But I suppose it’s right and proper that the Pope does so.

The Jews are not to blame for Jesus’ crucifixion: since he died to atone for the sins of all, we are all to blame.

From here:

The Jews are not to blame for the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Pope Benedict  XVI said today.

In extracts released from his forthcoming book on Jesus of Nazareth, the Pope  completely exonerates the Jewish people of any culpability of the death of Christ.

He directly confronts the controversial text of St Matthew’s Gospel in which ‘the Jews’ demand the execution of Jesus and shout to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: ‘Let his blood be on us and on our children.’

The passage has been described even by Catholics as a ‘rallying cry for anti-Semites down the centuries’.

But the Pope says the Gospel writer meant the mob in the courtyard and not  the Jewish people in general.

As such the crowd was representative of the whole of sinful humanity, he said.

Then he explains that the blood of Jesus was not ‘poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all’.