The pope has written a detailed and personal repudiation of the idea that the Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.
In a book to be published next week, he concludes that those responsible for the crucifixion were the "Temple aristocracy" and supporters of the rebel Barabbas. Dismissing the centuries-old interpretation of St John's assertion that it was "the Jews" who demanded Barabbas's release and Jesus's execution, the pontiff asks: "How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamour for Jesus's death?"
The notion of collective Jewish guilt, which bedevilled relations between the two faiths, was disowned by the Roman Catholic church at the second Vatican council in 1965. But this is thought to be the first time a pope has carried out such a detailed, theological demolition of the concept.