As the director of the Latin American office of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, at a conference of Jewish and Catholic leaders held in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1968, the first official gathering of Jewish and Catholic leaders in Latin America, Rabbi Klenicki told the audience that nearly two thousand years of history had divided the two religions, during which "cathedrals were raised to the sky while Jews had to go underground" while suffering persecution at the hands of Christians, but that "The time of hope has arrived.
[2] Under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican published We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah in 1998, a document which condemned Nazi genocide and called for repentance from Catholics who had failed to intercede to stop it, urging Catholics to repent "of past errors and infidelities" and "renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith" while distinguishing between the Church's "anti-Judaism" as religious teaching and the murderous anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany which it described as having "roots outside Christianity.
Eugene J. Fisher, then associate director of the U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops recalled a 1987 meeting with Pope John Paul II attended by Catholic and Jewish leaders, in which Rabbi Klenicki "was able to express concerns very directly, without unnecessary rhetorical negatives" regarding the Pope's meeting with Kurt Waldheim.
In 2007, Rabbi Klenicki was named a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI, a recognition granted to Catholic men and women (and in rare cases, non-Catholics) in recognition of their service to the Church, unusual labors, support of the Holy See, and the good example set in their communities and countries.
He was survived by his wife, Myra Cohen Klenicki; two children from a marriage to Ana Dimsitz that ended in divorce; a grandson and a brother.