When 2,200 bishops from around the world overwhelmingly adopted the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in October 1965, they transformed a relationship of animus and suspicion that had existed for centuries between the Roman Catholic Church and its Jewish forebears. Jews were no longer considered the killers of Jesus Christ. Catholics were no longer required to pray for Jewish conversion. The mighty Vatican condemned religious persecution and hatred, and called for “mutual respect and knowledge” between Catholics and Jews.
Even if it took years more for the historic fear and skepticism between Catholics and Jews to subside, Vatican II was a watershed moment. It was a powerful prelude to a growing dialogue that has continued for more than half a century. Two generations of Jews and Catholics have grown up being formally taught a different way of regarding one another. Acts of antisemitism no longer find justification in church teachings. It would be only a matter of time before a pope knelt in prayer at Auschwitz and left a personal message amid the ancient stones of the Western Wall.
Now this relationship of comfort and trust has been thrown in disarray by Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to revoke the excommunications of four schismatic bishops, including one who has denied the Holocaust. The four are members of the Society of St. Pius X, which rejected the Vatican II reforms and has, since its formation in 1970, been a sharp thorn in the side of a church that, especially under the current pope, values unanimity and cohesion. Jewish leaders, and many Catholics, have rightly decried the pope’s action, warning that the very future of Jewish-Catholic relations is at stake.
It’s not hyperbole, but the reasons run deeper than just this papal decree. In a prescient posting on his blog a week before Benedict’s bombshell was announced, the respected Catholic writer John L. Allen Jr. predicted that several historical forces are straining the relationship between Jews and the church: the reassertion of traditional Catholic beliefs and practices; a generational shift away from leaders for whom the living memory of the Holocaust is a powerful motivating force; a demographic shift in Catholicism away from areas like Europe, with its deeply rooted Jewish population, to places where Islam, Hinduism and Pentecostal Christianity are more important.
“In the Catholicism of the future,” Allen wrote, “Judaism will no longer be the paradigmatic religious ‘other,’ but rather one relationship among many, and in some respects not the highest priority.”
This didn’t happen overnight, and Benedict’s latest move was preceded by other discouraging ones that understandably leave Jews worried that the painstaking work of reconciliation is unraveling. This pope may, indeed, love his Jewish brethren, but he obviously doesn’t — or doesn’t want to — understand how deeply offensive it is to welcome into the church community a bishop who unabashedly denies the truth of Jewish suffering. As Father John Pawlikowski, director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at the University of Chicago, told us, “This should not only anger Jews but all Christians and all people who have respect for human decency.”
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The Editorial, like the accompanying news article, is thoughtful and mostly well-written. I think it is inappropriate, however, for a Jewish newspaper editorial to use the term "Jesus Christ," as you do in the sentence "Jews were no longer considered the killers of Jesus Christ." "Christ" is not the last name of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, it is the title bestowed by Christians to the person they believe is the messiah. Perhaps it would have been better to write that "Jews were no longer considered the killers of Jesus, believed by Christians to be the Christ, or messiah." Or something along those lines. I see and hear the name "Jesus Christ" in the mainstream (non-Jewish) media often. I did not expect it in the Forward.
My understanding is that we Jews are again labeled perfidious, i.e. deceitful and treacherous, in the Latin liturgy for Good Friday reinstated by Pope Benedict XV. Again my understanding is that it's done in the context of asking for our conversion, which means it applies to all of us and not just some bad apples. That doesn't sound like extending the hand of friendship and mutual understanding to me. I hope I am wrong on this. Maybe one of the Catholic commentators like Dale Price can set the matter straight.
I think it rather strange that you could write so extensive an article on the Catholic Church and Jews without mentioning the many problems the Catholic Church is encountering with Israel's policies in the Holy Land, from taxing church property to the suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation in the West Bank and terror in Gaza. Every action,as the cliche goes, has a reaction, however remote the association seems.
"The mighty Vatican condemned religious persecution and hatred, and called for “mutual respect and knowledge” between Catholics and Jews." and they are waiting for "The mighty Israel" to show the same "respect" towards Palestinians.
A fair editorial, but, despite its protestations to the contrary, I think it does boil over into hyperbole. First, all the Pope has done is rescind the excommunication order for the four bishops. Neither they nor their followers have been reconciled to the Catholic Church. More to the point, the decision relates to their consecration as bishops back in 1988--it has nothing to do with or say about their behaviors or commentary since. Second, and the appalling Holocaust-denier Williamson has been unequivocally condemned by the head of the SSPX and its German branch for his comments on the Holocaust: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2009/01/superior-general-of-sspx-bishop.html [The link to the statement in German is there.] Yes, it is long, long overdue, and I have no doubt that it was the result of pressure, but there it is. Also, the fact that it finally came should be a sign of hope should the SSPX be reconciled. Third, should that reconciliation come, the SSPX will have to embrace Nostra Aetate and the discipline of the Church, which will purify it of the Williamson mentalities which are admittedly present within the SSPX. Leaving them outside the Church will permit them to roll about the deck like the proverbial loose cannon. That is a grim problem especially when you consider that in France more people attend SSPX Masses every Sunday than attend Masses in communion with the Church. Finally, the hyperbole about “traditional Catholic practices” straining Catholic-Jewish relations is a bit disturbing to me as a tradition-minded Catholic. John Allen also correctly noted that in this context that “the vast majority of ordinary Catholics attracted to the Latin Mass, or who harbor reservations about doctrinal innovations in the church, are neither bigots nor crackpots.” To hint otherwise does the editorial no credit and itself contributes to a climate of suspicion and distrust. We need to sit down, take a deep breath and talk to each other, and not just through the preferred media of familiar, good-hearted figures like Fr. Pawlikowski, who while they constitute established figures of dialogue, do not represent the Church as a whole, nor are they necessarily expert in nor familiar with all of the issues involved. This isn’t the Apocalypse, nor even an apocalypse, in Catholic-Jewish relations. Let us reason together.
Dear Uri: That prayer was replaced in early 2008 with a revised one that fortunately removes the "perfidious" reference. Here's a link to the new prayer-- http://catholicism.about.com/od/worship/a/Revised_Prayer.htm Here's how it reads now: "Let us also pray for the Jews: that our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Your Church, all Israel may be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen." I'm sure it's still not--can't be, really--entirely satisfactory from a Jewish perspective, but I imagine it's still nowhere near as offensive as the old one.
After all what did you expect from a Austrian/German...
Mutual respect? How can we as Jews respect the unclean? Really, spare us the lecture, bottom line is, "Is it good for us Jews"? No.... That is always our main concern.
You talk about the truth of "Jewish suffering." What about the very present truth about "Palestinian suffering" (at the hands of Jews)?
As a newborned christian I stand in disbelief for the pope's actions. Any good Christian with knowledge of the bible know that the Jews was are the people that God himself chose.
Maybe Pope Benedict is a Hitler Youth after all.
As a Hebrew-Catholic, I would like to come to the defense of the Holy Father. Pope Benedict wishes the best for the Jewish people and shares the hope, as I do as well, that they will find the fulfillment of their Judaism in Christ's true Apostolic and Holy Catholic Church.
Canisius I couldn't have said it better. I admire the Holy Father for the very reason that he is committed to getting the work of the Church done. The job of the Church, to quote from the theme of last year's World Youth Day in Australia, is to "receive the power from the Holy Spirit!" Today let the Spirit move, let sinners come to faith, and let the evangel call of the one true Holy Catholic Church be heard!
I think it is time for the Jewish community along with many Catholics to understand, the Church did not start at Vatican II. As someone born in 1967, I have seen what the "springtime of Vatican II" did to the Church. Horrible and criminal sex scandals, the destruction of the Liturgy, weak clerics who do not have the courage to preach to the masses the moral teaching and precepts of the Church, the wholesale closing of parishes and schools, decline in vocations, 45 percent drop in Mass attendance. The CHurch must be concerned with its own flock and the Jewish community should stop trying to interfere with the work that must be done.
Christians warned me to study Hebrew, arabs kept quite, and the ones in Chinese government who hate me to death encourage me to study hebrew. When I study Hebrew abd read the Bible in Hebrew, I felt very bad and it seems that energy run out of me. What happened?
As a Catholic, I am troubled that praying for the conversion of Jews is seen as a negative act. If you believe, as Catholic's do, that Jesus was the Christ, and that His coming was missed by some of the Chosen People, asking God to intercede that all might come to the full truth is a positive act. I think it most challenges those who are merely cultural Jews, as does Christ's message to those who are merely cultural Christians.
Quite frankly, I am tired of other religions telling the Catholic Church how to operate. Clean your own house and leave ours the hell alone.
Quite frankly, I am tired of other religions telling the Catholic Church how to operate. Clean your own house and leave ours the hell alone.