Pope Francis denounced the “depraved hatred” behind a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in parts of the world and said interfaith dialogue can help counter it.

Francis met Friday with a delegation of the American Jewish Committee and praised their longstanding good relations.

He lamented that their meeting was taking place amid the spread of a “climate of wickedness and fury, in which an excessive and depraved hatred is taking root.”

And he warned that for Christians, any form of anti-Semitism is “a rejection of one’s own origins, a complete contradiction.”