For me, the love and the truth of God have become permanent aspects of my life due to the historical reality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom I encounter within the rites and the people of God I have met within the boundaries of the Catholic Church. My fidelity to the church, however, does not blind me to the legacy of hate and misunderstanding which has led me and my ancestors to falsify Jewish realities and to bring spiritual and physical harm to the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah. Even before Vatican II, I, a Catholic teenager growing up in Euclid, Ohio, struggled to find a way whereby my employer, the good Jew Mr. Martin, might be saved from eternal hellfire. In my youth, we were routinely taught that every Jew was responsible for the death of Jesus by virtue of the curse brought down upon them by their ancestors who called out, "Let his blood be upon us and our children" (Matt 27:25). We were also taught that God had originally chosen the children of Abraham and Sarah as his beloved people and that he had covenanted to be with them and guide their destiny to the end of time. When the Jews rejected the Messiah Jesus whom God had sent to them as their redeemer, however, we were taught that God abrogated his covenant with Israel and poured his love and attention upon the Catholic Church. Then came the jarring discontinuity of Vatican II: (a) Only some of the Jews living at the time of Jesus were to be held responsible for his death, and (b) due to the promises made to their fathers, Jews remain a people most dear to God in accordance with Romans 11 (Nostra Aetate; Lumen Gentium sec. 16). Following Vatican II, the liturgical and catechetical works of the church were revised to remove the poison of the past and to present this new (original) positive outlook on Judaism. Since then, biblical scholars have spent enormous energies trying to

CARAMELLI, E., Hegel and the Experience of Forgiveness. Starting from the Spirit of Christianity, 131-150 CAIFFA, R., The Ineffable Joy of Forgiveness, 151-167 CAUSSE, G., Freedom, Evil and Forgiveness: In Debate with Ricoeur’s Philosophy of the Will, 169-186 CIPRIANI, R., For a Historical-sociological Approach to the City of Haifa, 187-205 Comments and Debates BARBIERI, A.S.A., The Economic Ethics of Islam, 207-215 Reviews and Reports OLGUN, Z. & ZAVAGNO, L., Report of the Conference Cultures, Hopes and Conflicts. The Mediterranean between Land and Sea, 217-219

This paper examines repentance as a practice of transformation that aims to improve relations between the Jewish and Christian communities but also changes Christian theology itself. In his lectures, On Repentance, Orthodox rabbi and philosopher Joseph Soloveitchik maintains that "it is the memory of sin that releases the power…to do greater things than ever before. The energy of sin can be used to bring one to new heights." 2 My subtitle invokes Soloveitchik's claim that a certain "quality of repentance…elevates evil to a state of goodness." 3 Following Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah (1170-1180), Soloveitchik unpacks the interlocking precepts of teshuvah, the Hebrew term for repentance that literally translates as turning back or returning to God. The basic precepts of repentance are not unlike the three-step process of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. What attracts me, a Lutheran theologian, to the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance and the Jewish ritual observance of teshuvah is precisely their clearly outlined set of obligations that provide texture and structure to the process. Repentance, in Soloveitchik's startling declaration, has the power to transform historical wrongdoing into a state of productive and constructive "goodness." This is an audacious hope, even in religious communities, where the teachings and practices of repentance appear to lie increasingly fallow; it seems outlandish. The language of repentance has largely been replaced by that of reconciliation. The terminology of reconciliation is popular in the fields of transitional justice, cultural memory, politics, and theology, while penance sounds quaint and antiquated, too "religious" for serious consideration in the areas of politics, law, and psychology. A quick search confirms that there are over ten times more titles on "reconciliation" than on "repentance" in the Library of Congress and the libraries of Boston College

This book analyzes the relationship between forgiveness, atonement, and reconciliation from a Christian theological perspective. Drawing on both theological and philosophical literature, it addresses the problem of whether atonement is required for forgiveness and considers important related concepts such as sin and justice. The author develops a sacrificial model of atonement that connects an understanding of Christian forgiveness with the biblical narrative of Christ’s sacrifice and makes reconciliation between God and humanity possible. Offering a fresh and coherent argument, the book will be relevant to scholars of Christian theology, biblical studies, and the philosophy of religion.