Interviews Available

B’nai B’rith International Director of Intercommunal Affairs David J. Michaels is in Rome to attend the installation of Pope Francis. Michaels will also take part in an audience with the new pope for interreligious leaders.

For interviews from Rome, contact: Sbender@bnaibrith.org or 202-857-6699.

B’nai B’rith welcomed the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to his new role when he was elected on March 13. Supporting strong Catholic-Jewish relations in Buenos Aires, where the new pope served as cardinal, has been an important hallmark of his tenure as a church leader.

In November, then-Cardinal Bergoglio was the keynote speaker at B’nai B’rith’s Kristallnacht commemoration in Buenos Aires, where he helped light a candle in commemoration of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Michaels will attend the Papal inauguration on March 19 at St. Peter’s Square. On March 20 he will take part in an audience for interfaith leaders at Clementine Hall at the Vatican. Michaels previously met with Pope Benedict XVI on numerous occasions.