Staring one morning at the front page headline, "POPE STEPS DOWN," like a lot of Jews I wondered, "What does this have to do with me?"

For many of us, our cultural interaction with Catholicism is limited to visiting a Catholic hospital, or on Europeans vacations, taking in a few too many stony-faced saints and stained glass Madonnas.

Socially, besides being grouped together for an awful lot of jokes--"A rabbi, a priest, and minister, walk into a bar"--we just don't seem to cross, so to speak, that much.

Or so we think.

In Israel, we have some neighborly disputes.

In Jerusalem, where the Vatican is a major landowner, there are legal battles with Israel over taxation of church properties.

Also, a building on Jerusalem's Mount Zion that holds both the Cenacle--an upstairs room considered to be the site of the Last Supper--and what is considered to be King David's tomb on the ground floor, is at the heart of a longstanding dispute over controlling authority.

Here in the U.S we are electoral neighbors. In the last presidential election cycle, with totals of 54% for Catholic voters (75% for Hispanic Catholic) and 69% for Jewish votes, majorities of both religions voted for Obama.

Moving beyond political propinquity, there are Jewish kids going to Catholic schools, as well as theology students taking Hebrew at the University Notre Dame.

Yet, it is in the areas of tolerance and friendship--how Jews and Catholics actually get along and live together-- that a new Pope could increase trust and improve relations.

As a child, I enjoyed playing with Catholic kids, many of whom went to parochial school. Some of them came to my bar mitzvah, and I recall attending church with them on several occasions. My mother told me it was OK. "Just don't kneel," I remember her saying.

However, the neighborhood "let's play" together vibe sometimes ended at the school yard. In elementary school, I never knew how to answer when someone asked me, "Why did the Jews kill Christ?" Did they mean me or my family personally killed Jesus? It seemed that way.

Fortunately, after 1958, with the election of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, some of the Catholic dogma that created misunderstandings, and, I think, some anti-Semitism began to change. For instance, in the Good Friday Prayer, the word "Perfidious" was no longer used to describe Jews, and in the Church's declaration, Nostra Aetate (In Our Age) commissioned by Pope John, Jews were finally let off the hook (mostly) for killing Christ.

Building on those changes instituted by the Pope and the Second Vatican Council, in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1985, issued a revised Guideline for Catholic-Jewish Relations.

The Guideline's aim was to "Eliminate sources of tension and misunderstanding," as well as "Multiply intergroup meetings between Catholics and Jews," to promote cooperative social action.

"Proselytism was to be avoided," stated the document, and prayer in common with Jews should, "When mutually acceptable, be encouraged."

The Bishops also called for "A frank and honest treatment is needed in our history books, courses and seminary curricula of the history of Christian anti-Semitism, which climaxed in so much persecution, and of the Nazi attempt to destroy the Jewish population of Europe."

To continue this call, what is needed today is a frank and honest reckoning of the church's response to the Holocaust.

In 2000, the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, appointed by the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and composed of three Catholic and three Jewish scholars, issued a report asking 47 questions about the church's involvement with the Holocaust. To study those questions, the Commission also made a request for access to additional Vatican documents. Access was denied, and the group soon disbanded.

Today, a new Pope could allow access to the documents, clearing up any accusations of Church complicity, affirming them, or at the least, put them in historical context.

In a long-evolving relationship like this one, a move towards openness and trust could only make the bond stronger.