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Jewish/Catholic Dialogue Gathering
Presented to:
Jewish/Catholic Dialogue Gathering
December 17, 2000
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, S.T.D.
Dear Friends, Fellow Christians and Jewish Neighbors:
Allow me to begin by expressing a special word of thanks to those who troubled themselves to arrange this very pleasant gathering. I wish to acknowledge, personally and gratefully, the contribution of the committee that set this gathering in progress. Because we may all not be familiar with them, I think it may be useful to set down at the beginning the words of the Second Vatican Council which express from the Catholic point of view, our relationship with the Jewish people. The Council says in its Declaration on Non-Christian religions "Nostra Aetate", "As this Sacred Council searches into the mystery of the Church, it recalls the spiritual bond linking the people of the New Covenant with Abraham's stock. For the Church of Christ acknowledges that according to the mystery of God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and election are already found among the Patriarch, Moses, and the Prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ, Abraham's sons according to the faith (Galatians 3:7) are included in the same patriarch's call and likewise that the salvation of the Church was mystically foreshadowed by the Chosen People's exodus from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy, deigned to establish the ancient Covenant, not can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree unto which had been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (Romans 11: 17-24) Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself (Ephesians 2:14-16).
Also the Church ever keeps in mind the words of the apostle about his kinsmen, who have the adoption as sons and the glory and the Covenant, and the legislation and the worship and the promises, who have the Father, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh (Romans 9:4-5), the Son of the Virgin Mary. The Church recalls, too, that from the Jewish people sprang the apostles, her foundation stones and pillars, as well as most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ to the world.....Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is just so great, this Sacred Council wishes to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies and of brotherly dialogue."
The Council goes on to say, "What happened in the passion of Jesus cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today, although the Church is the new People of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God as if such views followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should take pains then, lest in catechetical instruction and in the preaching of God's word, they teach anything our of harmony with the truth of the Gospel or the Spirit of Christ. The Church repudiates all persecution against any man. Moreover, mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews and motivated by the Gospel's spiritual love, and considerations, the Church deplores the hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source."
These words of the Second Vatican Council were echoed and amplified in a discourse which Pope John Paul II delivered on April 13, 1986, when he made an historic visit to the synagogue in Rome, and received an enthusiastic welcome from the Jewish Community there.
In March of this year, as many of you know, Pope John Paul II, paid a visit tothe Holy Land, and while in Israel, he visited the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which is the national authority for the remembrance of the martyrs and heroes of the holocaust. While there, he said, "Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony flowing from God's Self-revelation. Our religious teachings and spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, not with any desire for vengeance or an incentive to hated. 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.....In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the 20th 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. 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 into our souls."
As he said in the Roman Synagogue, the Pope expressed his "abhorrence for the genocide decreed against the Jewish people during the last war which led to the Shoah, that is the holocaust of millions of innocent victims."
As he said in Israel, "We wish to remember, but we wish to remember for a purpose, namely to insure 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 idealogy could plan and carry out the extermination of a whole people."
Last September 18th, Pope John Paul II, welcomed to the Holy See the new Ambassador from Israel, Yosef Neville Lamdan. He said to the Ambassador that it was his hope to leave "a kind of testimony," especially for the younger generation, an invitation to build a new era of relations between Christians and Jews. He mentioned that a "culture of emptiness and a rise of selfishness and materialism" were the basic source of discrimination and persecution. He went on to say, "The spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is so great and so vital to the religious and moral health of the human family, that every effort must be made to advance and expand our dialogue especially on biblical, theological, and ethical matters."
He added, "The surest way to overcome the prejudices of the past and to raise a barrier against the forms of anti-Semitism, racism, and Xenophobia which are reappearing in some places today, is to work toward a greater mutual understanding and respect."
On the very same day as the new Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See presented his credentials and exchanged discourses with the Pope, it may be interesting to observe that Father Georges Cottier, who is the official theologian of the Papal Household, said that the statement released by the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies on September 11th, this year, "marked an important step forward in the relationship between Christians and Jews." It represented what he called, "a dramatic and unprecedented shift in Christian/Jewish relationships."
Father Cottiers observed that "We must multiply the number of encounters of Catholics and Jews who are well informed and prepared for dialogue because there are so many prejudices and so much reciprocal ignorance abroad."
This is why, I believe, our gathering here in Lincoln, represents the beginning of a beneficial dialogue which will enable us to understand each other, and put at rest some of the misunderstandings which can impede the tolerant comity that pluralistic society requires for its proper functioning. It may be a source of interest also, for those who may not be aware of it, that Catholic and Jewish leaders are planning a major dialogue session next spring. The International Catholic/Jewish Liaison Committee is tentatively set to meet next May 13, in New York, and there will be a dialogue between the Holy See's commission for religious relations with the Jews, and the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations. The main theme of the dialogue will be reconciliation and it will center around the use of the Hebrew word, teshuva.
One of the most significant steps forward in Jewish/Catholic relations especially, has been the resolution in support of Roman Catholic/Jewish Relations issued in the United States by the Rabbinical Assembly Plenum, which was remanded to the executive council and passed in June of 2000.
My dear friends, on this occasion, I cannot help but repeat what Pope John Paul II said to the Jewish community in Australia on the occasion of his visit to that continent, "Where Catholics are concerned it will continue to be an explicit and very important part of my mission to repeat and emphasize that our attitude to the Jewish religion should be one of the greatest respect, since the Catholic faith is rooted in the eternal truths contained in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the irrevocable covenant made with Abraham. We, too, gratefully hold these same truths of our Jewish heritage and look upon you as our brothers and sisters in the Lord. For the Jewish people themselves, Catholics should not only have respect, but also great fraternal love, for it is the teaching of both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures that the Jews are beloved of God, Who has called them with an irrevocable calling. No valid theological justification could ever be found for acts of discrimination or persecution against Jews; in fact, such acts must be held to be sinful. In order to be frank and sincere, however, we must recognize the fact that there are still obvious differences between us in religious beliefs and practice, the most fundamental difference in our respective view on the Person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Nothing, however, prevents us from true and fraternal cooperation in many worthy enterprises, such as biblical studies and numerous works of charity and justice. Such combined undertakings can bring us ever closer together in friendship and trust. Through the law and the prophets, we, like you, have been taught to put a high value on human life and on fundamental and inalienable human rights."
The Pope ended his discourse in Australia, by citing Psalm 116, which I think we can certainly make our own.
Praise the Lord
all nations. Extol Him all peoples, for great is His
steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.
