A Jewish remedy to 'painful ignorance'

THE new Vatican statement on Jewish-Catholic relations is entitled The Common Bond: Christians. and Jews. Its main aim is to produce "Notes for Preaching and Teaching" and the issuing body is the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
The latter has been subsumed from the beginning within the Holy See's Secretariat for Christian Unity since it was felt that the Jews occupied a special place in the ecumenical arena being closer historically, and even theologically, to Christianity than all other strictly "non-Christian" religions.
The new document thus stresses the fact that "Jesus was and always remained a Jew" and that Christianity cannot be studied without a proper understanding of its own deep Jewish roots.
Cardinal Willebrands is the President of the Secretariat for Christian Unity as well as of the Commission for Relations with the Jews. He calls on Catholics and Jews to "work together for social justice, respect for the rights of persons and nations and for social and international reconciliation." in order to achieve this the new document makes a radical call for changes in popular preaching and teaching within the Church on the subject of Judaism.
This is the twentieth year since the Vatican Council first issued an important statement on Jewish-Catholic relations. It was revolutionary at the time to some people, though, to others, it merely put into official words what many Catholics had felt for years, namely that Jews as a whole could in no just sense be blamed for the death of Jesus.
The new document contilittes and develops the earlier one as well as the "Guidelines" which were issued in 1973 to urge practical implementation of the spirit of the original statement.
What were the circumstances forming the background to the 1965 Vatican Council document Nostra aerate? It was a declaration on the "Non-Christian Religions," but its passage was loaded with controversy at every stage. The reason for this was that the original intention coming from Pope John XXIII himself, acting on the advice and inpiration of Cardinal Bea — had been to issue a statement concerned with the Jews. It had been intended that this statement should be included in the decree on ecumenism; but such a course was later thought inappropriate. A statement on its own. extending the hand of friendship from the Catholic Church to the Jews, was even more strongly opposed.
Opposition came from two quarters; from Catholic Arab bishops fearing that anything friendly said about the Jews would be taken in Arab countries as Catholic support for the political state of Israel; and from those Catholics still infected, whether through ignorance or prejudice, with anti-Semitism in greater or lesser degree. It was to break down such ignorance and prejudice that a brave new
statement was felt necessary.
In the event, in order to defuse emotive reactions, it was decided to dress up the intended declaration on the Jews as a general statement on. "non-Christian" religions by the brief inclusion of Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists. But "at the end of the day" the declaration came to be considered, first and foremost, as the Church's first cvcr breaking of silence on the subject of that particular race and religion which had so long been misunderstood, persecuted and, unhappily to admit, even hated by Christians for so many centuries.
It took some time before the message of Nostra aetate began to take shape in actual dialogue and there was naturally disappointment in Jewish circles that the approach by the Church toward Jews and Judaism was not more dynamic and positive. The present document is thus welcome in reflecting 20 years of growth in Catholic-Jewish dialogue with an accent on the present Pope's insistence that "Catholic teaching present Jews and Judaism not only in an honest and objective fashion, free from prejudices and without any offences, but also with full awareness of the heritage common" to Christians and Jews.
So far, so good. The difficulty comes in implementing another desire expressed by the Pope, namely that Catholics should learn more about "the faith and religious life of the Jewish people as they are professed and practised still today". Unfortunately, however, most Catholics lack the sense of urgency, to say nothing of the background knowledge, with which to develop such learning. The new document is a timely reminder that too much time has been lost already. Preaching, teaching, discussion and, above all, much more personal contact with our Jewish brethren, are thus most urgently required. This, above all, is the message of The Common Bond, which aims to remedy that "painful ignorance" on the part of Christians "of the history and traditions of Judaism."
Having, then, been reminded of the opposition to the first breaking of ice in our relations with the Jews — opposition which went on right up to the final voting on Nostra aetate — and of the consequent need for acceleration of efforts 20 years later, modern Catholics are now given detailed information on areas in which misunderstandings and misconceptions formerly abounded.
Perhaps the most notable example given in the document is the place of the Pharisees in the gospels. It is pointed out that Our Lord's "relations with the Pharisees were not always or wholly polemical," despite the common Christian illusion that the Pharisees were the "baddies" of the story. They were very far from being such as the document explains in scholarly detail to which justice cannot be done in a few lines here.
There will therefore by many who will wish to obtain copies of the full document which is available from the Catholic Media Office (Publications Dept.,) Ashstead Lane, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1ST (price 65p including postage and packing).