Tag: Jews

Pope Benedict’s address at the Great Synagogue of the Jews of Rome

“What marvels the Lord worked for them! What marvels the Lord worked for us: Indeed we were glad” (Ps 126)

“How good and how pleasant it is when brothers live in
unity” (Ps 133)

1. At the beginning of this encounter in the Great Synagogue
of the Jews of Rome, the Psalms which we have heard suggest to us the right
spiritual attitude in which to experience this particular and happy moment of
grace: the praise of the Lord, who has worked marvels for us and has gathered
us in his Hèsed, his merciful love, and thanksgiving to him for granting us
this opportunity to come together to strengthen the bonds which unite us and to
continue to travel together along the path of reconciliation and fraternity. I
wish to express 

Benedict with Riccardo di Segni.jpg

first of all my sincere gratitude to you, Chief Rabbi, Doctor
Riccardo Di Segni, for your invitation and for the thoughtful words which you
have addressed to me. I wish to thank also the President of the Union of
Italian Jewish Communities, Mr Renzo Gattegna, and the President of the Jewish
Community of Rome, Mr Riccardo Pacifici, for their courteous greetings. My
thoughts go to the Authorities and to all present, and they extend in a special
way, to the entire Jewish Community of Rome and to all who have worked to bring
about this moment of encounter and friendship which we now share.

When he came among you for the first time, as a Christian
and as Pope, my Venerable Predecessor John Paul II, almost 24 years ago, wanted
to make a decisive contribution to strengthening the good relations between our
two communities, so as to overcome every misconception and prejudice. My visit
forms a part of the journey already begun, to confirm and deepen it. With
sentiments of heartfelt appreciation, I come among you to express to you the
esteem and the affection which the Bishop and the Church of Rome, as well as
the entire Catholic Church, have towards this Community and all Jewish
communities around the world.

2. The teaching of the Second Vatican Council has
represented for Catholics 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. The Council gave a strong impetus to our irrevocable
commitment to pursue the path of dialogue, fraternity and friendship, a journey
which has been deepened and developed in the last forty years, through
important steps and significant gestures. Among them, I should mention once
again the historic visit by my Venerable Predecessor to this Synagogue on 13
April 1986, the numerous meetings he had with Jewish representatives, both here
in Rome and during his Apostolic Visits throughout the world, the Jubilee
Pilgrimage which he made to the Holy Land in the year 2000, the various
documents of the Holy See which, following the Second Vatican Council’s
Declaration Nostra Aetate, have made helpful contributions to the increasingly
close relations between Catholics and Jews. I too, in the course of my
Pontificate, have wanted to demonstrate my closeness to and my affection for
the people of the Covenant. I cherish in my heart each moment of the pilgrimage
that I had the joy of making to the Holy Land in May of last year, along with
the memories of numerous meetings with Jewish Communities and Organizations, in
particular my visits to the Synagogues of Cologne and New York.

JP II Western Wall.jpg

Furthermore, 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 (cf.
Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on
the Shoah, 16 March 1998). May these wounds be healed forever! The heartfelt
prayer which Pope John Paul II offered at the Western Wall on 26 March 2000
comes back to my mind, and it calls forth a profound echo in our hearts:
“God of our Fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your
Name to the nations: we are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in
the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking
your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the
people of the Covenant.”

3. The passage of time allows us to recognize in the
Twentieth Century a truly tragic period for humanity: ferocious wars that sowed
destruction, death and suffering like never before; frightening ideologies,
rooted in the idolatry of man, of race, and of the State, which led to brother
killing brother. The singular and deeply disturbing drama of the Shoah
represents, as it were, the most extreme point on the path of hatred that
begins when man forgets his Creator and places himself at the centre of the
universe. As I noted during my visit of 28 May 2006 to the Auschwitz
Concentration camp, which is still profoundly impressed upon my memory,
“the rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish
people”, and, essentially, “by wiping out this people, they intended
to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles
to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that remain eternally valid”
(Discourse at Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp: The Teachings of Pope
Benedict XVI, II, 1 [2006], p.727).

