Comments (0)Can Pope Make Peace?
January 29, 2010New York
Rabbi Eugene Korn
JTA Wire Service
Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome was by far his most effective gesture to the Jewish people. After misreading his audience during his trip to Israel, Benedict spoke to Jewish hearts and minds at the Rome synagogue.
The move came none too soon. Jewish-Catholic relations have had a rocky ride under Benedict’s papacy, leaving Jews and Catholics alike to doubt the future of Catholic-Jewish relations.
• In July 2007, the Vatican authorized the wider use of the Tridentine Mass with its Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews.
• In January 2009, the pope lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson, and three other bishops of the Society of Pope Pius X. The renegade group rejects the Second Vatican Council’s salutary changes in Catholic teaching toward Jews and Judaism, and its Web site featured repugnant anti-Semitic canards.
• Last June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement — later retracted — that Catholics in interfaith dialogue should evangelize to Jews and extend to them an implicit invitation to the Church.
• Several weeks ago, Benedict issued a decree advancing sainthood for the Holocaust-era pope, Pius XII, whose record during the Holocaust remains a legitimate historical question and is the subject of a deep emotional disagreement between some in the Vatican and Jewish leaders.
Vatican II’s official document, Nostra Aetate, proclaimed that the Church deplores all forms of anti-Semitism, that the living covenant between God and the Jewish people is irrevocable, and that the charge of deicide is utterly baseless.
Yet the recent steps taken by Benedict had led some professionals in Jewish-Catholic dialogue to question whether these breathtaking teachings are still operative Catholic theology.
Benedict addressed most of these concerns at the Great Synagogue. His visit affirmed — in word and in deed — that he wishes to continue the policy of warm relations with the Jewish people established by his saintly predecessor, John Paul II.
He stressed that Nostra Aetate marked an irreversible transformation in Church attitudes to the Jewish people and signaled the Church’s irrevocable commitment to brotherhood and mutual understanding.
Reflecting on the terrible history of Jewish-Catholic relations that culminated in the Holocaust, Benedict repeated John Paul’s poignant prayer asking for forgiveness for Catholics who caused Jewish suffering. He reiterated what he said at Auschwitz in 2006: Because the Jewish people remain witnesses to God’s presence and to divine revelation at Sinai, Hitler knew that to destroy God and God’s moral law, he needed first to murder the Jewish people. This enormously significant theological statement that Jews and Judaism play an essential role in God’s unfolding plan.
Yet, it seems that Benedict still will be forced to choose at times between appealing to arch-traditionalists among the Catholic faithful and strengthening the Church’s new relationship with the Jewish people. Moreover, pursuing Pius XII’s sainthood before the historical record is clarified is certain to cause public disagreement and inflict pain on Jews whose loved ones were murdered in the Holocaust.
One continuing disappointment has been that the wonderful teachings of Nostra Aetate and other documents on Catholic-Jewish relations have not filtered down sufficiently to priests and worshipers. Too many Catholics remain unaware of the depth and beauty of Nostra Aetate. Nor are Jews as aware as they should be about post-Vatican II teachings.
This is the time for the Vatican to rigorously implement the existing mandate to teach Nostra Aetate to all worshipers and seminarians, promoting the study of John Paul II’s teachings about the Jewish people and Judaism, and perhaps instituting a non-conversionary prayer for today’s and the Jewish state on the Feast of St. James, Jerusalem’s patron saint.
Jewish leaders also must teach Jews of the significance and content of Nostra Aetate and later Vatican documents about Catholic-Jewish relations if Jews are to understand Catholics and their faith
Catholic-Jewish reconciliation is one of God’s great blessings, because if the Church and the Jewish people can make peace after nearly 2,000 years of enmity, then peace is possible between any two peoples anywhere.
Rabbi Eugene Korn is the North American director of the Israel-based Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation.