THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

Surprisingly nothing at all - at least none I have seen - in the Anglophone media so far about this new controversy generated by a fairly new writing by Benedict XVI, despite the fact that the parties
declaring themselves principally offended are the Jews...

Benedict XVI criticized for a new article
on the Jewish-Christian dialog
by Matteo Orlando
Translated from
ILGIORNALE
August 14, 2018

A number of Germanophone rabbis and Christian theologians have harshly criticized Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI for his article on the Jewish-Christian dialog published in the current issue of the German edition of Communio, the international theological journal of which Joseph Ratzinger was a co-founder back in 1972 along with fellow theologians Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac.

The 20-page article was written as a tool for theological instruction and appears in the July-August 2018 issue of Communio but is dated October 26, 2017, and signed by Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.

It had been written originally as his reflection on the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II declaration on the relationship of the Church with the non-Christian religions, requested by Cardinal Kurt Koch and intended to be a theological instruction tool for internal use in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and its auxiliary Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, both of which Koch heads.

The cardinal subsequently asked the Emeritus Pope’s permission to publish it in Communio under the title "Gnade und berufung ohne reue" (Mercy and vocation without regrets) [taking off from Romans 11,29 which says “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable”]. Its subtitle "Anmerkungen zum Traktat De Iudaeis" (Comments on the passage De Iudaeis) promptly generated controversy.
- Rabbi Walter Homolka, rector of the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, accused Benedict XVI of encouraging “a new anti-Semitism on a Christian basis” in an interview he gave th the German weekly paper Die Zeit.
- The Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Arie Folger, told the Jüdische Allgemeine, Germany’s largest Jewish newspaper, that it was ‘problematic’ for the former pope to “insist on a Christological impostation of the Old Testament”.
- Michael Bohnke, professor of systematic theology at the University of Wuppertal, commented that “After Auschwitz, I never expected to read any such thing from a German theologian”.

But what exactly did the gentle Emeritus Pope write that has caused such extreme reactions?

Cardinal Koch wrote in his introduction of the article: “After having examined it with great attention… I have come to the conclusion that these theological reflections should be introduced in any future dialog between the Church and the Jews”.

Jan-Heiner Tück, editor of the German edition of Communio, said that the text was ‘remarkable for various reasons’, telling Kathpress in an interview that “Pope Francis has a second voice beside him, so to speak,” when he speaks of Jewish-Christian relations, as in Evangelii gaudium and on other occasions. [???? None of which, to my knowledge, ever raised any comments, much less objections, from the Jews!] Tück added that the article provides “explosive food for thought” and must be confronted ‘benevolently’.

The emeritus Pope is concerned primarily about two questions: the theory of substitution, and the expression “never-revoked Covenant”.

“Both theses – that Israel has not been replaced by the Church, and that the Old Covenant was never revoked – are fundamentally correct, but they are imprecise in many aspects and must ultimately be examined critically”, he wrote.

On November 17, 1980, in Mainz, Germany, Pope John Paul II had affirmed that the Old Covenant had never been revoked and still remains valid.

In this article, Benedict XVI says that it is not God who rescinds an alliance with him, but the people who violate their alliance with God. The re-institution of the Covenant on Sinai “in the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ, in his love which overcomes death, confirms on the Alliance a new form that is valid for always”.

This statement would seem to be a return to the Catholic view that was oriented towards the conversion of non-Christians to Christianity. “The entire relationship between God and his people finds its sum and final form in the Last Supper of Jesus Christ, which anticipated and contained the Cross and the Resurrection”, Benedict XVI writes.

For him, it seems that no ’substitution’ really takes place but rather ‘a journey’ that leads to “one single reality, with the necessary disappearance of sacrificing animals” as practiced in the Old Testament¸”replaced instead by the Eucharist”.

Benedict XVI also reflects on the differences between the Jewish and Christian understanding of the Messiah and on the foundation of Israel as a modern nation state. He sees the latter as a consequence of the Shoah (Holocaust) and a purely political event which has no theological significance and does not form part of the story of Redemption.

The Catholic Church, he says, disagreed with the Zionist project of a ‘theologically founded Jewish settlement” in the sense of a ‘new political messianism” and of ‘a confessional Jewish state’ that considers itself as the fulfillment of divine promises.

His final ‘dig’ appears to be in recalling verses 12-13 from Chapter 2 of the Letter to Timothy, according to which St Paul says, “If we persevere (with Christ), we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself."

Benedict XVI sees the question of Jesus as the Messiah is ‘the true problem between Jews and Christians’. In Jesus Christ and in his blood (the Eucharist), he says the people of Sinai were transformed to a new and eternal Covenant – which he links to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem less than four decades after the Crucifixion (73 A.D.)

He thinks that the formulation “a Covenant that was never cancelled” was useful in the past, but is not adapted for the long term “to express the grandeur of reality in a reasonably adequate way”.

The Orthodox Rabbinical Conference of Germany sent an open letter to Cardinal Koch on August 2 to ask “whether the Catholic Church is able to appreciate contemporary Judaism” and “how this appreciation is theologically expressed”.

On the other hand, the International Conference of Confessional Communities welcomed Benedict VI’s words ‘with great gratitude’ as an ‘encouraging clarification’ that is significant for Protestant Christians even as they have been ‘falsely depicted in the media as anti-Jewish”.