Here in this place, how could we not remember the Roman Jews
who were snatched from their homes, before these very walls, and who with
tremendous brutality were killed at Auschwitz? How could one ever forget their
faces, their names, their tears, the desperation faced by these men, women and
children? The extermination of the people of the Covenant of Moses, at first
announced, then systematically programmed and put into practice in Europe under
the Nazi regime, on that day tragically reached as far as Rome. Unfortunately,
many remained indifferent, but many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by
their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of
their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being
hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude. The Apostolic See itself provided
assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way.

The memory of these events compels us to strengthen the
bonds that unite us so that our mutual understanding, respect and acceptance
may always increase.

4. Our closeness and spiritual fraternity find in the Holy
Bible – in Hebrew Sifre Qodesh or “Book of Holiness” – their most
stable and lasting foundation, which constantly reminds us of our common roots,
our history and the rich spiritual patrimony that we share. It is in pondering
her own mystery that the Church, the People of God of the New Covenant,
discovers her own profound bond with the Jews, who were chosen by the Lord
before all others to receive his word (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
839). “The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already
a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews ‘belong the
sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
to them belong the patriarchs and of their race, according to the flesh is the
Christ’ (Rom 9:4-5), ‘for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable!’ (Rom
11:29)” (Ibid).

5. Many lessons may be learnt from our common heritage
derived from the Law and the Prophets. I would like to recall some of them:
first of all, the solidarity which binds the Church to the Jewish people
“at the level of their spiritual identity“, which offers Christians
the opportunity to promote “a renewed respect for the Jewish interpretation
of the Old Testament” (cf. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish
people and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, 2001, pp.12 and 55);
the centrality of the Decalogue as a common ethical message of permanent value
for Israel, for the Church, for non-believers and for all of humanity; the task
of preparing or ushering in the Kingdom of the Most High in the “care for
creation” entrusted by God to man for him to cultivate and to care for
responsibly (cf. Gen 2:15).

Rabbis & B16.jpg

6. In particular, the Decalogue – the “Ten Words”
or Ten Commandments (cf. Ex 20:1-17; Dt 5:1-21) – which comes from the Torah of
Moses, is a shining light for ethical principles, hope and dialogue, a guiding
star of faith and morals for the people of God, and it also enlightens and
guides the path of Christians. It constitutes a beacon and a norm of life in
justice and love, a “great ethical code” for all humanity. The
“Ten Commandments” shed light on good and evil, on truth and
falsehood, on justice and injustice, and they match the criteria of every human
person’s right conscience. Jesus himself recalled this frequently, underlining
the need for active commitment in living the way of the Commandments: “If
you wish to enter into life, observe the Commandments” (Mt 19:17). From
this perspective, there are several possible areas of cooperation and witness.
I would like to recall three that are especially important for our time.

The “Ten Commandments” require that we recognize
the one Lord, against the temptation to construct other idols, to make golden
calves. In our world there are many who do not know God or who consider him
superfluous, without relevance for their lives; hence, other new gods have been
fabricated to whom man bows down. Reawakening in our society openness to the
transcendent dimension, witnessing to the one God, is a precious service which
Jews and Christians can offer together.

The “Ten Commandments” call us to respect life and
to protect it against every injustice and abuse, recognizing the worth of each
human person, created in the image and likeness of God. How often, in every
part of the world, near and far, the dignity, the freedom and the rights of
human beings are trampled upon! Bearing witness together to the supreme value
of life against all selfishness, is an important contribution to a new world
where justice and peace reign, a world marked by that “shalom” which
the lawgivers, the prophets and the sages of Israel longed to see.

The “Ten Commandments” call us to preserve and to
promote the sanctity of the family, in which the personal and reciprocal,
faithful and definitive “Yes” of man and woman makes room for the
future, for the authentic humanity of each, and makes them open, at the same
time, to the gift of new life. To witness that the family continues to be the
essential cell of society and the basic environment in which human virtues are
learned and practised is a precious service offered in the construction of a
world with a more human face.

7. As Moses taught in the Shema (cf. Dt 6:5; Lev 19:34) –
and as Jesus reaffirms in the Gospel (cf. Mk 12:19-31), all of the Commandments
are summed up in the love of God and loving-kindness towards one’s neighbour.
This Rule urges Jews and Christians to exercise, in our time, a special
generosity towards the poor, towards women and children, strangers, the sick,
the weak and the needy. In the Jewish tradition there is a wonderful saying of
the Fathers of Israel: “Simon the Just often said: The world is founded on
three things: the Torah, worship, and acts of mercy” (Avoth 1:2). In
exercising justice and mercy, Jews and Christians are called to announce and to
bear witness to the coming Kingdom of the Most High, for which we pray and work
in hope each day.

