Pope meets Jewish group, decries "depraved" antisemitism

Pope Francis waves as he leaves St. John Lateran Basilica after meeting Roman clergy, in Rome, Thursday, March 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is denouncing the "depraved hatred" behind a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in parts of the world and says interfaith dialogue can help counter it.

Francis made the comments during a Friday audience with a delegation of the American Jewish Committee.

He lamented that their meeting was taking place amid the spread of a "climate of wickedness and fury, in which an excessive and depraved hatred is taking root." And he warned that for Christians, any form of anti-Semitism is "a rejection of one's own origins, a complete contradiction."

The audience occurred days after Francis responded to longstanding requests from Jewish groups to open the Vatican archives of its World War II-era pope, Pius XII, accused by some of having failed to speak out enough against the Holocaust.