A top Brazilian rabbi charged with shoplifting says he plans to seek God's forgiveness when he meets next month with the pope

April 14, 2006

JTA

Sobel seeks forgiveness in pope's presence

A top Brazilian rabbi charged with shoplifting says he plans to seek God's forgiveness when he meets next month with the pope.

Rabbi Henry Sobel, who has led the Sao Paolo Jewish congregation, told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper that he still plans on joining other Brazilian religious leaders next month in a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Brazil, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

"I am not Catholic, so I cannot ask for the pope's forgiveness," Sobel said in remarks translated by the Associated Press in a story Friday. "But I will ask the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Israel to forgive me. Perhaps in the pope's presence I could feel his humility and have some of it enter my soul."

Sobel faces shoplifting charges in Palm Beach, Fla., where he was arrested in March. He is well regarded in Brazil for his activism against the dictatorship in that country in the 1960s and for promoting inter-religious harmony.