8. On this path we can walk together, aware of the
differences that exist between us, but also aware of the fact that when we
succeed in uniting our hearts and our hands in response to the Lord’s call, his
light comes closer and shines on all the peoples of the world. The progress
made in the last forty years by the International Committee for Catholic-Jewish
Relations and, in more recent years, by the Mixed Commission of the Chief
Rabbinate of Israel and of the Holy See, are a sign of our common will to
continue an open and sincere dialogue. Tomorrow here in Rome, in fact, the
Mixed Commission will hold its ninth meeting, on “Catholic and Jewish
Teaching on Creation and the Environment”; we wish them a profitable
dialogue on such a timely and important theme.

9. Christians and Jews share to a great extent a common
spiritual patrimony, they pray to the same Lord, they have the same roots, and
yet they often remain unknown to each other. 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, which invite us to cooperate for the good of humanity
in this world created by God, the Omnipotent and Merciful.

10. Finally, I offer a particular reflection on this, our
city of Rome, where, for nearly two millennia, as Pope John Paul II said, the
Catholic Community with its Bishop and the Jewish Community with its Chief
Rabbi have lived side by side. May this proximity be animated by a growing
fraternal love, expressed also in closer cooperation, so that we may offer a
valid contribution to solving the problems and difficulties that we still face.

B16 Western Wall.jpg

I beg from the Lord the precious gift of peace in the world,
above all in the Holy Land. During my pilgrimage there last May, at the Western
Wall in Jerusalem, I prayed to Him who can do all things, asking: “Send
your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human
family; stir the hearts of those who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the
path of justice and compassion” (Prayer at the Western Wall of Jerusalem,
12 May 2009).

I give thanks and praise to God once again for this
encounter, asking him to strengthen our fraternal bonds and to deepen our
mutual understanding.

“O praise the Lord, all you nations, acclaim him, all you peoples. Strong is his love for us, He is faithful forever. Alleluia” (Ps 117)

Jews to stop spitting on Christians, hopefully

NCR journalist John Allen posted a rather disturbing piece yesterday about Jewish youth who spit on Christian clergy in Jerusalem. Perhaps this is a good example of turning the other cheek or being despised for belief in Christ as Messiah. The public witness to belief in Christ and one’s consecration to the same is an extraordinary witness to the person of Christ who warned his disciples of acts of hatred. But whatever spiritualization of a disgusting insult you want to offer, the act is nonetheless a sign hate and I don’t think it ought to go un-addressed. Over-zealous youth is a problem whether you live in New Haven, CT, St. Louis, MO or Jerusalem. I wonder if the admonition of the tribunal there is strong enough to alter the behavior of Jewish petulant youth in question.

Read John Allen’s article, “Jews move to halt spitting at Christians in Jerusalem.”

Pius and Jewish opinion

Members of The World Jewish Congress, among others, have made their opinions about Pope Benedict’s acknowledgement of his predecessor’s heroic virtues, step two of four with the goal of being recognized a saint. Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church (1939-58) during the Second World War and falling asleep in the Lord in 1958. The WJC thinks Benedict was wrong in moving Pius closer to sainthood. BTW, a pope does not have the power to make saints because he doesn’t have absolute power; that would make him more powerful than God. For the record, God makes saints, the church’s process recognizes what God has done.

This step of saying Pius XII (and others) lived a life of heroic virtue allows for a scientific and theological investigation into the miracles purported to have been wrought through their intercession. A misconception is that a saint causes miracles to happen. Only God has the power to do miraculous things. Catholics believe that miracles are done only by God’s power. The purpose of Jesus’ miracles was “to bear witness to the fact that the Kingdom is present in him, the Messiah. (Compendium of CCC, 108). Hence the saint, while not God, does intercede on behalf of humanity before the Throne of Grace to do something for humanity to build faith and to advance the kingdom of God. Miracles are not magic.

