Relations Between Catholics and Jews Strong, Dialogue Leaders Say

Posted

How far Catholics and Jews have traveled together on the road to mutual understanding was amply evident as Cardinal Dolan hosted Jewish and Catholic leaders at the New York Catholic Center in Manhattan June 25 for a day of Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

His still new pontificate and Pope Francis’ recent trip to the Holy Land were main points of discussion during the meeting, which took place two weeks after the Holy Father welcomed Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the Vatican Gardens June 8 where the two leaders joined Francis in a sunset invocation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers for peace.

In May the pope made a three-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land, during which he prayed at the foot of a huge concrete separation barrier that has come to symbolize the divide between Israelis and Palestinians. The stop at the wall had created some consternation among Israeli leaders. He later visited a memorial to Jewish victims of terrorism.

The new pontiff received high grades from the Jewish leaders that spoke with CNY during a break at the dialogue in Manhattan. The late June meeting marked Cardinal Dolan’s first since his recent return as co-chairman of the dialogue, representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Jewish dialogue partners are members of the National Council of Synagogues.

“John Paul II was very much a people person. The new pope from what everyone has told me is even more a people person,” said Rabbi Gilbert Rosenthal, executive director of the National Council of Synagogues. “From what everybody has told me he’s a very down to earth human being. The kind of person that people can know easily and get to love easily. I’m looking forward to meeting him personally and I hope I have the opportunity in 2015.”

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, seconded that opinion. He made a presentation at the dialogue during the morning session that touched on the pope’s Holy Land visit.

“There’s actually no pope in history that was as close to the Jewish community and had as much involvement with the Jewish community prior to becoming pope as this pope has, and I spoke about some of that,” Rabbi Saperstein said. “I talked about his trip to the Holy Land.

“I had concerns about the way some of the things he did became politicized,” Rabbi Saperstein acknowledged. “But on the whole this was a very positive visit in his embrace of Israel as a Jewish state in the clearest possible terms. We talked about his long record opposing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, just recently calling Holocaust denial madness.”

As to the state of current Catholic-Jewish relations, both religious leaders said they’ve never been better. Both credited Pope Paul VI’s declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, proclaimed Oct. 28, 1965, as the starting point for the long and continuing dialogue between the two great religious traditions. The 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate will be marked in 2015.

“Marvelous” is how Rabbi Rosenthal characterized current relations between Catholics and Jews.

“Look, before Vatican II, I had no relationship with a priest, I tried but no dice. Once Vatican II came the whole atmosphere changed. This,” he said, scanning the room where Cardinal Dolan and Catholic priests were enjoying lunch with their Jewish guests, “was impossible 60 years ago.”

“Today, everything is possible and for that I’m grateful to God, and of course Vatican II and Nostra Aetate.”

If there is one potential cloud on the horizon, Rabbi Saperstein said it might be that as the Church shifts southward in its global composition and perspective—a change that Argentine Pope Francis himself might represent— the Catholic-Jewish relationship may be marginalized.

“As the Church spreads across the globe and leaders, like Pope Francis, come from the Southern Hemisphere, where there are very few Jewish communities and little interaction, we’re actually worried about what the future has in store in terms of Catholic-Jewish relations,” he said.

“And that makes what Pope Francis does, even more important. In other words, we hope he’ll set a legacy of honest, candid dialogue but deep, rich dialogue and cooperation that will send a message, even to those segments of the Church that really don’t have any sizable Jewish community.”

But for now the consensus seems to be the relationship is strong. “They couldn’t be more pleased with the pope,” said Father Drew Christiansen, S.J., of his Jewish brethren.

Father Christiansen, a Jesuit priest who is senior research fellow at the School of Foreign Service, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, at Georgetown University, delivered a morning talk, “There Is Much Jewry in Jesuitry: The Jesuit Pope, the Jews and Judaism.”

“Everything he does seems to hit them the right way,” Father Christiansen told CNY.