How today the Church speaks about Jewish and Judaism

Moses receiving the Tables of the Law (Jerusalem, Jewish National and University Library)

In this article I will only describe the Church thought about the Jewish being charged of "God murders", a deep-rooted belief in the Christians conscience as I wrote in the previous article.
Truly, early in this century (Léon Bloy, Le salut par les Juifs), a new era had started as far as the christian meditation on Judaism was concerned.

Important witnesses are: Nicolas Berdjaev, Giuseppe Dossetti, Giorgio La Pira and in particular Jacques Maritain who has never stopped meditating upon the Israel mistery, doing his best for the Jewish, who were persecuted in those years.

Pius XI's famous word must be remebered: "Spiritually we are Semitics" (6 sept.1938) together with his encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (1937) in which He condemned that racism which would cause so many mournings and destructions to the Jewish in the following five years.

Above all in this article we want to report the official Church and the hard way to the famous Nostra Aetate Declaration (4), in addition to other documents and christian experts further statements on the subject.

The Declaration Of The Vatican Council II: Origin

Everything begun in 1959 during the Good Friday solemn liturgy, when Pope John XXIII suddenly ordered to omit in the famous jewish prayer the awkward adjective "wicked".

This act deeply affected the Jewish public opinion and aroused new hopes at the Vatican Council II (1). The hope arosen from this act persuaded the old professor and civil servant, Julies Isaac - a Jewish who lost his wife and daughters in the concentration camps and now appointed President of the "Christians-Jewish friendship Association" - to ask Pope John for a meeting.

The meeting took place on June 13th 1960 with a "conclusive complementary note" by Jules Isaac which can be summarized with the following concept: even if a purifying opinion about Jewish relations is strengthening among Christians, the "disdaining teaching" still do exists inside the Church system!

The Catholic opinion disagrees and waves still uncertainly between the opposite currents... "Therefore the words of the Leader of the Church do have to show everybody the right way, solemnly condemning the "disdaining teaching" which is essentially an anti-christian theory".

According to what Mons.Capovilla - Pope's secretary - testifies, Pope John XXIII in that circumstance made up His mind in order that the Council take a particular interest in the Jewish problem and in anti-semitism.

The Pope asked prof.Isaac for setting in touch with Card. Agostino Bea - (whose confidence He enjoyed) - and on September 18th, 1960, Card.Bea (as appointed President of the Secretariat for the Unity of Christians) was responsible for the relationship with the Chosen-People of the old Testament.

Therefore Card.Agostino Bea, Rector of the prestigious Biblical Institute since a long time guided by the Jesuit Fathers, becomes for God wish not only the real protagonist of the Document for the Unity of Christians (Unitatis redintegratio), but much more the master of the Declaration Nostra Aetate concerning the relationship between the Church and the non-christians religions, first of all the Jewish people and Judaism (paragraph 4 of the Declaration).

From the beginning of His task Card.Bea has been explaining the historical and political significance of the matter; he was firmly persuaded that these relationship (Church-Jewish people) required a radical reform as far as the Church was concerned in spite of a long and difficult way. He would do everything he could to make the Council turn its opinion into a new and more positive attitude, even though He foresaw a violent resistence by His curial collegues.

This defeat was followed by a more serious one, namely the Cardinal Secretary of State request not to publish the report Card.Bea wrote for Civiltà Cattolica and for other foreign magazines: "Are Jewish God's murders and damned people?" (2).

Another intervention of Pope John XXIII on 13th dec.1962 was required, in order to discuss the problem once more in the Council Agenda. But even in the second Council session, even though the chapters concerning the Unity of christians had been widely discussed up to the final approval (Declaration Unitatis Redintegratio on november 21st 1964) the two last chapters in the Agenda - concerning Jewish and religion freedom - were not discussed for "lack of time".

Really the main reason of these troubles was the Arabian States fierce resistance and the fear of serious retaliations against the Christians living in those areas. On the other hand, inside and outside the Council, a strong and adverse pressure coming up from a minority , spread around many tendentious writings about Cardinal Bea and the outline He had distributed to the Members of the Council.

Meanwhile, the Secretariat drew the text up omitting the mention of "God's murders". Afterwards the text about Jewish underwent several movements. After Pope Paul VI new Encyclical "Ecclesiam suam " in which the " dialogue " with God's non-believers had been reported on 25 sept.1964, a Scheme about the non-christians religions - Jewish in particular - was carried out at the Council Fathers.

The official pubblication of the text occurred after an year of important events and meetings with the participation of the Arabian States and the representatives of the Council internal minority opposition (25 october 1965).

But even after the solemn official pubblication of the document, the Council internal minority didn't give in and Card. Bea was once more obliged to refuse the proposals of Mons.Luigi Carli - Bishop of Segni - in an article He wrote for Civiltà Cattolica (1965, IV, pp.209-229). Precisely the contents of the project concerned the Jewish collective responsability for God's death and the consequences that it caused.

Declaration text about Jewish God's murder responsability

The final approved text is rather weakened in comparison with the preceding writings. However, it represents a text of unusual historical importance (3).

The jesuit father, Card.Agostino Bea.

