Pope Francis meets with World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder in the Vatican on September 2. (AFP Photo/Osservatore Romano) |
Pope
Francis has ordered an investigation into a Polish ban on the ritual kosher
slaughter of animals, the president of the World Jewish Congress said Monday.
Ritual
slaughter, including traditional Jewish kosher and Muslim halal practices, has
been banned in Poland since January 1 after the country’s Constitutional Court
deemed it incompatible with animal-rights law.
The pope
met Monday with Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC)
— which represents Jewish communities outside Israel — to discuss the ban,
among other issues.
“The pope
specifically expressed concern about the bans on kosher slaughter in Poland and
directed Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Vatican’s Commission for
Relations with the Jews, to investigate and host a follow-up meeting as early
as next week,” the WJC said after their talks.
Pope
Francis (R) meets with World
Jewish Congress President Ronald
Lauder (2ndL) at
the Vatican on
September 2, 2013 (Osservatore
Romano/AFP)
|
European
Union rules on the slaughter of livestock are designed to minimize suffering
for animals when they are killed, but religious groups are exempted from a
requirement that animals be stunned before death.
Kosher and
halal slaughter require an animal be killed by slitting its throat.
The WJC
said the pope and Lauder had also discussed bans on other religious practices
elsewhere in the world, including circumcision.
A regional
court in Cologne in western Germany ruled last year that circumcision was a
crime, drawing international criticism.
Germany’s
parliament has since passed a law explicitly allowing religious circumcision,
clarifying the murky legal status the ruling had cast on the practice.
The WJC
said the pope had expressed his opposition to restrictions on religious
freedom.
According
to Lauder, the pope has given fresh impetus to relations between Jews and
Christians, which have “never in the past 2,000 years… been so good.”
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