Forty-four years of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation, set in motion by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and nudged forward by thousands of hours of dialogue and theological review, appear to be in jeopardy right now, threatened by an ideological battle inside the Catholic Church.
The crisis was sparked by a church statement on Catholic-Jewish relations, issued June 18 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that purports to clarify “ambiguities” in a 2002 statement on interfaith understanding. Most of the new clarifications, seen through Jewish eyes, look more like retractions of reforms we’d thought were long-settled church doctrine.
Among the earlier statement’s “ambiguities” are declarations that “both the Church and the Jewish people abide in covenant with God,” that both religions “have missions before God to undertake in the world” and that the Jewish mission “must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people.” In fact, as the new statement helpfully clarifies, the “fulfillment” of the Jewish covenant “is found only in Jesus Christ.” Jews have a “right to hear this Good News” in “every generation.” And it’s the job of Christians to fill them in.
Even interreligious dialogue, the very forum that produced the 2002 document, should not be mistaken for what the old statement called “sharing of gifts, devoid of any intention whatsoever to invite the dialogue partner into baptism.” Actually, we now learn, “the Christian dialogue partner is always giving witness to the following of Christ, to which all are implicitly invited.”
Jewish scholars and community leaders who work closely with Catholic leaders were thunderstruck when they received the new statement. The “ambiguous” 2002 document, “Reflections on Covenant and Mission,” was understood to sum up four decades of painstaking dialogue, in Washington and Rome, between church officials and a broad coalition of Jewish groups. The new statement, “A Note on Ambiguities Contained in ‘Reflections on Covenant and Mission,’” looks very much like a sign of rollback. Suspicions are only heightened, Jewish sources say, by the church officials’ unusual failure to consult or even warn their Jewish partners.
Reactions have been sharp. The Orthodox dialogue participants, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, described the “Note” in a June 29 letter to the bishops as “a dagger thrust into the heart of the entire enterprise of Jewish-Catholic dialogue on matters of religion.” The other Jewish partners — the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee — tried to negotiate with the bishops for another month and a half before joining with the Orthodox groups in an August 20 letter expressing “serious concerns” about the future of dialogue.
Does this mean that 44 years of growing mutual respect have come suddenly to a halt? Some Jewish experts say no: The only thing that’s new is that the church has shown its true colors. “It’s been a fantasy of liberal Catholics and folks who engage in Catholic-Jewish dialogue that the Catholic Church suddenly became universalistic” after the 1965 Vatican Council, said one intergroup affairs expert.
But most dialogue insiders, both Catholic and Jewish, insist that the new tone amounts to a genuine U-turn. The church, they say, underwent a revolution in its approach to Jews and Judaism in the last half-century. Now the counter-revolutionaries have arrived. What’s not clear is how far the conservatives will try to turn back the clock — and, no less important, whether the shift is homegrown or dictated from the Vatican.
Some of the fingerprints are clearly domestic. “Reflections” had been issued in 2002 by the Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, which handles dialogue with the Jewish community. The new “Note” is a joint publication of the ecumenical committee and the Committee on Doctrine, the bishops’ theological discipline unit. Reading the note’s dismissive treatment of the earlier document, it’s hard to see it as anything but the doctrine police giving the ecumenicals a spanking.
There’s also a strong trace of the thinking of Cardinal Avery Dulles, the towering American theologian who died in 2008 at age 90. A staunch conservative, he was one of the most influential critics of “Reflections” when it appeared in 2002, arguing in a much-discussed essay that God’s covenant with the Jews was “obsolete” and that Jews could achieve salvation only through the church.
Whatever the intrigues within the American church, though, Catholic doctrine begins in Rome. In important ways the “Note” is just the latest in a series of disappointments since the inauguration in 2005 of Pope Benedict XVI. One was the resurrection in 2008 of the Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Another was the restoration to the church in 2009 of four excommunicated traditionalist rebels, including the Holocaust-denying theologian Richard Williamson.
Benedict’s conservatism should surprise no one. Previously known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was a leading church conservative who served for 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition. One of his major writings, Dominus Iesus (“Lord Jesus”), issued in 2000, foreshadowed the new “Note on Ambiguities” in declaring the Catholic Church the only path to salvation. It also urged Catholics to “witness” that doctrine in every interaction, including interfaith dialogue.
Even before Benedict, however, there was John Paul II. He is remembered as the greatest friend the Jews ever had in the Vatican, but he is also remembered as a crusading conservative who ruled for 27 years and appointed an entire generation of fellow conservatives as bishops. He named Ratzinger head of doctrine and made Dulles a cardinal. Years before his death, Catholic liberals were warning that John Paul’s conservatism would someday undermine his philosemitism. That prediction may be coming true before our eyes.
