ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

I take exception to the title and premise of this article - it may make for a clever headline, but I think it is trying to inflate something which has drawn adverse reaction so far only from the usual suspects - the Chief Rabbi of Rome and the ADL - who make it their life's mission to see anything that the Church says about the Jews as an affront and an attack.

Allen, however, also cites some Catholics involved in Jewish-Catholic dialog, who appear to have the equivalent of a Stockholm syndrome in taking the side of Jewish militants even when they are being illogical as they are in this case. (This 'Stockholm syndrome' effect is familiar from some Catholics involved in Muslim-Catholic relations.)

But to say that such voices within the Church are putting the Jews in the crossfire of intramural tensions is also an exaggeration. .



New rows deepen old ruts
in Catholic-Jewish relations;
Jews sometimes caught in crossfire
of intramural Catholic tensions

Jun. 23, 2009


Rip Van Winkle famously went to sleep for twenty years and missed the American Revolution. Had he been a modern expert in Catholic-Jewish relations, however, Van Winkle could have awoken from two decades of slumber this week and felt right at home, as long-standing tensions over both Pope Pius XII and the conversion of Jews once again roiled the inter-faith waters.

Taken together, these episodes suggest that for all the progress in Catholic-Jewish ties over the last half-century, the relationship is nonetheless stuck in a couple of ruts that just seem to get deeper over time.

Current events also illustrate another point: Sometimes matters that look like divisions between Jews and Catholics are fueled at least as much by intramural Catholic tensions, with Jews sometimes caught in the crossfire.

The contretemps over Pius XII, the wartime Pope whose alleged "silence" on the Holocaust has long been a source of controversy, began with a mid-June conference in Rome sponsored by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (better known by its old Latin name, "Propaganda Fide").

During that event, Fr. Peter Gumpel, a German Jesuit and longtime postulator for the sainthood cause of Pius XII, asserted that Pope Benedict XVI has gone slow in declaring Pius a saint because "representatives of Jewish organizations" have warned him that "relations between the Catholic church and the Jewish would be definitively and permanently compromised."

Though Gumpel did not elaborate, he may have had in mind a meeting last October between Benedict XVI and the International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations, as well as an audience the pope held with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in February.

In both cases, Jewish leaders told reporters they had pressed the Pope to open up the Vatican archives from the era of Pius XII in order to resolve unanswered historical questions.

Gumpel's suggestion that Jewish concern is to blame brought a swift rebuke from the Vatican. Italian Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the papal spokesperson, said Benedict should be left "completely free" to make his own decision, without "unjustified and inopportune" commentary.

"If the Pope thinks that the study and the reflection on the cause of Pius XII should be prolonged further, his position should be respected without interference," Lombardi said.

Several Jewish leaders rejected the implication that the hold-up is their fault, saying it's not just Jews who have raised doubts. Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo De Segni, said that debate over Pius XII "is first of all an internal problem of the Church. It is clearly a complex matter that divides the Church itself."

{Rabbi Di Segni is so quick to read negative signs in anything that has to do with the Church. Is the Church divided about Pius XII? I don't think so.

Fr. Gumpel's statement cannot be taken as a 'division within the Church'. He is a single voice speaking as Pius XII's postulator, who obviously has to learn that postulators need to cultivate the virtue of prudence as to what they say in public - arguments directed at the general public can only be seen nas attempts to pressure the Vatican, no matter how they are put - as well as patience. I doubt that Pius XII himself appreciates the imprudent impatience with which Fr. Gumpel has taken lately to advocating his cause for sainthood!

As for whether there are anti-Pius XII voices within the Church, maybe some of the usually militant liberal dissenters within the Church continue to share the revisionist Jewish mindset against Pius XII - as many of them did soon after Rolf Hochhuth's Soviet-instigated propaganda play sparked that revisionism - but they have not been heard from lately.]

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican body charged with overseeing the sainthood process, voted in favor of a "decree of heroic virtue" for Pius XII on May 8, 2007. That decree would mark the first formal step toward sainthood, permitting the late Pontiff to be referred to as "Venerable Pius XII."

The decree, however, is not official until signed by the Pope, which Benedict XVI has not yet done.

To some extent, observers say, Benedict XVI may be caught between a rock and a hard place on Pius XII.

He's publicly come to the defense of his predecessor, arguing last September that the wartime pontiff had "spared no effort" to save Jewish lives. Yet Benedict XVI has also expressed a desire for improved Catholic-Jewish ties, most recently during his mid-May trip to Israel, and is particularly aware of Jewish sensitivities in the wake of the controversy surrounding his rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop.

As a result, most observers say it's hard to say when, or if, Benedict might decide the time is ripe to restart the process.


Conversion and covenants
While the Pius XII controversy was simmering in Rome, the conversion issue surfaced on the other side of the Atlantic, in the form of a new statement from the U.S. bishops asserting that the Jewish covenant is fulfilled in Christ, and that no one, Jews included, is exempt from the invitation to conversion, baptism, and membership in the church.

The bishops made those statements in a joint June 18 note from the Committee on Doctrine and the Committee on Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Affairs, styled as a clarification of a 2002 text called "Covenant and Mission."

While no one believes the June 18 note signals a coordinated campaign to convert Jews on the part of the U.S. bishops, some critics say that it could green-light informal and ad hoc missionary efforts.

[If any such missionary work is undertaken, it would have to be on a one-on-one interpersonal level. The Church has enough practical problems in the Holy Land - and trying to safeguard the interests of the tiny flock there - to even think of openly evangelizing Jews within Israel!

Which leaves the half of world Jewry who live outside Israel, mostly found in the United States, where observant Jews, regardless of denomination, are fairly militant in defense and profession of their faith. Not an easy task at all, even on a one-on-one basis.]

