ROME – An American rabbi has voiced optimism for Catholic-Jewish relations after the election of Pope Leo XIV, saying his pontificate marks an opportunity for renewal given a spike in tensions during the last months of Francis’s papacy.

“I am optimistic about Catholic Jewish relations…an American pope bodes well for Catholic Jewish relations. Period,” Rabbi Noam Marans told journalists during a recent roundtable conversation with members of the press on the election of Pope Leo XIV.

Pope Leo was elected May 8, becoming history’s first pope from the United States, and the first to also hold Peruvian citizenship, having spent decades there as a missionary, and bishop.

Marans, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee (AJC), received a personalized letter after Pope Leo’s election inviting him to the May 18 papal inauguration Mass and pledging to “continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration, Nostra Aetate.”

Published in 1963, Nostra Aetate deals with the Church’s relationship with other religions and dramatically reshaped the Church’s approach to Judaism after centuries of tensions.

Marans said the letter was significant for him because “if a pope writes something like this three years in, it’s one thing. If he writes it on his first day when there’s no public record of his attitudes about Catholic Jewish relations, it’s not the same thing. That’s why it’s so dramatic.”

“We are in some sort of Catholic Jewish relations crisis. There are different versions of what that means, and I think it’s fair to say that the last 18 months of Francis papacy were very challenging for Catholic Jewish relations,” he said.

Pope Francis, who died April 21 after suffering a stroke following a lengthy hospital stay for double pneumonia, frequently spoke out about the war in Gaza, calling for a ceasefire and for access to humanitarian aid.

Several of his top aides also spoke out about the war, triggered by an Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and during which over 250 people taken as hostages, calling for the release of those in captivity, but also questioning Israel’s proportionality.

Francis met with family members of hostages, but was also rumored to have referred to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza as a “genocide” during a private meeting with Gaza residents.

Tensions between the Holy See and Israel in recent months had reached a near boiling point, demonstrated by the fact that no Israeli delegation was present for Pope Francis’s funeral, represented only by Ambassador to the Holy See Yaron Sideman, whereas President Isaac Herzog attended Pope Leo’s installation Mass.

Marans in his remarks at the roundtable said the AJC said, “We were very gratified that Ambassador to the Holy See Siedman was at the funeral, and that President Herzog offered his condolences very publicly, and that eventually the Prime Minister of the State of Israel did as well.”

Despite tensions with the Jewish community in recent months, Marans echoed an op-ed he wrote about Pope Francis after his death, acknowledging criticisms of his handling of the Gaza war and his engagement with Israel, while also arguing that history will be “be kind to Pope Francis regarding even Catholic Jewish relations.”

Marans said the success of Catholic-Jewish relations post-Nostra Aetate “is demonstrated more clearly in the United States than in any other place,” which gives him optimism about Pope Leo’s election.

“It’s not that everything is perfect in Catholic-Jewish relations in the United States. It’s that the expectations are very high because of the history of success,” he said, saying his view of the big picture going forward is that while problems remain, “Things are pretty good.”

Pope Leo XIV met members of other churches and religious communities Monday, an audience that Marans participated in, recalling Pope Francis’s emphasis on global fraternity and dialogue.

Going forward, Marans said he expects Leo to continue the tradition of other popes by eventually paying a visit to Israel, and also making visits to synagogues and Holocaust sites, and he also voiced hope that the pope would be strong in condemning anti-Semitism.

Lisa Palmieri, who also works in interreligious affairs with AJC, told journalists during the roundtable that the situation in Rome for the Jewish community has “really gotten worse” after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s retaliation against Hamas.

“They’ve had a lot of problems in the universities” and beyond with pro-Palestinian protestors showing up and disrupting regular activities and events, she said, saying, “The fact is that in the popular imagination, the Jews and the Israelis are identical and they are the cause of everything.”

Many “forget about Hamas, they forget about the seventh of October. They forget that Israel is fighting a war of survival,” Palmieri said, noting that no proposed peace agreements so far have required that Hamas be disarmed.

“People are not informed about the history, they’re not informed about the actual situation. And this has created more anti-Semitism, which is probably slumbering,” she said.

Marans said a lot of “little dramas” have popped up for the Jewish community, and voiced hope that Pope Leo would follow Francis’s example in “repeatedly, incessantly condemning anti-Semitism as a sin against God, and unchristian.”

“There might be some of the challenges that we’ve had with Pope Francis regarding criticism of Israel, but perhaps in a more diplomatic way, based on early readings of personality,” he said, and lauded the fact that in Pope Leo’s first public Regina Coeli address, he called for the freeing of Israeli hostages.

What the pope does or does not say, he said, “does not need to meet the standards of a Jewish advocacy organization, it needs to meet the standards of reasonableness. We are grateful for that at his first mention of the conflict. He called for freeing the hostages.”

Marans lamented that Pope Francis, while condemning anti-Semitism, spoke out on Gaza frequently without mentioning the hostages, and said the Jewish community wants the pontificate of Leo XIV “to be a renewed start, we want this to be a renewal of the relationship.”

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen