| | | OFFLINE | | Post: 26.057
Post: 8.548 | Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009 | Administratore | Utente Master | |
|
Vatican spokesman rebuffs Mons. Fellay
for calling Jews 'enemies' of the Church
by Alessndro Speciale
VATICAN CITY, January 8 (RNS) - Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Monday that remarks by a breakway traditionalist bishops that called Jews 'enemies' were 'unacceptable.'
The Vatican reaffirmed its commitment to dialogue with Jews on Monday after the head of a traditionalist breakaway group called them "enemies of the Church" in a late December video now circulating on YouTube.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the traditionalist Fraternal Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX), said on Dec. 28 that "the enemies of the Church: the Jews, the Masons, the modernists" were opposing the group's reconciliation with the Church.
Fellay assessed the status of relations between the FSSPX and the Vatican in a long speech in New Hamburg, Ontario on ecember 28, 2012, the audio of which was posted on YouTube on Dec. 30.
Monday, the Vatican chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi,called the comment "meaningless" and "unacceptable."
Lombardi said "both Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II personally engaged in dialogue with Jews." As a sign of their commitment, Lombardi noted the two Popes' visits to Jerusalem's Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site, and to synagogues in Rome and elsewhere.
Pope Benedict XVI has been pushing since 2009 to repair the decades-long breach with the FSSPX, focusing on the group's rejection of the modernizing changes of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Those changes including revolutionizing the church's relations with Judaism.
Lombardi declined to comment on the potential impact of Fellay's words on the dialogue between the Vatican and the FSSPX. The dialogue is currently stalled as the Vatican awaits the FSSPX's response to a reconciliation offer submitted last June.
Leaked FSSPX documents slammed the proposal as "clearly unacceptable," but the Vatican signaled in October that it is willing to give the traditionalists "additional time for reflection and study."
Anti-Semitic strains within the FSSPX have been a major headache for the Vatican; shortly after Benedict lifted the 1988 excommunications of four FSSPX bishops, it emerged that one of the bishops, Richard Williamson, was a vocal denier of the Holocaust.
In a statement, the American branch of the FSSPX dismissed the "false accusations of anti-Semitism or hate speech" made against the group.
It said the fSSPX leader used the word "enemies" as a "religious concept," referring to "any group or religious sect which opposes the mission of the Catholic Church and her efforts to fulfill it: the salvation of souls."
"Fellay's comment was aimed at the leaders of Jewish organizations, and not the Jewish people, as is being implied by journalists," the group said.
Just to be precise about what Fellay said, as quoted by CNS: He said that "those most opposed to Rome granting canonical recognition to the FSSPX have been the enemies of the Church: - the Jews, the Masons, the modernists - who are outside of the Church, who over centuries have been enemies of the Church, urged the Vatican to compel the FSSPX to accept Vatican II". If that is what he said, that's pathological paranoia and insulting to Benedict XVI, as if he does not have his own mind! I have not seen a transcript of Fellay's discoursee, only what Carol Glatz reported about it for CNS on January 4. (There is a link to the full audio,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz9RduZzw1Q&feature=player_detailpage but I do not have the time to sit through 1 hour and 39 minutes of it, to check out exactly what he said - even if Fellay speaks English quite well and clearly.)
But the American FSSPX is not denying what he textually said, only the sense of it as applying to Jews in general. A clarification from the FSSPX's very efficient propaganda arm DICI would be far moe reassuring. While I am willing to give Fellay the benefit of the doubt and say he may not have meant it the way he said it, he did it say it the way he did - which is most objectionable, if not despicable - in the course of remarks which were not said in haste, but deliberately, thoughtfully and carefully, if I am to judge by the first few minutes I listened to...
The following article is not meant to be a commentary in any way on Fellay's statement about the Jews - it just happens to be a thematically related story whose timing is apropos...
Austrian Jewish leader says
anti-Semitism growing in Europe
VIENNA, January 7, 2013 (AP) - The leader of Vienna's Jewish community says the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Austria reported to his office have doubled over the past year and adds that Jews are under duress elsewhere in the EU as well.
Oskar Deutsch tells the Kurier newspaper that the Jewish community registered 135 such incidents last year, compared to 71 in 2011.
In comments published Monday, he named Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Greece as the EU countries where Jews are most under threat, adding that fearful Jewish families in Hungary have recently started to immigrate to Austria.
