The Next Generation of Jewish-Catholic Relations

When Pope Benedict XVI delivers a speech at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp complex in Poland on May 28, his words will be scrutinized by those who want the Vatican to acknowledge that centuries of church teachings paved the way for the Holocaust. In the same vein, stepped up efforts by some Catholic activists to have Pope Pius XII declared a saint are sure to be met with resistance by critics who believe that the late pontiff did not do enough to confront the Nazis or save Jews during the war.

It would be a mistake for the Jewish community to fall back on old habits by turning either matter into a major point of contention with the church. Instead, following a long process of reform and reconciliation, the time has come for a new approach to Jewish-Catholic relations, one focused more on finding ways to work together to improve the world's future than hashing out the injustices of the past.

During the past four decades, the Roman Catholic church took several revolutionary steps to cleanse itself of anti-Semitic teachings and attitudes. In the process, a much more profound transformation occurred: As the Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi has put it, in just one generation Catholic doctrine went from viewing the Jews as a cursed people who rejected Jesus to a blessed people who remain God's chosen people.

The first major shift came in 1965, when the Second Vatican Council adopted "Nostra Aetate," the revolutionary document that renounced the charge that the Jewish people are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.

In subsequent years, during the quarter-century pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the church took several groundbreaking steps, including the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel. John Paul II became the first pontiff to pray in a synagogue and the first to visit Israel, and affirmed that Judaism represented an ongoing covenant with God. He declared anti-Semitism a sin, acknowledged the failure of many Catholics to fight the Holocaust, and apologized for the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

Many of these steps could not have been taken without the support of the current pope, who was then Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican body responsible for safeguarding Catholic beliefs. Since being elected pope last year, he has signaled his commitment to ensuring that the reforms of recent decades regarding Judaism and the Jews become permanent features of the church. Last year, during a trip to his native Germany, Benedict XVI paid a visit to a synagogue, this one in Cologne, where he prayed for victims of the Holocaust. In addition to his visit to Auschwitz-Berkenau, he is said to be considering an Israel trip next year.

Such gestures and reforms cannot erase centuries of crusades, inquisitions, and pogroms, or absolve earlier generations of church leaders for their misdeeds. But they do demand that Jews take a new, forward-looking approach to the Vatican.

Continued on page 2: Finding deep common roots... »