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Because of the many unkind words that have been said and written to disparage Pope Benedict's address at Yad Vashem, especially when, his detractors say, compared with those that John Paul II said at the same place in March 2000, I thought that it would be instructive to read both texts together. Then, each one can judge whether the critics were right, or at a minimum, fair:
The words of the ancient Psalm rise from our hearts:
“I have become like a broken vessel.
I hear the whispering of many – terror on every side! –
as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'.” (Ps 31:13-15).
1. In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in which to try to make some sense of the memories which come flooding back. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah.
My own personal memories are of all that happened when the Nazis occupied Poland during the War. I remember my Jewish friends and neighbours, some of whom perished, while others survived.
I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish people who, stripped of everything, especially of their human dignity, were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a century has passed, but the memories remain.
Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women and children cry out to us from the depths of the horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened. No one can diminish its scale.
2. We wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent victims of Nazism.
How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God. Only a Godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of a whole people.
The honour given to the “just gentiles” by the State of Israel at Yad Vashem for having acted heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the point of giving their own lives, is a recognition that not even in the darkest hour is every light extinguished.
That is why the Psalms, and the entire Bible, though well aware of the human capacity for evil, also proclaim that evil will not have the last word. Out of the depths of pain and sorrow, the believer’s heart cries out: “I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'.” (Ps 31:14).
3. Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing from God’s self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good.
We remember, but not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice, and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the past.
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.
The Church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being (cf. Gen 1:26).
4. In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the twentieth century will lead to a new relationship between Christians and Jews.
Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord, and look to Abraham as our common father in faith (cf. We Remember, V).
The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of the Holocaust and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes us cry out:
“I hear the whispering of many – terror on every side! – But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'.” (Ps 31:13-15).
“I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name … I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off” (Is 56:5).
This passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah furnishes the two simple words which solemnly express the profound significance of this revered place: yad – “memorial”; shem – “name”.
I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah.
They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again. Most of all, their names are forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God.
One can rob a neighbor of possessions, opportunity or freedom. One can weave an insidious web of lies to convince others that certain groups are undeserving of respect. Yet, try as one might, one can never take away the name of a fellow human being.
Sacred Scripture teaches us the importance of names in conferring upon someone a unique mission or a special gift. God called Abram “Abraham” because he was to become the “father of many nations” (Gen 17:5). Jacob was called “Israel” because he had “contended with God and man and prevailed” (Gen 32:29).
The names enshrined in this hallowed monument will forever hold a sacred place among the countless descendants of Abraham. Like his, their faith was tested. Like Jacob, they were immersed in the struggle to discern the designs of the Almighty.
May the names of these victims never perish! May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten! And may all people of goodwill remain vigilant in rooting out from the heart of man anything that could lead to tragedies such as this!
The Catholic Church, committed to the teachings of Jesus and intent on imitating his love for all people, feels deep compassion for the victims remembered here.
Similarly, she draws close to all those who today are subjected to persecution on account of race, color, condition of life or religion – their sufferings are hers, and hers is their hope for justice.
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I reaffirm – like my predecessors – that the Church is committed to praying and working tirelessly to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men again. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God of peace (cf. Ps 85:9).
The Scriptures teach that it is our task to remind the world that this God lives, even though we sometimes find it difficult to grasp his mysterious and inscrutable ways. He has revealed himself and continues to work in human history. He alone governs the world with righteousness and judges all peoples with fairness (cf. Ps 9:9).
Gazing upon the faces reflected in the pool that lies in stillness within this memorial, one cannot help but recall how each of them bears a name.
I can only imagine the joyful expectation of their parents as they anxiously awaited the birth of their children. What name shall we give this child? What is to become of him or her? Who could have imagined that they would be condemned to such a deplorable fate!
As we stand here in silence, their cry still echoes in our hearts.
It is a cry raised against every act of injustice and violence.
It is a perpetual reproach against the spilling of innocent blood.
It is the cry of Abel rising from the earth to the Almighty.
Professing our steadfast trust in God, we give voice to that cry using words from the Book of Lamentations which are full of significance for both Jews and Christians:
“The favors of the Lord are not exhausted,
his mercies are not spent;
They are renewed each morning,
so great is his faithfulness.
