eclectic style, with Byzantine motifs, by Vincenzo Costa and Osvaldo Armanni. It was inaugurated in 1904 following the demolition of the old historic ghetto as part of urban renewal.
Before entering the synagogue, Benedict placed a wreath at memorial plaques honoring Roman Jews who were deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and honoring a toddler killed in a 1982 Palestinian terrorist attack on the synagogue that wounded scores of worshipers.
The monumental synagogue complex includes a small Sephardic Synagogue in the basement, and also the Rome Jewish Museum.