Critics also say that the note's language about the Jewish covenant could stoke the idea that Christianity has "superseded" Judaism, which many blame for playing a role in the history of anti-Semitism in Europe that paved the way for the Holocaust.

When it was put together in 2002, "Covenant and Mission" collected the thinking of some leading American experts in Christian-Jewish dialogue, and thus had no authoritative standing for either faith. Yet after it was inadvertently published on the U.S. bishops' web site as an official conference text, it sparked wide Catholic debate, particularly among those who felt it betrayed traditional doctrine on Christ and salvation.

(For example, Fr. John Echert, a commentator on the EWTN web site, wrote that if the document were to gain official approval, he would consider it "one of the signs of the end times, namely, apostasy.")

More influentially, the late Cardinal Avery Dulles penned a widely read critique faulting "Covenant and Mission" for appearing to suggest that there are "two independent covenants," one for Jews and the other for Christians, "running on parallel tracks to the end of history." Until his death in 2008, Dulles continued to press for an official reply to "Covenant and Mission."

Sources told NCR that the Vatican also quietly signaled to the U.S. bishops that they ought to say something publicly about "Covenant and Mission."

The June 18 note states that "Covenant and Mission" was "insufficiently precise and potentially misleading" on several important points. The note states:

•While the Jewish covenant with God is "enduring," that covenant is nonetheless fulfilled in Jesus Christ, "both in history and at the end of time";
•Inter-religious dialogue is not an alternative to the proclamation of Jesus, because even in such dialogue a Christian gives "witness to the following of Christ";
•It's a mistake to believe that Jews are somehow duty-bound not to become Christian, or that the church has an obligation not to baptize Jews.

Fr. James Massa, the top staffer for the U.S. bishops on inter-religious affairs, told NCR that the June 18 note is not intended to shut down "a very fluid area of theological investigation," and that it "absolutely" does not mean the Catholic church intends to target Jews for new missionary efforts.

Instead, he said, the note is largely directed at "Catholic educators, scholars, and theologians," and is intended to defend core articles of the faith about Christ and salvation.

Some Catholic experts, however, charged that the June 18 note appears to contradict earlier Church statements on the Jewish covenant and missionary efforts.

Fr. John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Union, a veteran leader in Catholic-Jewish relations, said he believes the note is inconsistent with statements from Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official for relations with Jews, that hopes for the Jews to one day accept Christ represent a "a strictly eschatological prayer, with no concrete implications for efforts at Jewish conversion" in the here and now – a position, Pawlikowski argued, that Pope Benedict XVI has also seemed to accept.

[I don't see a contradiction at all! Cardinal Kasper is referring to the text of the prayer in the context of how it could possibly offend the Jews.

It certainly does not rule out the inherent duty of every Christian to announce Christ, even to Jews, as the USCCB statement makes clear - and if in the process, some Jews convert, then such converts would be exercising their individual right to freedom of religion.

Cardinal Dulles was still very much alive when Benedict XVI revised the Good Friday prayer, and if he had any major theological objections to it, I believe we would have heard from him.

Moreover, how can any Catholic believe that Benedict XVI, of all people, would make an exception to the universal Christian duty to evangelize non-Christians?

Pawlikowski said that the bishops' note effectively ratifies the more conservative views of Dulles and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, who has argued that the offer of faith in Christ should be made to Jews, albeit in a "unique" and "most sensitive" way. He predicted that the note will cause "confusion" among Jews about what exactly the Catholic Church is trying to say.

From the Jewish side, the Anti-Defamation League issued a June 22 statement objecting to the bishops' note, saying it could be read to imply that inter-faith dialogue is an occasion for inviting Jews to conversion.

[Nonsense! - but that's the usual Pavlov's-dog hardline reflex from the ADL. No Muslim engaged in current inter-religious dialog has ever claimed that! If everyone believed that nonsense, there would never be any inter-religious dialog.]

The ADL charged that such a stance "would foster mistrust between Jews and Catholics and undermine years of work building a positive relationship based on mutual trust and respect of our differences in faith."

Other Jewish leaders, however, suggested that the real tension may not be so much between Jews and Catholics, but among Catholics themselves.

Rabbi Yehiel E. Poupko, Judaic Scholar at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, told NCR that in his view, the June 18 note is part of "a great debate within the Church itself" – a debate that doesn't directly concern Jews because, Poupko said, "No faith community should turn to another and tell them what to believe."

Poupko said Jews are often less concerned with how Catholics articulate their theology than with what they do, and he sees no evidence of new missionary efforts from the Church directed at Jews.

[Perhaps Allen should have researched when there was ever a missionary effort from the Church towards Jews in modern times. I do not know - and I will look it up. In my mind, the only such missionary effort was in the early period of Christianity. What happened in medieval Spain centuries later was hardly evangelization but coercion from the state - which led most Jews to flee the country.]

At the same time, Poupko said, "given the history of the Church's treatment of the Jews over two millennia," he would ask all parties to this intra-Catholic argument to make it clear that no matter who prevails, "it will cause no harm to the Jewish people, to Judaism, or to the State of Israel."

[No matter who prevails about what? And how can the Church set out to 'cause harm' to anyone? Any organized effort to proselytize Jews is almost certainly out of the question. The Church cannot be clearer than it has been after Vatican-II that it has nothing but good will towards Judaism and Jews - as it has for other religions and their followers. The state of Israel is in a different category but John Paul II and Benedict XVI have also been unequivocal about recognizing Israel as a modern sovereign state.

And although they may never have explicitly said so, such recognition also implies recognizing that modern Israel was created for the purpose of establishing the Jews on what was their historical homeland - which it was for millennia, before Islam was ever born.]

The key, Poupko said, is for all sides to exercise "humility and caution."