Fr. Lombardi is an intelligent and highly cultured man, and I am sure he does not harbor the least of bad intentions against anyone, but if only because he is the Vatican spokesman, he has a duty to research what he says before he says it - he cannot take it for granted that his 'memory' is infallible. He erred egregiously during Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land when he said at a news briefing, "The Pope has said he never, never was a member of the Hitler Youth, which was a movement of fanatical volunteers," which is, of course, factually wrong, as Cardinal Ratzinger himself made clear in his memoir Milestones - not that he was a voluntary member in any way but that it was mandatory for all German youth at the time to be 'automatically' enrolled in the Hitler Youth...
And today, he makes an even more unforgivable error of historical omission that, to be fair, is widespread among many Catholics. including many 'autoritative' commentators (conditioned, I suppose, by five decades of progressivist propaganda that would attribute anything 'progressive' in the Church to Vatican II).
Here is an account by the Italian service of Vatican Radio of what Fr. Lombardi said today when asked to comment on Mons. Fellay's recent ostensibly anti-Jewish statement. For some reason, the great minds running the English service of RV do not consider the report 'newsworthy' for their section...
Fr. Lombardi says Fellay statement
'unacceptable' in view of Vatican II
and Magisterium in recent decades
Translated from the Italian service of
January 8, 2013
A Magisterial tradition that has lasted for decades on the part of the Popes and the Church, united in their commitment to inter-religious dialog, shows that it is absolutely impossible to speak of the Jews as 'enemies of the Church', Fr. Federico Lombardi said today.
He was asked by newsmen to comment on a recent statement by Mons. Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the FSSPX, lumping the Jews with 'Masons and modernists' as 'enemies of the Church'.
Without getting into the merit of Fellay's statements, Fr. Lombardi underscored that the position of the Catholic Church with regard to its relationship with Judaism was authoritatively expressed in the declaration Nostra Aetate by the Second Vatican Council, and that since then, the Popes have demonstrated frequently in words and acts the great importance that the Church attaches to dialog with the Jews.
He also recalled the visits of John Paul II and Benedict XVI to various synagogues, and to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. John Paul II visited the synagogues in Rome and Damascus, whereas Benedict XVI visited synagogues in Cologne, New York and Rome.
[IMHO, the basic issue here is not about dialog with the Jews, since Nostra aetate advocates dialog with the major non-Christian faiths, not just Judaism. The basic question is the Church's official attitude towards Judaism itself.
Without having to do other than basic research, it first occurred to me at the time Jewish circles questioned the Good Friday prayer for the Jews as revised by Benedict XVI in 2007, when he revalidated the traditional Mass for general use in the Church. The Apostles' Creed says Jesus 'suffered under Pontius Pilate' = not 'suffered under the Jews' - from the time these articles of faith were first codified by the Council of Nicea in the 4th century. Whatever their reasons for the quite-specific formulation, the Nicean Fathers obviously did not share a popular belief that had already taken root by then that the Jews 'killed Jesus' and are therefore to be condemned forever as God-killers. Forgive me for going back to a post on this thread that I made back in March 2011
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=85272...
when the media were collectively in a tizzy over the passages in JESUS OF NAZARETH-Vol. 2, where the Holy Father, as the MSM put it at the time, 'exonerated' the Jews of deicide...
I must admit that I never before fretted about the 'culpability' of the Jews, because even to my child's mind at the time I was first exposed to the story of Christ's Passion and death, it was apparent that one could not ascribe actions by a group of people at a specific time to everyone who ever belonged/belongs to such a group. Fellow Catholics in the provincial town where I grew up certainly did not harbor any animus against Jews, even if, from our colonial history under Spain, it became part of the vernacular in all Philippine languages to call traitors either 'Judas' or 'judio' (Spanish word for Jew). So I must admit to great ignorance about how the Church has dealt with anti-Semitism where it existed/exists among the faithful. In fact, no priest I have been exposed to ever blamed Jews in any way.
Now it turns out that the collective memory of the most outstanding Catholic writers and Vaticanistas have so far failed to recount what is found about this subject in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), prepared under the overall supervision of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as our friend Caterina pointed out promptly in comments posted on Lella's blog, and of which I must admit total ignorance, since I have never looked at the CCC except to check out certain sections when I find them cited. Caterina posted her comment in indignation at Repubblica where a writer claimed that Benedict XVI was 'rewriting' Scriptures!
I have pulled the relevant citation about the Jews from the English version:
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994
Jews are not collectively responsible for Jesus's death.
597 The historical complexity of Jesus's trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles' calls to conversion after Pentecost.
Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept "the ignorance" of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders.
Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd's cry: "His blood be on us and on our children!", a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence.
As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council: "....[N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.
All sinners were the authors of Christ's Passion.
