Abraham Foxman: Benedict's meeting with Jews "more show that substance, but for the Vatican even show is substance"

As Jewish leaders reflect on the Pope's Passover greetings with Jews at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center and subsesquent visit to a synaogue in New York, some are less than impressed. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League called it "more show that substance, but for the Vatican even show is substance":

The fact that the pope invited the approximately 50 Jewish representatives to meet with him in a private room was an important gesture, said Foxman, because he "greeted us on the occasion of a Jewish festival, which basically was a recognition of religious Jewish life, Jewish faith, and Jewish rituals, and had that significance."

But there was no real dialogue, in Foxman’s view.

"He reached out, he greeted people and he reiterated his support for Nostra Aetate," the declaration issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 that deals with the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic religions, especially with Judaism. "The importance was in the event."

[...]

According to Foxman, the pope’s visit to the synagogue was more significant than the private meeting with the Jewish representatives, which he saw as a continuation of a policy began by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome in 1986.

"When Pope John Paul went to that synagogue he changed the dogma of Catholicism, which believes that Christianity superseded Judaism and that it was the new Judaism," Foxman said. "It was a public statement that Judaism exists, that Judaism lives, and that it has vitality."

At the Park East Synagogue, the pope stood before ark "bearing witness to the Jewish faith today, not when [the Catholic] messiah will come," Foxman said.

Foxman is representative of certain factions within the Jewish-Christian dialogue which believe that Nostra Aetate presented a rupture with, or reversal of, prior Catholic tradition. On the contrary, Benedict and his predecessor would read Nostrae Aetate in continuity with prior tradition, and likewise in conjunction with the other conciliar texts.

This was aptly clarified by Cardinal Kasper in a substantial essay defending Pope Benedict XVI's revisions to the "Good Friday prayer for the Jews" in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "Das Wann und Wie entscheidet Gott", March 21, 2008; later republished in L'Osservatore Romano April 10, 2008:

... The exclusion of a targeted and institutionalized mission to the Jews does not mean that Christians must stand around with their hands in their pockets. Targeted and organized mission on one side, and Christian witness on the other, must be distinguished. Naturally, Christians must, where it is opportune, give to their older brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham (John Paul II) a witness of their own faith and of the richness and beauty of their faith in Christ. Paul did this as well. During his missionary journeys, Paul always went first to the synagogue, and only when he did not find faith there did he go to the pagans (Acts of the Apostles, 13:5,14ff., 42-52; 14:1-6 and others; Romans 1:16 is fundamental).

Such a witness is also asked of us today. It must of course be done with tact and respect; but it would be dishonest if Christians, in meeting with their Jewish friends, should remain silent about their own faith, or even deny it.

We expect just as much from believing Jews toward us. In the dialogues that I have known, this attitude is entirely normal. A sincere dialogue between Jews and Christians, in fact, is possible only, on the one hand, on the basis of a shared faith in one God, creator of heaven and earth, and in the promises made to Abraham and to the Fathers; and on the other, in the awareness and respect of the fundamental difference that consists in faith in Jesus as Christ and Redeemer of all men.

The widespread incomprehension of the reformulated prayer for Good Friday is a sign of how great the task is that still lies before us in Jewish-Christian dialogue. The reactions of irritation that have arisen should, therefore, be an opportunity for clarifying and further deepening the foundations and objectives of Jewish-Christian dialogue. If a deepening of dialogue could be begun in this way, the agitation that has arisen would lead to a truly positive result in the end. One must certainly always be aware that dialogue between Jews and Christians will remain, by its nature, always difficult and fragile, and that it demands a great degree of sensitivity on both sides.

No dialogue is worth its salt unless it is grounded in truth, even if this amounts to respecting each other's core religious convictions. Rabbi Jacob Neusner exemplified this in comparing the Catholic prayers to those found within Judaic tradition for the enlightening of the Gentiles:

Israel prays for the Gentiles. So the other monotheistic religions, including the Catholic Church, have the right to do the same thing, and no one should feel offended. Any other attitude toward the Gentiles would block them from encountering the one God revealed to Israel in the Torah.

The Catholic prayer [for the conversion of the Jews] manifests the same altruistic spirit that characterizes the faith of Judaism. The kingdom of God opens its gates to all of humanity: when they pray and ask for the swift coming of the kingdom of God, the Israelites express the same degree of freedom of spirit that impregnates the papal text of the prayer for the Jews (better: "Holy Israel ") to be recited on Good Friday. ...

The prayers of Jewish and Christian proselytism share the same eschatological spirit, and keep the gate of salvation open to all men.

On the question of the Messiah, Rabbi Neusner and Pope Benedict part ways -- but the latter was appreciative enough to devote a chapter to exploring Neusner's convictions and disagreements in Jesus of Nazareth ("A Rabbi Debates with the Pope. And What Divides Them Is Still Jesus", by Sandro Magister. www.Chiesa November 6, 2007).

Unlike Neusner, Abraham Foxman of the ADL seems unable to accept Benedict's religious convictions or the Catholic call for conversion. For him, the very notion that Catholics would wish the conversion of another, particularly the Jews, is an affront. It seems that Foxman demands something that Benedict nor the Church can provide.

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Park East Synagogue (New York City)

What's Happening Today: Friday, April 18
Visit to Park East Synagogue (en route to Ecumenical Service)
NOTE: This post will be updated as more information becomes available on this topic.

On his way to an ecumenical prayer service at St. Joseph's Church in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, Pope Benedict made a 20-minute visit to the Park East Synagogue, where he met with senior Rabbi Arthur Schneier. Catholic News Service reports:

"I have worked for 46 years for religious freedom, human rights and interreligious dialogue from my pulpit," he said in an interview with Catholic News Service in the days leading up to the papal visit.

"Our synagogue has been the scene of interreligious dialogue on many occasions," he said. It has hosted Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and the chief rabbi of Israel.

Rabbi Schneier also is founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which he said "concerns itself with the situations involving oppressed Catholics, Jews and people of other religions" ...

"I've seen the consequences of the man's inhumanity to man, and therefore having survived, I have devoted my life to reaching out, to broadening the alliance between believers and developing tolerance and mutual respect between the world's religions," the rabbi said.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Rabbi Schneier was relocated to a ghetto in Budapest, Hungary, in 1938. He escaped the Holocaust and later emigrated to the United States in 1947 and has led the Park East Synagogue congregation since 1962.

Pope Benedict XVI greets the congregation during his visit to the Park East Synagogue,
Friday, April 18, 2008 in New York. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)

New York Times' "City Room" has the details of Pope Benedict XVI's synagogue visit (the first ever for any Pope in the United States):

Pope Benedict XVI paid a 22-minute visit to the Park East Synagogue — the first papal trip to a United States synagogue — on Friday afternoon. He presented the synagogue with a replica of a medieval Jewish manuscript from the Vatican library and received three gifts: a seder plate, a Passover haggadah and a box of matzo. The pope offered warm remarks and was showered with praise and music, but in a brief, three-minute address, he did not address the Holocaust, anti-Semitism or historic tensions between Jews and the Catholic Church.

The pope entered the synagogue at 5:16 p.m., as a choir sang a Hebrew liturgical song. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the leader of the congregation, welcomed the pope, who was seated on a wooden chair to the left of the bimah, the raised platform, where the rabbi spoke from a lectern.

As the choir sang “Sh’ma Yisrael,” a central declaration of faith in Judaism, a synagogue elder drew back a thick blue velvet drape, exposing the Torah scrolls that are stored behind the bimah. Rabbi Schneier told the pope that after Exodus, the Jews “embraced the law that governs the relationship between man and God.”

Rabbi Schneier recalled that he had been invited — but could not attend — the pope’s inauguration in 2005. ...

Pope Benedict XVI and Rabbi Arthur Schneier. April 18, 2008

At 5:29 p.m. [after Rabbi Schneier's remarks], the pope stood, put on his eyeglasses and was presented with a silver seder plate designed by Menahen Ben Ari Berman, a Jerusalem artist. The pope stood behind a lectern in front of the bimah and spoke:

Dear Friends, Shalom! It is with joy that I come here, just a few hours before the celebration of your Pesah, to express my respect and esteem for the Jewish community in New York City. The proximity of this place of worship to my residence gives me the opportunity to greet some of you today. I find it moving to recall that Jesus, as a young boy, heard the words of Scripture and prayed in a place such as this. I thank Rabbi Schneier for his words of welcome and I particularly appreciate your kind gift, the spring flowers and the lovely song that the children sang for me. I know that the Jewish community make a valuable contribution to the life of the city, and I encourage all of you to continue building bridges of friendship with all the many different ethnic and religious groups present in your neighborhood. I assure you most especially of my closeness at this time, as you prepare to celebrate the great deeds of the Almighty, and to sing the praises of Him who has worked such wonders for his people. I would ask those of you who are present to pass on my greetings and good wishes to all the members of the Jewish community. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

He exchanged more gifts with members of the synagogue, presenting them with the replica of a Jewish medieval legal manuscript in the Vatican library circa 1435. In return, he was given a haggadah, or Passover prayer book, and a box of matzo. Then the pope posed for photographs with Rabbi Schneier and other prominent Jews in attendance. ... (Read More)

Coverage

• At synagogue, pope seeks 'bridges of friendship' CNN April 18, 2008.