Marco Tosatti reported on it on his blog:

Christians, Jews and the Covenant with God
Translated from

August 14, 2018

A theological reflection – in the form of an essay – by Benedict XVI has stirred up the always-sensitive relationship between Christians and Jews.

The subject of the discussion, even of polemics, is a 20-page text that Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Church official responsible for dialog with the Christians’ ‘older brothers’, had requested the Emeritus Pope to write. It was to have been for the internal use of Koch’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, but Koch asked Benedict XVI if he could have it published in the German edition of the theological journal Communio
https://www.communio.de/pdf/vorabveroeffentlichung/Communio-Benedikt_XVI-2018.pdf
– and there, the problems began.

In the essay, Benedict XVI says that reflection on some aspects of what has become the mainstream attitude of the Church towards Judaism – namely, salvation and the need (or non-need) for conversion to Christianity in order to be saved.

“Both theses”, he writes, “namely, that Israel has not been replaced by the Church, and that the Old Alliance was never revoked – sre substantially correct, but are imprecise in many aspects and should ultimately be examined critically”.

On November 17, 1980, John Paul II affirmed in Mainz, Germany, that the Old Covenant had never been revoked and still remains valid. It was deduced from this statement that the Jewish people and their religion, in the various forms in which it is practised, is still in full accord with God. Subsequently, these affirmations were included in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 121).

In his new essay, Benedict XVI states that “this is, in a certain sense, part of the present teaching [Lehrgestalt] of the Catholic Church”.

But he seeks to show that it is never God who rescinds a covenant with his people, but rather the people of God, mankind, who often violate and break up their covenant with God. In this context, he cites St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews in which Paul mentions all the preceding covenants in the Old Testament, “all of which he refers to collectively with the key word ‘first covenant’ which has now been replaced by the New Covenant".

“In effect,” Benedict XVI writes, “part of the true story of God’s relationship with the people of Israel is the rupture of that covenant on the part of man, the first part of which is described in the Book of Exodus”.

The problematic statement – and one of the problems with current Churchh reading of the Jewish situation - comes when Benedict XVI underscores that the New Covenant is ‘valid for always’ because it was formed in the Blood of Christ.

“The re-institution of the Covenant of Sinai in the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus – which is to say, in his love which overcomes death – confirms a new form on the Covenant which is valid for always”.

One would logically deduce from this statement that the Old Covenant was transformed into the New Covenant, which is valid for always because it derives from the Blood of Christ himself. Some observes think this represents a return to the traditional Catholic views on Judaism.

But after Vatican II and its declaration Nostra aetate, on the Church’s relations with non-Christian religions, there was no more talk of ‘converting’ the Jews – an always thorny question in the light of preceding centuries – and ‘fraternal dialog’ with the Jews was encouraged. Effectively, this meant abandoning the very idea of Christian mission among the Jews since apparently, the Jews have their own way to salvation.

In 2015, on the 50th anniversary of Nostra aetate, the Vatican stated: “In concrete terms, this means that the Catholic Church does not undertake nor support any work of specific institutional mission with regard to the Jews”.

But Benedict XVI writes: “God’s entire relationship with his people finally finds it sum and final form in the Last Supper of Jesus Christ, which anticipates and contains both the Cross and the Resurrection”.

And referring to Jeremiah 31 which prefigures the New Covenant in the Old testament, Benedict XVI explains: “The Covenant on Sinai, was essentially always a promise, an approach towards the definitive and conclusive covenant. After all the destructions, it is God’s love which leads to the death of his Son, which is, in itself, the New Covenant”.

He attempts to redirect the discussion on the theory of substation as follows: "Therefore, in effect, there is really no ‘substitution’ but ‘a journey’ which finally leads to one single reality, with the necessary disappearance of the sacrifice of animals (as in the Old Covenant), which has been replaced by the sacrifice of the Eucharist”.

He also recalls that the Church was never in agreement with the Zionist project of a “theologically founded [Jewish] settlement [Landnahme] in the sense of a new political messianism”. And while politically recognizing the state of Israel as such, the Vatican rejected the idea of a ‘theologically founded state, of a confessional Jewish state” which sees itself as the fulfillment of divine promises.

The last sensitive point of the essay has to do with the theological linking between the rupture of the Old Covenant, the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 73 AD, and the dispersion of the Jewish people in the Diaspora: “But part of the story of covenants between God and man is human failing, man’s violation of the covenant and its internal consequences: the destruction of the Temple, the dispersion of the Jews, the call to penitence which enables and prepares man for the new Covenant. God’s love cannot simply ignore man’s NO”.

Finally, Benedict XVI proposes a passage from the Second Letter to Timothy as relevant to this discussion: “If we persevere (with Christ), we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself."

I have only skimmed the 20-page text in German, and I have no idea how soon I can translate it (unless someone else comes up with a translation). I can only say he must feel very strongly about this to end up writing a 20-page reflection in October 2017 (six months after he turned 90) about how he has reconsidered certain 'stipulations' in Nostra Aetate as imprecise and requiring critical examination... I wish he would carry on this intellectual exercise to re-examine other dubious or ambiguous propositions of Vatican II.