TIMELINE: Pope Benedict angers Jews

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict's rehabilitation of four traditionalist bishops may heal one Catholic wound at the expense of opening a wider one with Jews because one of the prelates is a Holocaust denier.

Following is a timeline of recent events in Catholic-Jewish relations:

1964 - Pope Paul VI becomes the first pope in modern times to visit the Holy Land but this does little to improve relations and he never utters the word Israel during his 12-hour visit to the Jewish state, which the Vatican did not recognize at the time.

1965 - The Second Vatican Council issues a document "Nostra Aetate" ("In Our Times"), repudiating the notion of collective Jewish guilt for Jesus Christ's death for the first time.

1986 - Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope since the days of the early Church to visit a Jewish place of worship when he enters Rome's synagogue. He calls Jews "our beloved elder brothers."

1994 - The Vatican formally establishes diplomatic relations with Israel.

1998 - The Vatican apologizes in the document "We Remember, a reflection on the Shoah" for Catholics who failed to do enough to help Jews against Nazi persecution. However, it also defends wartime Pope Pius XII from accusations that he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust. While Jews welcome the document's strong condemnation of anti-Semitism, they say it fails to account adequately for the role of Catholic teachings in spawning it and criticize its defense of Pius.

2000 - Pope John Paul visits Israel and its Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, crowning two decades of effort to reconcile Catholics and Jews and sweep away centuries of suspicion.

2005 - New Pope Benedict XVI visits the Cologne synagogue. The appeal by the head of the Jewish community there to open all Vatican archives concerning World War Two shows that Pius XII remains a major stumbling block on the road to reconciliation. Pope John Paul had put Pius on the road to sainthood.