The WJC and other interested parties want access to the Vatican archives of the Pius pontificate and then they want consensus as to what is there. Their request is fair request because the historical record ought to be known. But with 16 million documents from the Pius pontificate it takes lots of time and money to catalog such an archive. Would Jewish groups consider contributing to the archival work with manpower and money? Nevertheless, it is not for Jews or anyone else to determine matters of faith, as WJC pointed out but other Jewish groups don’t think the same, like the Chief Rabbi of France who continues to put forward the thesis that Pius was too silent in the face of evil and should not be considered as a possible saint. And Shira Schoenberg uses materials written by those who oppose the sainthood process of Pius (not surprising) and neglects evidence that contradicts her thesis. Her conclusions to me are mainly due to flawed scholarship and cliche.

I am curious as why the secular Jews follow so closely matters of Catholic faith. They’ve virtually abandoned their own and they want Catholics to listen to their opinions as to what should and should not happen viz. Catholicism. It is one thing to speak about historical matters but it is another to address matters of faith. I don’t know many reasonable-minded Christians telling Jews what to believe and how to live their faith. Perhaps more work needs to be done on the liturgical texts of the birkat haminim, the daily prayers of the synagogue. The birkat haminim is the 12th benediction of 18 which calls for the downfall of various groups of people who harm or detract (apostates) from the Jewish communion. Historically this malediction is oriented toward Christians, according to Jewish liturgical scholars. Perhaps Catholics should have an open protest of these prayers?
Calvin Freiburger’s post on his blog is fair-minded but I think he could be brave enough to openly call a spade a spade: I think Mr. James Carroll is a disingenuous and his work is purely revisionist with the sole purpose to discredit the Catholic Church. Carroll’s own credibility is lacking when it comes to analyzing known evidence on what Pius did and didn’t do. In my opinion Carroll is doing nothing less than to stir up controversy where there is none and to scandalize people where there is no scandal.
One final thought here: no doubt that lives lost during WWII is reprehensible. The Jewish and Christian holocaust of WWII was a failure for humanity. Christians and non-Christians across the world didn’t do all they could to save lives threatened and exterminated; allied governments didn’t do enough to pressure the Nazi regime to change their behavior. Even that some Christians exhibited anti-semitic sentiments is discouraging. Pope Pius XII has not gotten a fair historical review of his work as Supreme Pontiff viz. WWII. A failure to put aside the smear campaign of the Communists is regrettable for the scholars because it is dishonest.

Our Brothers, the Jews: A lost manuscript, a continued call for solidarity

A Jew came into the office of The Catholic Worker the other day and sat around and read for a while. He nosed through Cahill’s Christian State and condemned it for its anti-Semitism. Then he looked at a missal for a while and hummed through some of the Gregorian plain chant.

 

“I cannot,” he said, “be a Communist because I believe in God.” And he said it sadly because he believed that the Communists were nearer to social justice in their efforts to bring about a proletarian state than were the believers in God.

When he left he took with him the apocryphal books of the Old Testament and the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila.

People have been calling the office of The Catholic Worker and asking us if we had anything to do with the street meetings which were going on over at Long Island Station in Brooklyn. Our paper was being distributed over there, after rabid anti-Jew speeches. The men who spoke to us over the telephone said that they could find no race antipathies in The Catholic Worker, but they wanted to know what right Jew-baiters had to take over our paper as literature to distribute.

There were three Catholics speaking over in Brooklyn and by appealing to the baser instincts in their audience they were getting a huge crowd, a cheering crowd, which stood around for three hours listening to speakers who pointed out how red-blooded and 100 percent American they were, how filled with intestinal integrity, and how some scum parasites of Europe had come over here and taken over the country. The great danger was the Jew. All evils came from the Jew. Jewish materialism was the cause of all our ills. It was the Jew who brought about the revolution in Russia. It was Jews who ruined Germany. Hitler was merely trying to restore law and order.

We have consistently tried to avoid discussion of European questions in the paper we are getting out. We feel that we can’t take up the subject of Spain, Italy, Germany, Mexico, let alone China. (One time on a bitter cold night last winter I was walking down Eighth Street and there was a cheering Communist parade coming around the corner. On all sides there was hunger and evictions, strikes and lockouts. Millions, fifteen or seventeen millions of men out of work. Forty-five millions dependent upon relief of some kind or another. But the Communists in their world-wide altruistic frenzy were not at that moment engaged in protesting present and near-at-home evils. Their banners bore the slogans, Down with Chiang Kai Chek!)

