Generous report on Church and Jews

By Sr. LOUIS GABRIEL The Last Three Popes and the Jews by• Pinchas E. Lapide (Souvenir Press 42s.).
THE RATHER hastily written first part of this book, a survey of the troubled relations between Church and Synagogue up to the twentieth century, is the background against which the author evaluates the omissions and the achievements of the Church in Nazi occupied Europe. The intentions of Mr. Lapide, deputy editor of the Prime Minister's press office in Israel and a pioneer of inter-faith relations, arc so excellent that the reviewer finds it embarrassing to point out mistakes.
These cast some doubt on the accuracy of the facts and figures of the rescue operations given later in great detail. It has for instance been conclusively proved that the prayer ascribed to John XXIII (p. 5} is not his; nor could the great Jewish scho
lar Maimonides who died in 1204 have taken part at the Barcelona disputation in 1263.
Catholics are however grateful to Mr. Lapide for his sympathetic understanding of Pius X11% agonising dilemma; to save some Jewish lives or to speak and thereby almost certainly sacrifice also those seven to eight hundred thousand Jews who were rescued through the efforts of bishops, priests and laymen acting on the Pope's instructions.
Mr. Lapide admits that were he a Catholic he perhaps "should have expected the Pope, as the avowed representative of Christ on earth, to speak out for justice against murder—irrespective of consequences," but conscious of the frailty of human beings and institutions he prefers to list the achievements rather than the shortcomings.
Yet this generous and painstaking report of help offered should not become a balm to the Christian conscience. The last part contains an expert and optimistic analysis of relations between the Vatican and Israel and hopes for the speedy, long overdue recognition of the state.