ROME — Pope Benedict XVI, in a visit to Rome’s main synagogue, sought to soothe tensions between Catholics and Jews on Sunday, though he and Jewish leaders aired one main point of contention: whether the church did enough against the Holocaust.

At least one prominent Italian rabbi boycotted Benedict’s visit after a move by the pope last month to advance Pope Pius XII, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, one step closer to sainthood. Many Jews, especially in Rome, say Pius did not do all he could have to stop the deportation of Jews. His defenders say his silence was diplomacy aimed at saving more lives.

Benedict said that during World War II, “the Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way.”

In provocative remarks minutes earlier, the president of Rome’s Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, criticized “the silence of Pius XII,” even as he became emotional while praising Catholic religious orders for saving thousands of Jews, including some of his relatives, by hiding them during World War II. The pope and the audience rose as Mr. Pacifici greeted a group of survivors in attendance.

The chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, who presided over the event, said that while “the silence of God” is inscrutable, “the silence of man is on a different level” and “neither does it escape justice.”

Despite the clashing memories of the Holocaust, the visit was cordial, and after a year of tensions, Benedict and Jewish leaders affirmed a commitment to strengthening ties.

Before entering the synagogue, the pope, 82, who was an unwilling member of the Hitler Youth in his teens, stopped to place roses by a plaque honoring the more than 1,000 Roman Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1943.

“How could one ever forget their faces, their names, their tears, the desperation faced by these men, women and children?” he asked in his speech.

In well-received remarks interrupted several times by applause, Benedict said, “The church has not failed to deplore the failings of her sons and daughters, begging forgiveness for all that could in any way have contributed to the scourge of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism.” He added, as the audience clapped, “May these wounds be healed forever!”

Benedict said that “it is our duty, in response to God’s call, to strive to keep open the space for dialogue, for reciprocal respect, for growth in friendship, for a common witness in the face of the challenges of our time.”

The event began with a minute of silence for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

Before an audience of more than 1,000, Benedict and Rabbi Di Segni sat in adjoining armchairs on the podium of Rome’s ornate, high-ceilinged synagogue, flanked by Vatican officials, members of Rome’s Jewish community and a delegation from the chief rabbinate of Israel. The mayor of Rome, several leading Italian politicians, Israeli and American diplomats and the Nobel laureate Rita Levi Montalcini also attended.

Rabbi Di Segni recalled John Paul II’s historic visit to the same synagogue in 1986, where he called the Jews “our beloved brothers.” It was the first visit by a pope to a Jewish house of prayer and was one important step toward largely improved relations under John Paul.

“If ours is a relationship of brothers,” Rabbi Di Segni said, “we should ask ourselves quite sincerely what point of this journey we have reached, and how far we still have to travel before we recover an authentic relationship of brotherhood and understanding, and what we have to do to achieve this.”

Benedict, who visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in May, did not mention Israel by name, although he said a prayer for peace in the Holy Land. He closed his speech by reciting part of a psalm in Hebrew. Afterward, he met privately with Rabbi Di Segni and other members of the Jewish community.

Outside the synagogue, Stefano Spugnini, 46, from Rome, praised the pope for his “beautiful words, which were absolutely calming in a difficult moment.” Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue in New York, which Benedict visited in 2008, said that the pope’s “very presence in the synagogue makes a clear symbolic statement to a priest in Argentina or Poland or Bolivia that the dialogue with the Jews is still very much on.”

Both Jewish and Catholic leaders said that they appreciated Benedict’s calling the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s “a clear landmark to which constant reference is made in our attitude and our relations with the Jewish people, marking a new and significant stage.”

Benedict set off global outrage last January after he revoked the excommunications of the ultratraditionalist, schismatic Society of St. Pius X, one of whose bishops had denied the scope of the Holocaust. The society was founded in opposition to the liberalizing changes of the Second Vatican Council.

Although most said Sunday’s event helped clear the air, controversies remained. In a news conference afterward, Silvan Shalom, a deputy prime minister of Israel, said that in the private meeting he had asked the pope to facilitate opening the archives from Pius XII’s papacy. Rabbi Di Segni said he had asked Benedict to urge dioceses in Europe to make available records about Jewish children who had been baptized by the religious orders that saved them during World War II, and who often did not know their true family histories.