My portion is the Lord, says my soul;
therefore will I hope in him.
Good is the Lord to the one who waits for him,
to the soul that seeks him;
It is good to hope in silence
for the saving help of the Lord”.
(Lam 3:22-26)
My dear friends, I am deeply grateful to God and to you for the opportunity to stand here in silence: a silence to remember, a silence to pray, a silence to hope.
John Allen summarized the Jewish objections to Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem as follows:
- "Benedict said Jews had been 'killed', not 'murdered' [OK, so JPII said 'murdered' - but is 'killed' not just as effective?] and that 'millions' of Jews died rather than 'six million' [JPII also said 'millions', never once said 'six million'. But both objections are semantic carping!]
Allen continues:
"...The main thrust of the criticism centered on three points missing from the speech:
- Acknowledgment of the role that Christian anti-Semitism played in shaping attitudes that led to the Holocaust;"
[Neither did JPII, who said the Church is 'deeply saddened' but did not apologize at this time- he would reserve that for the letter he left in the Western Wall. Nor does he link this Christian anti-Semitism to 'shaping the attitudes that led to the Holocaust', as was demanded of Benedict.
Benedict, in fact, goes one step further by saying the Church is "praying and working tirelessly to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men again" - so he is not just speaking up against anti-Semitism but all forms of hatred. But it seems militant Jews think they alone have been the target of hatred and unjust prejudice. How would they stand up to the verbal abuse and hate-filled ideas that Catholicism and Catholics are subjected to these days?
Compare what the two Popes said at a comparable part of their respective texts, which have an identical structure:]
JP-II:
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.
B16:
As Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, I reaffirm – like my predecessors – that the Church is committed to praying and working tirelessly to ensure that hatred will never reign in the hearts of men again. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God of peace (cf. Ps 85:9).
“- Reference to Benedict's own biography as a German who saw the horrors of the Nazi regime with his own eyes, and who had himself been drafted into the German army;”
[Totally irrelevant since his personal experience of the war was so obviously circumscribed by the nature of the assignment he and his classmates found themselves doing - they were assigned to an anti-aircraft unit defending Munich, not to a lager!
The closest thing he could have possibly said about any personal experience of Nazi persecution was "I had a cousin who was mentally retarded, the Nazis came and took him, and we never saw him again!"
And if, however unlikely it was, he had committed such a lapse of propriety, he would have been reproached right away for daring to bring up an experience they might consider not even worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the 'incomparable and unique' fate of six million Jews.]
“- Regret for the recent strain in Catholic/Jewish ties caused by the lifting of the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, including one, Richard Williamson, who is a Holocaust denier."
[Not the occasion for any such thing! Totally inappropriate! Once again, in the unlikely event that he had sought to use the occasion to score ‘defensive’ points about that sorry and unnecessary contretemps, he would have been accused of mis-using the occasion for his own purposes!]
Fr. Thomas Write, LC, who reported on the Pope's pilgrimage for ZENIT, had this to say about the Jewish criticisms:
[DIM]1opt[=DIM]Some took issue with the fact that the words "Nazi" and "murder" didn't appear in his Vad Yashem address, while others felt that the Pope should have apologized for alleged Catholic complicity in the Holocaust.
Others still blamed the Pope himself for having been drafted into the German army (though he later defected) and for showing too little emotion in his Yad Vashem speech.
One hardly knows where to begin in the face of this wave of criticism (I have only scratched the surface). It appears that some of the Holy Father's hearers would not be satisfied with anything the Pope could say or do, short of falling on his face and begging the earth to swallow him up in utter shame.
In return for what seemed to me a sincere and humble overture of peace and reconciliation, the Holy Father has been taken to task as if he were personally responsible for Jewish suffering in the world.
[The same pathology has made the same people now making it appear that Pius XII - not Hitler, not the Nazis - was personally and singlehandedly responsible for the Holocaust because 'he did not speak out'!
They conveniently forget that in those years - decades before instant communications made the world a global village - Popes had far less 'stature' (perhaps none at all, even in the eyes of non-Catholics than what Popes have since acquired universally with the advent of worldwide TV. That is why Benedict XV in his time ended up being not just ignored but also derided by the secular powers who were waging World War I.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 18/05/2009 16:42] |