After asserting the bonds of spirituality between (the Church and Israel) and recognizing the "considerable spiritual richeness common to Christians and Jewish" the text goes on:

«Even if the Jewish authorities made their contribution to God's death (Gv 19,6), however all that had been perpetrated throughout His Passion can not be attributed neither indiscriminately to all the Jewish living at that time, nor to the Jewish of today.

Everybody should take care that Cathechesis and God's preaching do not teach anything in oppositon to the Gospel and the Holy Spirit thruth...
Christ and the Church (has always asserted) asserts, in virtue of His great Love, voluntarily submitted to His passion and death because of everyman sins so that every man could be saved» (4).

The reason why Jewish have not be pointed at as "God's murders and damned people".

Card.Bea concentrated on this problem during the Council and even after, since it represented the necessary basis for the historical reconciliation of Christians and Jewish since it would allow opening new reflections in exegetic, historical and theological language fields.

What follows is a short summary of the Cardinal writings: "Certainly Jesus's sentence and death represents themselves a real God murder as Jesus is God-man". However the problem lies in the individual responsability: did the Synedrium leaders and those who claimed Jesus'sentence have such a knowledge?.

In this passage the Cardinal is quoting St.Peter's words towards the Jewish of Jerusalem: "You killed the one who leads men to life", then adding: "I know that you and your leaders did to Jesus was done because of your ignorance" (At.3,15,17).

St.Paul speech to the Jewish of Antiochia echoes St.Peter's words (At.13.27). In this declaration the two apostles follow the example of mildness of Jesus while he was praying on the Cross: "Forgive them, Father! They don't know what they are doing"(Lc.23,24).

"As for the individual fault - writes the Cardinal - it must be considered in general still the question is whether the Jewish of Jerusalem were wholly aware of the situation and behaved freely, not driven by passion or circumstances."

Actually Jesus' statements concerning the dignity of God's Son were very clear and explicit. "Really, there were also serious difficulties among His contemporaries: leaders in particular were prevented from wholly understanding Jesus' statements and the significant strenght of miracles". Having been thought the Christian doctrine for ages we risk not to realize the incredible difficulties in understanding the true sense of being "Son of God" and "one thing with the Father", the invisible God with human shapes on the Sinai, for a Jewish at Jesus'time, with a strong monoteistic education! Also Peter was able to understand "neither flesh nor blood" only after the Father's revelation (Mt.16,17).

Part of Jerusalem Walls (photo Paolo Scalisi s.j.)

On the historical level, a small group of Jewish, only even excluding the members of the Synedrium, was proved to be responsile for Jesus' death. The crowd that cried with rage: "Let the punishment for his death fall on us and on our children!" (Mt.27,25) had been manipolated, as we read in Marc's Gospel (Mc.15,11): "The chiefs priest stirred up the crowd…" It was the same crowd of peolpe that afterwards walked by Jesus on His way to the Calvario and saw Him dying: "They all went back home, beating theirs breasts" (Lc.23,27,48).

Therefore not all of the Jewish of Jerusalem nor those of the whole Palestina have to be blamed for Jesus death. The attempt to blame jewish of all ages for being part of the "Jewish people" is even absurd.

How should we interpret the charges, the heavy profecies of punishment and even Jesus weeping for Jerusalem fate? (Mt.21,43-46; 23,31-36; Lc.19,43)".Whithout the principle of collective responsability - writes Mons.Carli - all this would remain an unintelligible mystery".

The cardinal widely analyses all the texts concerning reproaches, menaces and the imminent punishments: they do deal with the objectively serious lack of welcome to the Prophets foretold coming of Jesus.

It reveals the severity of God's judgement all over the evil powers, "the darkness empire" on "the world" according to John explanation of it. "Also in this passage the judgement isn't based on their mere belonging to the Jewish people: on the contrary it arises from men acting against God, the Prophets and, above all, Jesus. Moreover we have to remember the peculiar prophetic prospect according to which the judgement on Jerusalem is both the model and the symbol of the Last Judgement against evil and God's ennemy powers... This explains the dreadful historical reality, better than a presumed responsability or collective guilt of all the Jewish people for Jesus's death".

The Cardinal replaces the expression "collective responsability", with the "social and collective cooperation" in good and evil, still following the biblical mentality: "The judgement strikes all people, probably because there are social ties as well as the common good and evil fate among all leaders and members of Jewish; however it doesn't signify properly an overall guilt as Jewish."

The Cathechism of the Catholic Church published in 1992, presents a treatement on Jewish and Judaism, paragraph 574-500. It summarizes and displays the best of the official documents, according to the Council statements.

Perhaps the experts do consider these theories banal and even obsolete, 32 years after the council Declaration approval. However everybody needs to know and analyse this "starting point" which meant hard work and sufferings to Card.Bea.

Notes:
1 - Stjepan Schmidt: Agostino Bea, il cardinale dell’unità, Città' Nuova 1987, pp.351-352.
2 - The article was published later by Civiltà Cattolica in 1982, vol.I, pp.430-446.
3 - L.Sestrieri - G.Cereti: Le Chiese cristiane e l’Ebraismo, Marietti 1983.
4 - You can find the text of Nostra Aetate Declaration - as well as the other documents mentioned in the article - in the appendix of M.Pesce's work, Il Cristianesimo e la sua radice ebraica, Dehoniane 1994.