I repeat, we the editors of The Catholic Worker had decided not to venture on world affairs. But when Catholics get up on New York streets and arouse race hatred in their Catholic listeners, then it is time for us to take a stand.

We believe that Hitler owes his success to the fact that it is easier to arouse a people against something concrete like a race than against an idea. It is not just the idea of materialism that the German people are fighting. They have made the Jew as a race the scapegoat. They have fastened on it the ills of present-day society. They have blamed Jews for defeat during the war, for the inflation after the war, for the present ills of the capitalist system. And even though individuals of the race, even though large masses of the race are guilty of the sins with which they are charged, the animus aroused against them is singular in that it is not an animus against the evils attendant on their actions, but against the Jews themselves.

To criticize the Jews for the protest which Jews have organized in this country and to say, as I heard them say at Long Island Station, “Are the Jews a sacred race that this enormous protest should have been organized?” is to be manifestly unfair. If no protests were organized on account of the persecution in Mexico or Spain, it is the fault of the Catholics themselves in that they are not naturally vociferous. Why didn’t all the Knights of Columbus, all the St. Vincent de Paul men, all the Holy Name men, all organizations in fact, hire Madison Square Garden themselves, form a parade that would block traffic for some ten hours and broadcast a huge protest against what was and is going on in Mexico?

Another thing, horrible as the persecution of the Catholics is, it is not a persecution of a race or people. It is all Catholics, of whatever nationality, that are having to put up a struggle for a position. The Times tried to point this out when they said that in Spain it was ex-Catholic against Catholic. What they should have said is that it was Spaniard against Spaniard. The persecution in Germany is actually a persecution of the Jews as a race. A stiff-necked generation. Not because they are Communists especially. Not because they are materialists. Many of them are not Communists and some of the most religious-minded men are Jews. But it is all Jews who are being fought and excoriated. It is the old pogrom spirit being revived. It is comparable only to the persecution of the Negro because of his race. It seems to be easy to arouse people to a concrete hatred of race. It is easy for children to fall into contemptuous attitudes because of race differences. And I believe that Hitler could never have gotten the following he has if he had not given to his fellow Germans someone, not something, to hate. It is a hatred primitive, fundamental, base.

For Catholics–or for anyone–to stand up in the public squares and center their hatred against Jews is to sidestep the issue before the public today. It is easier to fight the Jew than it is to fight for social justice–that is what it comes down to. One can be sure of applause. One can find a bright glow of superiority very warming on a cold night. If those same men were to fight for Catholic principles of social justice they would be shied away from by Catholics as radicals; they would be heckled by Communists as authors of confusion; they would be hurt by the uncomprehending indifference of the mass of people.

God made us all. We are all members or potential members of the mystical body of Christ. We don’t want to extirpate people; we want to go after ideas. As St. Paul said, “we are not fighting flesh and blood but principalities and powers.”

In addition to getting out a paper, the editors of The Catholic Worker are engaging in a fight against the Unemployed Councils of the Communist Party. To combat them they are doing the same thing the Communists are doing, helping the unemployed to get relief, clothing, food and shelter. But we are cooperating with the Home Relief instead of obstructing them. Two or three times a week we have eviction cases. When a desperate man or woman comes in asking for help, we have to call the Home Relief to find out about getting a rent check. Then we have to find a landlord who will accept the voucher. Usually they won’t. There is only one landlord in our entire block who will take them. Over on Avenue B there is an Irish landlord willing to cooperate. On 17th Street there is a Jew. He is a Godsend because he has three houses.

After we have found an apartment, we have to commandeer a truck and men to do the moving. The sixteen-year-old boys in our neighborhood have been most helpful. Then there are always unemployed men coming into the office who are eager to help.

The other day we had a German Protestant livery stable man, giving us the use of a horse and wagon to move a Jewish family, and five Catholic unemployed men assisting their brother the Jew in getting transferred.

It is a situation which typifies the point I wish to make, that we are all creatures of God and members or potential members of the Mystical Body. This is something which those Catholics who bait the Jews lose sight of.

Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was the cofounder with Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker movement in 1933. Charles Gallagher, S.J., a visiting fellow at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, found in the correspondence file in the Dorothy Day-Catholic Worker Collection at Marquette University this previously unpublished, unknown text.  The text was  published in America Magazine (Nov. 9, 2009) and has been lightly edited.

