Church and synagogue

THE whole Catholic world will rejoice that
the Vatican Council's Declaration on the non-Christians and Jews has finally been passed and will soon be proclaimed by the Pope. The document has gone through a great many vicissitudes in the past three years and there have been times when it seemed touch and go if it would ever survive.
It is a sobering thought that if it had been adopted by an ecumenical council thirty or more years ago, the massacre of the Jews in Nazi Germany would never have been possible. The dreadful memories of Belsen, Buchenwald and the rest of the extermination camps and of the apathy and indifference of so many Christians to them must surely have been nagging at the consciences of many of the Bishops in St. Peter's since the Council began.
The immediate reaction of Catholics to the Council vote must be one of relief. It is good to see the Declaration adopted by such substantial majorities, even though some Bishops have still some hesitations about its political dangers and its theological orthodoxy. But after two thousand years, in which Christians, with the approval of the Church. subjected Jews to persecution. contempt and discrimination, the Catholic Church has now officially acknowledged its common patrimony with Jewry.
A declaration passed in 1965 can do nothing to wipe out the mistakes of the past. History cannot be unwritten. But it can help us to prevent the same mistakes being made in the future. For anti-semitism is not going to die out overnight. In recent months we have seen in our own country the indications that, at least in some people, it is not far beneath the surface.
As far as Catholics are concerned, however, the positive implications of the Declaration are clear. The first is that Catholics can no longer cite quasi-theological arguments to condone any form of anti-Semitism or discrimination against the Jews. In some countries—thankfully they are few—this will mean a change in catchetical attitudes.
But even in countries where there is no overt or official anti-Jewish bias—and our own may well be included—Catholics will not be able to fool themselves that any feelings of superiority to or aversion from Jews have somehow or other a religious founda
tion, whatever about having a psychological origin in history.
This is not just a theoretical question. It comes down to hard brass tacks in matters like membership of golf clubs, election to committees and boards of directors. social occasions and ordinary human contacts.
Good as it is, the new Declaration is not as strong as a previous one, debated last year at the Council and accepted in principle. Between sessions, the document was rewritten by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and amendments made in line with suggestions from some Bishops.
In particular, the Secretariat paid heed to the genuine pleas of Bishops in Arab lands that the Declaration would be used for political propaganda and that the Christian minorities in their countries would be made to suffer.
But their demands for the rejection of the whole document have been over-ruled. What the Secretariat has done is to include other great non-Christian religions, such as Buddhism and Islam, in the document and to state specifically that it has no political implications.
Other changes in the Declaration have been criticised, especially by the Jews themselves. They have complained particularly about the dropping of the word "deicide"— the crime of God-killing—of which the Jewish race has unjustly been condemned in the past.
However, it is fair to say that the new text preserves the substance while changing the wording, since it specifically states that the Jews as such cannot be held guilty for the death of Christ.
The fact is that if the present document had not been preceded by another one, it would have been universally welcomed as one of the most important advances of the Council. But taking into account the fact that the Council must respect the legitimate views of the minority. it is a cause of rejoicing that the present text is as strong as it is.
Taken at its lowest valuation, the new declaration ends a sad chapter in Christian history. Taken at its best, it opens the way for a new dialogue between Jew and Christian and provides the theological basis for a spiritual collaboration from which only good can come.