598 In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that "sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured." [Roman Catechism I, 5, 11; cf. Heb 12:3][NB: Roman Catechism I is the Catechism published in 1566 after the Council of Trent!]
Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, [Cf. Mt 25:45; Acts 9:4-5] the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone:
"We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt.
"And it can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, "None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him. [Roman Catechism I, 5, 11; cf. Heb 6:6; 1 Cor 2:8]
Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still, when you delight in your vices and sins. [St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitio 5, 3]
The other great 'revelation' to me of these passages from the CCC is that the Council of Trent back in the 16th century already said what needed to be said about the Jews! (In other words, the Lefebvrians cannot possibly act holier than the Council of Trent - their base reference for what is Tradition - and strike out at Benedict XVI now for re-stating, with the benefit of and reinforced by additional scholarship in the 450 years since the Council of Trent, the necessary and obvious!)
Another 'discovery' I made while looking up the correct CCC citation was a 2004 article in America magazine itself, about a resource book put out by the USCCB in 2004 for use by Catholic preachers, teachers, interested laity and Catholic-Jewish dialogue groups, entitled The Bible, the Jews and the Death of Jesus: A Collection of Catholic Documents
www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3413
which cites the CCC paragraphs and its references to the Council of Trent, and adds: "Of all the historical actors, we are reminded, only Pilate is mentioned in the ancient creeds of the Church" (and is still mentioned in the Creed today!).
It reminded me of an argument that immediately came to mind when some Jewish critics made a casus belli of the Good Friday prayer in 2007. Leaving aside the fact that Benedict XVI's modification is applicable only to the traditional Mass, and that the prayer is said once a year only, the Creed, which is recited at every Mass and in every rosary by Catholics around the world thousands of times every day, says nothing about the Jews. In fact, I have seen no version of the Creed which lays the blame on the Jews in any way, the line being 'suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died and was buried...'
One other thing: From what I have read cursorily in the CCC and how it presents the life of Jesus, I think the CCC was a sort of technical rehearsal by Cardinal Ratzinger in preparation for JON, which he would start writing 10 years after the CCC first appeared.
And, of course, as Fr. Martin and others point out, this definitive teaching about the Jews by the Catholic Church would never have received the attention it has now, if the Pope had not written it, and in widely accessible form, in a book.
I doubt any of the writers who had to report on the CCC when it first came out even thought of checking out what it had to say about the Jews. And not even during all the Sturm und Drang over the Good Friday prayer in 2007 did anyone ever even point out that the 1994 CCC, let alone the 1566 Catechism after the Council of Trent, had made all the definitive statements about the Jews that Catholics need to make. Benedict XVI, in JON-2, performed a great service by restating these statements for the contemporary reader.
Today, I found an English translation of exactly what the Tridentine Catechism said on the matter:
Reasons Why Christ Suffered
[From the discussion of Article 4 in the Creed]
The reasons why the Savior suffered are also to be explained, that thus the greatness and intensity of the divine love towards us may the more fully appear. Should anyone inquire why the Son of God underwent His most bitter Passion, he will find that besides the guilt inherited from our first parents the principal causes were the vices and crimes which have been perpetrated from the beginning of the world to the present day and those which will be committed to the end of time.
In His Passion and death the Son of God, our Savior, intended to atone for and blot out the sins of all ages, to offer for them to his Father a full and abundant satisfaction.
Besides, to increase the dignity of this mystery, Christ not only suffered for sinners, but even for those who were the very authors and ministers of all the torments He endured.
Of this the Apostle [Paul] reminds us in these words addressed to the Hebrews: "Think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself; that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds. In this guilt are involved all those who fall frequently into sin; for, as our sins consigned Christ the Lord to the death of the cross, most certainly those who wallow in sin and iniquity crucify to themselves again the Son of God, as far as in them lies, and make a mockery of Him".
This guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews, since according to the testimony of the same Apostle: If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory; while we, on the contrary, professing to know Him, yet denying Him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him.'
- Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566
When was the last time Mons. Fellay looked at the Tridentine Catechism, one wonders!
Which brings me back to what got me started on this necessary historical lookback - Fr. Lombardi's facile assumption )without checking his facts), shared by a majority of thinking Catholics today, I think, that the Church's official position about the Jews only dated back to Vatican II and Nostra aetate - in my opinion, an inexplicably a-historical view that even ignores the words of St. Paul - whose Letter to the Romans (especially Chapters 9 and 11) has been cited by Benedict XVI in homilies to underscore the Christian attitude about the Jews.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/01/2013 00:09] |