As stated during the December 1998 "Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets," the Holy See had published in March of that year an important educational document entitled, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. This document, addressed to Catholics throughout the world, especially in countries far removed by geography and history from the events of the Shoah, invites all Catholics to join in remembering the tremendous crime perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews in Europe. Indeed, the Holy See wishes everyone everywhere to remember the Shoah with the purpose of shaping a future in which such a tragedy will never again be possible.

The publication, dissemination, and educational use of We Remember, together with similar initiatives undertaken by the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences in several countries in Europe and elsewhere around the world, is an essential element in the ongoing process of Shoah Education that the Catholic Church provides and promotes wherever and whenever possible.

The Church is not content that all Catholics around the globe understand that "anti-Semitism as well as all forms of racism are a sin against God and humanity" (Pope John Paul II, 16 November 1990). She wants all Catholics to appreciate that Judaism and Christianity are "connected and closely related at the very level of their religious identities" (Pope John Paul II, 6 March 1982). Thus, before the Shoah’s horrible genocide, "no one can remain indifferent, least of all the Church, by reason of her very close bonds of spiritual kinship with the Jewish people and her remembrance of the injustices of the past" (We Remember, I).

The Holy See is convinced that an in-depth reflection on the Shoah does reveal its fundamental cause; namely, the fact that when society is stripped of respect for God, it is also stripped of respect for the human person.

The Holy See is grateful for the work of those who planned this Forum, especially the Government of Sweden. We pray that justice and peace will be the result of all endeavors that the Forum might inspire.