April 17, 2008
The first visit to the United States by Pope Benedict XVI is clouded by the Vatican’s recent reaffirmation of an age-old Latin liturgical text for Good Friday. In response to Jewish concerns, the Vatican removed the text’s traditional reference to the Jew’s alleged “[spiritual] blindness” to the Christian message. Nevertheless, the prayer remains problematic. It beseeches God “to enlighten their [Jews’] hearts so that they recognize Jesus Christ.”
Jewish leaders appropriately protested this implied reversal of Vatican II achievements: abandoning the targeting of Jews for conversion, validating the eternal nature of the Jewish covenant with God, and affirming the spiritual value of rabbinic Judaism. Roman Catholic officials responded that this text “in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church’s regard for the Jews.” In their view, the age-old Latin phasing merely is an aspiration with regard to the End of Days. Therefore, proselytizing will not be resumed, and friendship, conversation, and partnering with Jews will continue.
Indeed, on Friday, the pope will make a historic visit to Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue. As host Rabbi Arthur Schneier observed, “you don’t come into someone’s home unless you wish them well.”
While this controversy merits further dialogue and exploration, it ought not overshadow the many years of closeness between Benedict and Jewry. In the words of Rabbi Israel Singer, formerly of the World Jewish Congress, the pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “was the architect of the policy [of healing] that John Paul II fulfilled with regard to relations with the Jews…”
We should applaud Benedict’s record in helping heal the breech between Jews and Catholics:
Covenant: As the prefect of the Vatican’s top doctrinal body and now as pope, Benedict joined with his revered predecessor in citing Romans 9:11 as a proof text that Jews forever remain in covenant with God. In his installation homily, Benedict reflected the centrality of this fraternal theme, greeting “my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God’s irrevocable promises.”
Messianism: The former Cardinal Ratzinger oversaw the preparation of The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. This volume provided a theological explanation for the Jews’ rejection of Jesus, noting “Jewish messianic expectation is not in vain.” In the words of Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee, the cardinal taught that the continuing Jewish aspiration for the messiah is “not as an act of rejecting God, but as part of God’s plan to remind the world that peace and salvation for all humanity had not yet come.…[And] this is amazing. He took something that had been the source of major condemnation of Judaism and the Jewish people down the ages and twisted it into something of a positive theological nature.”
Biblical interpretation: The same document also recognized rabbinic interpretations of the Torah as legitimate counterparts to the interpretations of the Church fathers. “Christians can and ought to admit that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Sacred Scriptures from the Second Temple period,” it reads. As noted by Dr. Philip Cunningham, director of Boston College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, this statement “contradicts centuries of Christian polemic that decried rabbinic Judaism as an illegitimate deformation of biblical Judaism.”
The Shoa and anti-Semitism: Pope John Paul II labeled anti-Semitism as a sin against both humanity and God. Cardinal Ratzinger added to this moral legacy by personally preparing Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past. This document outlined the church’s historical “errors” in its mistreatment of the Jews. “It cannot be denied,” the document concluded, “that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.”
Israel: Cardinal Ratzinger also played a significant role in theologically justifying the Vatican’s diplomatic recognition of Israel in December 1993. No longer were the Jews to be viewed as divinely banished from the Holy Land. Instead, the Jewish return to Eretz Yisrael was part of God’s plan. To this end, the cardinal made several quiet visits to Israel before diplomatic ties were formalized. Shortly after the establishment of diplomatic ties, Cardinal Ratzinger delivered the keynote address at a Jewish-Christian conference in Jerusalem in order to formally express his personal support for Vatican-Israel relations.
Dialogue with regard to the Latin Good Friday text should continue in earnest. Nonetheless, due to his multifold contributions to healing the historic rift between Christians and Jews, Benedict XVI should be warmly received by Jewish leaders. May Pope Benedict XVI be blessed with good health and the fulfillment of his sacred role in leading the world’s Roman Catholics to lead lives of great piety, of good fellowship, and of profound faith in the Almighty.
Rabbi Alan Silverstein is the past president of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Judaism and is the spiritual leader of Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex.
- Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com