As the Orthodox leaders wrote in their June letter, it’s “not our business to tell Christians what to believe about their own religion.” At the same time, we’d rather they not tell us what to believe.
Contact J.J. Goldberg at goldberg@forward.com and read his blog at blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg
Re: "As the Orthodox leaders wrote in their June letter, it’s “not our business to tell Christians what to believe about their own religion.” At the same time, we’d rather they not tell us what to believe."
It has long been an unfortunate part of much of Christian (and Muslim) teaching that they should tell others what to believe, especially Jews in the West but also Asians, Africans and Native Americans. Throughout history this has resulted in pogroms, inquisitions and genocide in many forms.
You are reading too much into this. Respectful dialogue and collaboration can and should always take place. With the growing threat to all mankind with radical Islam and atheistic secularism, the Christian and Jewish communities need to remain close under the one God. As a Catholic, I take no offense whatsoever that the Jewish people do not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Neither should the Jewish people I believe take offense to our belief that salvation only comes through Christ. We are not trying to convert anyone, only proclaim our faith.
Why is it that some Jews can say whatever they want, and demand an apology when others speak their minds? I think certain Jewish radicals are destroying the diologue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. Perhaps the idea of diologue was and is a mistake. Salvation is from the Jews!!! Through Our Lord, King of the Jews, Jesus the Christ.
The whole dialogue with the Catholic Church is based on a misunderstanding. "Catholic" is not parallel to "Jewish". Catholics are the believers of a particular religion, Catholicism. The Jews are an ancient people. Now, this peoplehood has its own religious tradition, Judaism, but being Jewish is NOT merely a religious experience. The Jews are one of the peoples of the world, with their own history and their own sociology. Religion is just a part of our agenda. The dialogue with the Church is a dialogue with those for whom the agenda is only religion. Hence, the Catholics raise the issue of salvation, obviously. I have never had a conversation in my sixty years with any Jew about salvation. It's not a topic on our agenda. Just read the Forward, a Jewish newspaper. Is the Forward busy with the Jewish religion (for example, with the coming of the messiah or with the nature of God's plan for mankind)? Of course not. The agenda is social, political and historical; i.e. this is an agenda of a peoplehood society. It's nice to have dialogue, but dialogue only has meaning when it takes place between two parallel entities.
Before time began, before anything was made at all there was G-d, the first of all beings both in quality and in 'time'. All things that exist, be they animate or inanimate, are contingent upon His will. He made man and did so in Love. So he made all of us. Christian theology says that we are all His children. In this we agree. Did not G-d love the Egyptians who drowned? Of course he did. The Bishop is not a Jew hater. It is a convenient parody to say so. Why do we always take dramatic offence because of someone's opinions (right or wrong, ignorant or learned) and why do we always call divergent opinion or criticism 'antisemitic'. The Bishop is only teaching what the real catholic church has always taught. Does anyone think he is ready to whip up a pogrom or send Jews to a camp, or what? Not, if we are serious, do we believe this. His Church's theology believe above all that when all things pass away there will abide Faith, Hope and Love. It also believes that the greatest of these is Love, and for all God's children. Jews are to be an example and a light to the Goyim. That is our duty. Do we do our duty when we whinge? No. We debate and we echange views and we tell the TRUTH...there can be no dialogue where there is an absence of truth. Telling each other less than the truth is like saying "Never mind the quality, feel the width"
Before time began, before anything was made at all there was G-d, the first of all beings both in quality and in 'time'. All things that exist, be they animate or inanimate, are contingent upon His will. He made man and did so in Love. So he made all of us. Christian theology says that we are all His children. In this we agree. Did not G-d love the Egyptians who drowned? Of course he did. The Bishop is not a Jew hater. It is a convenient parody to say so. Why do we always take dramatic offence because of someone's opinions (right or wrong, ignorant or learned) and why do we always call divergent opinion or criticism 'antisemitic'. The Bishop is only teaching what the real catholic church has always taught. Does anyone think he is ready to whip up a pogrom or send Jews to a camp, or what? Not, if we are serious, do we believe this. His Church's theology believe above all that when all things pass away there will abide Faith, Hope and Love. It also believes that the greatest of these is Love, and for all God's children. Jews are to be an example and a light to the Goyim. That is our duty. Do we do our duty when we whinge? No. We debate and we echange views and we tell the TRUTH...there can be no dialogue where there is an absence of truth. Telling each other less than the truth is like saying "Never mind the quality, feel the width"
There is a bit of irony in complaining about how Catholics believe in converting others to their faith. Isn't seeking to influence how they believe itself a form of trying to convert them, at least to that degree? Of course. No, let Catholics believe as they wish, and Jews as they wish, and let both seek to convert the other to their beliefs and views. Anything else would be disingenuous. Both believe they possess truth, that imposes a moral obligation on each to try to convert the other to that truth. But let it be done in the mutually recognized truths of nonviolence, mutual respect and love for our fellow human beings.
