ope got it wrong. Vatican steps in with alacrity." Author Neale Donald Walsch stated, "it was regr

Bergoglio has close ties to the Jewish community of Argentina, and attended Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) services in 2007 at a synagogue in Buenos Aires. He told the Jewish congregation during his visit that he went to the synagogue to examine his heart, "like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers".[151] After the 1994 AMIA bombing of a Jewish Community Center there that killed 85 people, Bergoglio was the first public figure to sign a petition condemning the attack and calling for justice. Jewish community leaders around the world noted that his words and actions "showed solidarity with the Jewish community" in the aftermath of this attack.[151]
A former head of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, reported that he worked with Bergoglio in the early 2000s, distributing aid to the poor as part of a joint Jewish-Catholic program called "Tzedaká". Singer noted that he was impressed with Bergoglio's modesty, remembering that "if everyone sat in chairs with handles [arms], he would sit in the one without."[151] Bergoglio also co-hosted a Kristallnacht memorial ceremony at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral in 2012,[151] and joined a group of clerics from a number of different religions to light candles in a 2012 synagogue ceremony on the occasion of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.[152]
Abraham Skorka, the rector of the Latin-American Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires, and Bergoglio published their conversations on religious and philosophical subjects as Sobre el cielo y la tierra (On Heaven and Earth).[153] An editorial in Israel's Jerusalem Post notes that "Unlike John Paul II, who as a child had positive memories of the Jews of his native Poland but due to the Holocaust had no Jewish community to interact with in Poland as an adult, Pope Francis has maintained a sustained and very positive relationship with a living, breathing [Jewish] community in Buenos Aires."[153]
One of the pope's first official actions was writing a letter to Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, inviting him to the papal installation and sharing his hope of collaboration between the Catholic and Jewish communities.[154] Addressing representatives of Jewish organizations and communities, Francis said that, "due to our common roots [a] Christian cannot be anti-Semitic!"[155][156]
Islam
Leaders of the Islamic community in Buenos Aires welcomed the news of Bergoglio's election as pope, noting that he "always showed himself as a friend of the Islamic community", and a person whose position is "pro-dialogue".[157] They praised Bergoglio's close ties with the Islamic community and noted his comments when Pope Benedict's 2006 Regensburg lecture was interpreted by many as denigrating Islam. According to them, Bergoglio immediately distanced himself from Benedict's language and said that statements that create outrage within the Islamic community "will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last 20 years.”[158]
Bergoglio visited both a mosque and an Islamic school in Argentina, visits that Sheik Mohsen Ali, the Director for the Diffusion of Islam, called actions that strengthened the relationship between the Catholic and Islamic communities.[157] Dr. Sumer Noufouri, Secretary General of the Islamic Center of the Argentine Republic (CIRA), added that Bergoglio's past actions make his election as pope a cause within the Islamic community of "joy and expectation of strengthening dialogue between religions".[157] Noufouri said that the relationship between CIRA and Bergoglio over the course of a decade had helped to build up Christian-Muslim dialogue in a way that was "really significant in the history of monotheistic relations in Argentina".[157]
Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar and president of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, sent congratulations after the pope's election.[159] Al-Tayeb had "broken off relations with the Vatican" during Benedict XVI's time as pope; his message of congratulations also included the request that "Islam asks for respect from the new pontiff".[159]
Shortly after his election, in a meeting with ambassadors from the 180 countries accredited with the Holy See, Pope Francis called for more interreligious dialogue—"particularly with Islam".[140] He also expressed gratitude that "so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world" had attended his installation Mass.[140] An editorial in the Saudi Arabian paper Saudi Gazette strongly welcomed the pope's call for increased interfaith dialogue, stressing that while the pope was "reiterating a position he has always maintained", his public call as pope for increased dialogue with Islam "comes as a whiff of fresh air at a time when much of the Western world is experiencing a nasty outbreak of Islamophobia".[160]
Nonbelievers
Further information: Anonymous Christian
Speaking to journalists and media employees on 16 March 2013, Pope Francis said he would bless them silently, "Given that many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church, and others are not believers".[161] In his papal address on 20 March, he said the "attempt to eliminate God and the Divine from the horizon of humanity" resulted in violence, but described as well his feelings about nonbelievers:[162][163] "[W]e also sense our closeness to all those men and women who, although not identifying themselves as followers of any religious tradition, are nonetheless searching for truth, goodness and beauty, the truth, goodness and beauty of God. They are our valued allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in safeguarding and caring for creation."
Some atheists expressed hope that Francis would prove to be progressive on issues like poverty and social inequality,[164] while others were more skeptical that he would be "interested in a partnership of equals".[165] In May 2013, Francis said that all who do good can be redeemed through Jesus, including atheists. Francis stated that God "has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ... Even the atheists, Everyone!”[166] Later Thomas Rosica stated non-Catholics who "know" the Roman Catholic Church can get to Heaven only by converting to Catholicism. Outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins commented "Atheists go to heaven? Nope. Sorry world, infallible pope got it wrong. Vatican steps in with alacrity." Author Neale Donald Walsch stated, "it was regrettable that the hidden hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church chose to officially retract the recent statement on eternal damnation bravely made by its new leader, Pope Francis."[167]
Hendrik Hertzberg suggests in the The New Yorker magazine Rosica used weasel words and left imprecise how much a non-Catholic needs to know about Catholicism before according to Church doctrine that person is required to enter the Church or be damned. Further Rosica published his statement in Toronto through Zenit News Agency rather than through the Vatican or the Holy See. Hertzberg claims imprecision is deliberate and speculates that there may be major internal disagreement between supporters and opponents of Vatican II in the Catholic Church.[168]
In September 2013 Francis wrote an open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences. Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: "You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don't believe and who don't seek the faith. I start by saying—and this is the fundamental thing—that God's mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience."[169]
Papacy