JERUSALEM, March 31 (UPI) -- A Roman Catholic cardinal says European Christians' support for Israel is not based on Holocaust guilt and Christians should affirm Zionism as biblical.
Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, part of a visiting Austrian delegation, made the remarks in an address Wednesday at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
Schoenborn said it was doctrinally important for Christians to recognize Jews' connection to the "Holy Land" and Christians should rejoice in Jews' return to Palestine as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
He also said Pope John Paul II had himself declared the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel an everlasting covenant that remained valid today.
When a Palestinian priest asked Schoenborn if the creation of the modern state of Israel was not an expression of Europe's guilt over the Holocaust, the cardinal said it was not.