Covenant with the Jewish people to be clarified in Adult Catechism

A recognitio from the Holy See following a vote from the US Bishops, was received allowing for a clarification that all the covenants God made with the Jewish people are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Don’t think this is change is revisionist theology or fancy foot work on the part of the Holy See or the US Bishops. Rather, it is standard theology and it is what the Church has consistently taught for a very, very long time. The editors of the Adult Catechism slipped up by being a bit imprecise in their work, shall we say. Of course, the statement announcing the clarification notes that the Adult Catechism is a catechetical work and not a theological text. True enough, we know…but this rationalization is a bit much. Does that mean we have to check each and every fact in the second printing of the AC, too? The Bishops’ Conference statement is here.

ADL wants to revise Catholic theology

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wants the US Catholic bishops to revise the statement, Reflections on Covenant and Mission (2002) to emphasize that Catholics don’t want to convert Jews to Christianity. Here’s the US Bishops’ recent statement on clarifications made to RCM. This is not a document of the Roman Catholic Church, i.e., the Magisterium, nor of the US Bishops. It is a work of a group of theologians, Jewish and Catholic, reflecting on mutual interests in theology.

Our theology is such that Jesus Christ is The Way, the Truth and the Life: all people come to salvation in and through Jesus Christ; God’s promises through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are fulfilled in Jesus as the definitive revelation of God. Jews are not the singular group here; Catholics believe this is true for all the world’s peoples. This is revealed by the Lord Himself. It was not dreamed up by a committee. Having said all this, the Church’s missiology is governed by the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate which understands Judaism in special light when it comes to evangelization but nowhere in Vatican II theology (or praxis) does it say that the Church capitulates to another faith group because of its belief is “controversial.”
If someone doesn’t understand or even like or wants to reject this theology, OK. We propose belief in Christ as salvific and not impose this belief on others. We have to be clear on what we believe so as to be clear on the method of sharing our belief. But why does the ADL presume to tell the Church what to believe. Do Catholics tell the Jews what remove from their theology because Catholics don’t like it? Not likely.
I think RCM is fair-minded and accurate. 

Benedict XVI & Israel’s Chief Rabbinate

In the published comments of Pope Benedict to the distinguished representatives of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Catholic delegates he said in part:

 

The Church recognizes that the beginnings of her faith are found in the historical divine intervention in the life of the Jewish people and that here our unique relationship has its foundation. The Jewish people, who were chosen as the elected people, communicate to the whole human family, knowledge of and fidelity to the one, unique and true God. Christians gladly acknowledge that their own roots are found in the same self-revelation of God, in which the religious experience of the Jewish people is nourished.

 

I sit choir with a group of monks and other Christians praying the Scritpures on a daily basis and I’m coming to understand (judge, evaluate) more and more the connections, i.e., the reality that exists between Jewish and Catholic theology/liturgy. This is especially true in the Psalms but no less with the daily readings from Pentateuch and the Prophets. One of the books I am re-reading selections from these days is Father Richard Veras’ book, Jesus of Israel: Finding Christ in the Old Testament (Servant Books, 2007), who speaks about the promises made to us down through the ages by the Lord, promises of the hundredfold, promises of life, liberation and communion with the Lord as they are revealed in the sacred Scriptures.

 

For what it’s worth, Pope Benedict said the following 19 years ago when he was still known as Joseph Ratzinger, the CDF Prefect:

 

Abraham, father of the people of Israel, father of faith, thus become the source of blessing, for in him all the families of the earth shall call themselves blessed. The task of the Chosen People is, therefore, to make a gift of their God – the one true God – to every other people; in reality, as Christians we are the inheritors of their faith in the one God. Our gratitude, therefore, must be extended to our Jewish brothers and sisters who, despite the hardships of their own history, have held on to faith in this God right up to the present, and who witness to it in the sight of those peoples who, lacking knowledge of the one God, dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Down through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to its atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this latest tragedy that a new vision of the relationship between the Church and Israel has been born: a sincere willingness to overcome every kind of anti-Judaism, and to initiate a constructive dialogue based on knowledge of each other, and on reconciliation. If such a dialogue is to be fruitful, it must begin with a prayer to our God, first of all that he might grant to us Christians a greater esteem and love for that people – the people of Israel – to whom belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs are the patriarchs, and from them comes Christ according to the flesh, he who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen. And this not only in the past, but still today, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. In the same way, let us pray that he may grant also to the children of Israel a deeper knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, who is their son, and the gift they have made to us. Since we are both awaiting the final redemption, let us pray that the paths we follow may converge.