Let history speak the truth! Read the book, The Anguish of the Jews - Twenty-Three Centuries of anti-Semitism by Father Edward H. Flannery. Every Jew and every Catholic cleric should be made to read this bloody record. Most of the time, most of the persecution and most of the killing of Jews was done by the Catholic church in Europe. Father Flannery who presents a meticulous record estimates that the church caused the death of some 7-10 million Jews over the centuries. The Church abortion of Jews also aborted all of their descendants which limited the Jewish population and made them more vulnerable to the Holocaust. Pope Pious XII after WWII lived on until 1953 and made sure to help many Nazi killers to escape justice by using churches in various countries as a kind of rat line to smuggle these Jew killers to safety. He is now to be made a saint which tells us what the church is really made of. And these hard line clerics have the bloody nerve to lecture Jews about Jesus and religion. And some of these fanatical clerics wonder why Jews do not smile and embrace their kind offer of 'salvation'. If Jesus were here he would curse the church into hell for the wanton slaughter of his Jewish brothers and sisters and their failure to honestly repent.
What dialogue? Waste of donors' money. Orthodoxs never stop to add the Pope's title "yimmach shemo vezikhro"
I am Jewish and I can think whatever I want and speak my mind on whatever I want about Christianity and I can tell anyone anything I want to and about Christianity. I can say that Christianity is fiction and that the New Testament is a complete fabrication, that Jesus is a fictional myth who never existed. Maybe Rabbis who for some pathetic reason swallow all this Christian historical nonsense and these platitudes and swill concerning relations with Christianity can finally apply their considerable minds to the scholarship of the past three hundred years that show Christianity to be one big lie. Rabbis listen up, and repeat after me, "JESUS NEVER EXISTED" "THE NEW TESTAMENT IS FICTION", there are thousands of examples in hundreds of books, start with Dennis MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark.
JMK, You are Jewish and you can think whatever you want and speak your mind on whatever you want about Christianity and you can tell anyone anything you want to about Christianity. It doesn't mean that you are right nor does that make you right, if simple logic were to be the basis of the soundness of your argument. No meaningful dialogue will exist if the mindset of people with whom you wish have a serious discussion is set on shunning every idea that sounds contrary to whatever belief system they may have. It's a two-way street. You show me yours; I'll show you mine, but don't get upset if what I have to show/tell you may not be something that may not be appealing to you. The goal is supposed to be to reach an understanding of each other. How can an understanding be reached if I cannot present to you the truth about what I believe in? I don't think the Catholic Church, when it presents to the Jewish people its teachings, is trying to shove its belief system to the Jewish people. It is merely presenting to the Jewish people its teachings. Take it or leave it. No need to be defensive about it. Just take it for what it is --- the Catholic teaching , period! Then try to understand why they believe that. Do you need to accept it? Of course not! Can anybody force you to believe what they believe? Or course not! Going back to the dialogue, I believe that the Church or any party to any dialogue should be able to presnt what they truly believe; and so should the Jewish people. It's all a matter of each party trying to present what each perceives to be the truth and why; and for the other party to do the same when their turn comes. Both will have to be able to FREELY present their side on the table, with the other side trying to listen and understand what the other has to say. It works both ways. Do they have to accept what each one has to say? They need only accept that that is what the other believes and there is no need to embrace such belief if an agreement is not met. But going back to JMK and the book that he/she wants the rabbis to read. I haven't read the book myself; but I get the feeling it's one of those books with questionable sources. When reading books, always check the sources --- the bias and prejudices of the sources. Does it have a sound historical foundation or is it one with "selective" historical basis? Will it stand "historical scrutiny?"
To NB: When the Catholic Church presents its point of view in a "friedly manner" to Jews does it also include the following?
1. The disputations of the Middle Ages where Rabbis were forced to debate Catholic clerics under conditions hostile to Jews. 2. The Spanish Inquisition "never happened" where Jews had to chose between conversion and expulsion or worse. 3. The church "never tortured" Jews and others who did not "believe". 4. Non believers were "never" burned at the stake. 5. The church "never' taught that Jews deserved to suffer because they rejected Jesus. These are just a few examples of the "love and compassion" of the Catholic church which seems to magically disappear when Catholics try to convert Jews. The late John Cardinal O'Conner, beloved and respected by both Jews and Christians said it best. He advised Catholics to be good Catholics and Jews to be good Jews. And to that I say amen.
Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long exercised his influence within the State Department to prevent the U.S. from becoming a place of refuge for European Jews. Long's xenophobia influenced practically every move he made during the war: He led the State Department action to deny visas to political and intellectual refugees. He pushed for decreased immigration quotas. And he suggested Bermuda as the site for the refugee conference because of its inaccessibility. Individuals from a range of professional backgrounds attended the ill-fated Bermuda Conference on refugees in April 1943. Standing (from left to right) are George Hall, the British parliamentary undersecretary in the Admiralty; Harold W. Dodds, president of Princeton University; Richard K. Law, British undersecretary for foreign affairs; Sol Bloom, chairman of the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Osbert Peake, parliamentary undersecretary in the home office.
NB, My right is to critically analyze and read books by authors who critically analyze christianity and the christian bible not to listen and accept propaganda of the sworn enemies of the Jewish people and religion. The christian bible has 450 anti-semitic pericopes in only 250 pages approx. The christian bible has thousands of textual problems that lead to understand its fictional fabrication. It's development in the near east and mediterranean basin is based upon the very same ideas of its milieu. Archeological finds and linguistic understandings have opened up new vistas toward understanding christianity's fictional basis. Some of the problems with hundreds if not thousands of supportive examples are the synoptic problem, the new testament use of the old testament and specifically the use of the septuagint, the christian use of jewish inter-testamental literature, differences in greek texts, linguistic malformations, lack of familiarity of geography and jewish religious beliefs and practices and hebrew, its many anachronisms, its memesis and plagairisms of greek, egyptian roman etc. literature, religions, philosophies for its philosophical and dogmatic elements but also for its gospel's narrative, the discoveries of nag hammadi and other sites reveal the variety of the christian experiences placing orthodox christianity as one heresy among many of its forms. All of it based upon the very fictional pastiche called the hebrew bible that has its own problems. Christianity is a pagan religion. Christianity is a religion not different from a moloch cult, it sacrifices to appease to its "god" with its "enemies" at the stake, at the gas chambers, the thousands of pits filled with jewish bones scattered across europe, and the same with indians across the americas. Read Homer, Virgil, Socrates, Philo, Plato, etc if you do, you will be reading the fictional story of christianity and where not only its ideas come from but its actual narrative.
As a Jew, I'm no expert on the Catholic Church, but I can share some personal observations. I know many Catholics, and from my observations, there seems to be a wide gulf between what the church preaches and what these Catholics actually believe and do. Many of the Catholics I know seldom go to church and seldom if ever go to confession. They ignore church teachings on artificial birth control. Many of them would like to see married clergy and women priests. I've never discussed the subject, but I suspect that many (or most?) Catholics really don't believe in transubstantiation. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this last point.
Furthermore, there is a lot of concern among the conservative leadership of the Catholic Church about American nuns.
Yes, I am concerned about this new church statement. It has the potential to cause a lot of harm. However, I think we should fight it by keeping up with friendly pressure on the church while trying to maintain friendly relations with Catholics on the local level. In truth, I think this new statement was really directed at the multitudes of Catholics in-name-only as a (clumsy) way to bring them back to the church. In America at least, I just don't think it's going to be very successful.
Bert-Everything you mentioned were merely attributes of the deep love of Christ's true Catholic Church to move the Jewish people out of darkness into the bosom of Yeshua and His Communion. Pax Christi!
The great success of the RC Church lies in the fact that there is such an indescribable gap between the ''congretation' and the middle and upper management of the hierarchy. Indeed, the secular faithful approximate the intellectual status and significance of a mental slave. While the faithful imagines that it is at one -- in one 'mystical body of Christ' -- , it nowhere comes near the management levels. Not only does the Parish Priest live behind big walls, while the Bishops live in palaces (and no one knows where the Cardinals live), but the Parish Priest must necessarily appear as the leader -- to accomodate which all the faithful, no matter how gifted, must pretend to be of the dumbest quality.
There is an elemental space between the cleric and everyone and everything secular -- a space which cannot be transcended. Indeed, the great psychological genius of the Church is to take by Cuckoo stealth the entire offspring of the faithful and somehow internalise the necessity in each of them to protect their priests and 'their' church. If anything befalls the Church, every Catholic feels automatically responsible for its misfortune.
When an incredulous Irish public eventually came to believe that in some cases their clergy were liars , cheats and out and out pedophiles, they nevertheless managed to fork up the wherewithal for the damages they incurred in buggering their children. One doesn't get dumber than that. Or, alternatively, no oranisation on earth can internalise such loyalty in its members as the RCC.
When it comes, therefore, to the business of 'thinking', the Catholic leaves the entire process to his priests. Indeed, the politicians call it 'ethical committees'; but they also leave the entire busines of governement to the unelected members of their revered Roman religion.
The talent to brain-wash people is extraordinary; but the power of the RC Chruch to do it at such a distance and to do it so constantly and for at least a reich and a half is beyond the comprehension of most people. And the game goes on....
Seamus Breathnach
www.irish-criminology.com
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