It is evident that, as Christians, our dialogue with the Jews is situated on a different level than that in which we engage with other religions. The faith witnessed to by the Jewish Bible (the Old Testament for Christians) is not merely another religion to us, but is the foundation of our own faith. Therefore, Christians – and today increasingly in collaboration with their Jewish sisters and brothers – read and attentively study these books of Sacred Scripture, as a part of their common heritage. (Excerpts from Cardinal Ratzinger’s “The Heritage of Abraham: The Gift of Christmas,” L’Osservatore Romano, 29 December 2000)

 

In light of all of this public speaking I think today’s allocution by the Pope reveals a consistent line of teaching not only by a man with a keen intellect and a profound faith in the Divinity but also consistent with magisterial teaching of the Holy See. Hence, I don’t think that Benedict’s thoughts today are not throw away lines to ease tensions, real or imaginary between the Catholic Church and the Jewish leadership. Moreover, I also don’t think it’s a political ploy before a papal visit to the Holy Land in May.

 

My sense is that the Pope is rather genuine in his judgment that Christians and Jews need each other because each provide an interpretative key in self-identity and the theological journey we both make toward our destiny. For Christians we need to grasp what is being done (the action) and what is said (the content) in order to take seriously our own faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior and Brother. So no, these remarks today aren’t lines denoting mere policy, mechanical ways to engage a touchy politic serving a group’s interests. These lines reflect not only this pontiff’s thinking but the Church’s self-understanding and theological grounding. Nostra Aetate (1965) and Dabru Emet (2000) like documents demonstrate a commitment from which to work with each other in an effort to know, love and serve the Almighty while coming to understand a common theological and liturgical history. Consequently, Jews and Catholics should not only work on projects that serve the common good but also work for greater understanding in the process of dialogue leading to the eternal.

 

Some will say that the Pope made a nice gesture by speaking honestly with the Jews. But that would be yet another example of a tyranny of the “nice,” and we don’t need more “nice.” What we need is true honesty, faith and reason before reality. What I believe the Pope is indicating to us is the profound need because it is reasonable as people of faith to draw deeply from the common faith experience in order to discern our relationship with the Lord and to foster a deeper communion between Jews and Christians. We need to understand the reality that’s in front of us, the gift of friendship in faith with others on a similar path to destiny.

Pope addresses Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations


B16 meet a rabbi.jpgPope Benedict received members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations today. Speaking English, the Pope recalled his visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany in August 2005, and to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2006. His Holiness said,

 

As I walked through the entrance to that place of horror, the scene of such untold suffering I meditated on the countless number of prisoners, so many of them Jews, who had trodden that same path into captivity at Auschwitz and in all the other prison camps. How can we begin to grasp the enormity of what took place in those infamous prisons? The entire human race feels deep shame at the savage brutality shown to your people at that time.

 

The Church is profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism and to continue to build good and lasting relations between our two communities. If there is one particular image which encapsulates this commitment, it is the moment when my beloved predecessor Pope John Paul II stood at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, pleading for God’s forgiveness after all the injustice that the Jewish people have had to suffer

 

The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity. … It is beyond question that any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable.

 

This terrible chapter in our history must never be forgotten. Remembrance – it is rightly said – is ‘memoria futuri’, a warning to us for the future, and a summons to strive for reconciliation. To remember is to do everything in our power to prevent any recurrence of such a catastrophe within the human family by building bridges of lasting friendship.

 

It is my fervent prayer that the memory of this appalling crime will strengthen our determination to heal the wounds that for too long have sullied relations between Christians and Jews. It is my heartfelt desire that the friendship we now enjoy will grow ever stronger, so that the Church’s irrevocable commitment to respectful and harmonious relations with the people of the Covenant will bear fruit in abundance.

 

See the Pope speak about the Shoah.

 

Are we clear? Are there any questions about where the Church (and the Pope) stand on this matter?