• Live Footage: Benedict at the Park East Synagogue from Catholic News Agency. April 18, 2008.

• The Jewish People, Joseph Ratzinger and Me, by Fr. James Martin. "A Papal Discussion" New York Times April 18, 2008:

  All of us have our blind spots about other people and other groups. Those blind spots can be overcome best by personal contact, honest dialogue, heartfelt prayer, and the hard work of trying to understand someone different than oneself. I think Benedict is trying very hard to do some of that with Jewish groups, with other Christian denominations and with people of other faiths. And I think he’s succeeding in building bridges, and changing relationships “for the better.”

  As he does so, I’m finding that I’m succeeding in something, too: in feeling real admiration — and even affection — for the pope whose election I once lamented.

• Synagogue Choir Is Set to Serenade Pope, by Sewell Chan. New York Times April 15, 2008.

Pope Benedict wishes Jewish community Happy Pesach!

Pope Benedict took the opportunity to offer the Jewish community a happy pesach [Passover], in a private meeting today. Gary Stern (Blogging Religiously) posts the text of the Pope's Passover Greeting:

My visit to the United States offers me the occasion to extend a warm and heartfelt greeting to my Jewish brothers and sisters in this country and throughout the world. A greeting that is all the more spiritually intense because the great feast of Pesah is approaching. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever” (Exodus 12: 14). While the Christian celebration of Easter differs in many ways from your celebration of Pesah, we understand and experience it in continuation with the biblical narrative of the mighty works which the Lord accomplished for his people.

At this time of your most solemn celebration, I feel particularly close, precisely because of what Nostra Aetate calls Christians to remember always: that the Church “received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles” (Nostra Aetate, 4). In addressing myself to you I wish to re-affirm the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and reiterate the Church’s commitment to the dialogue that in the past forty years has fundamentally changed our relationship for the better. ... (Read More)

Gary Stern surveys Jewish opinion on the Latin Good Friday Prayer

How big a deal is the flap over the Latin Good Friday prayer “for the conversion of the Jews?” - Gary Stern speaks to "several significant Jewish leaders, including two who will officially greet the pope at an interreligious gathering in Washington.

Fr. James Massa: "Pope's US visit not just for Catholics"

Zenit News Service has a lengthy interview with Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S episcopal conference's Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, regarding Benedict's agenda concerning ecumenical and interreligious affairs.

According to Fr. Massa, at the heart of which is his conviction that "there will be no peace in the world until there is peace among the religions. That is why he comes to the table of dialogue here in the U.S. and in Rome, with hope and abiding conviction.:

"At the time of Vatican II, he was a theological advisor to the German bishops who were proposing new doctrinal formulations that took account of developments in Orthodox and Protestant theology," Father Massa said. "Later on, he was a contributor to the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. As cardinal prefect in Rome, he nearly single-handedly saved the historic Joint Declaration on Justification [in] 1999, between the Lutheran World Federation and the Holy See, through a last minute intervention in a meeting at his brother's house in Germany.

"Like the four Popes that preceded him, Benedict XVI views the work of promoting Christian unity to be an essential component of the Church's mission.

"The Holy Father also honors the unique relationship that the Church maintains with the Jewish people, who are the first to be in covenant with God.

"Interreligious dialogue, especially with Islam, is key to Benedict XVI's agenda for the work of promoting peace and human rights throughout the world."

On the Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's now-famous Regensburg Address, Fr. Massa rightly points out the central role of the media in fanning the flames of controversy:

The press obviously has a crucial role to play in interpreting these developments for a global audience," the priest affirmed. "It was unfortunate that portions of the European press created the headline out of the opening paragraphs of the Regensburg address, which was in its totality a brilliant and respectful challenge to all people of religious conviction to demonstrate that reason has nothing to fear from faith and that faith must always welcome the purifying encounter with reason.

"Together, Muslims and Catholics face a common adversary in the form of an aggressive secularism that denies transcendent moral principles that undergird the rule of law and respect for human dignity."

In January, Benedict invited Muslim representatives to dialogue with him at the Vatican, a response to "A Common Word" -- an "open letter" by 138 Muslim intellectuals to the Pope and other Christian leaders.

Benedict also faces criticism as a consequence of his motu proprio liberalizing the use of the 1962 Missal, which includes a Good Friday intercessory prayer for the salvation of the Jews.

In February 2008 he had revised the prayer to remove some elements deemed offensive, but as John Allen Jr. noted, his "attempt to meet his critics half-way appears to have left almost no one fully satisfied." (We invite you to see our coverage: " Pope Benedict, The Jews and the "Good Friday Prayer"" @ The Benedict Blog for further details & analysis).

Related Reading

• Ratzinger on Ecumenism: A Reading List, compiled by Carl Olson. Insight Scoop November 30, 2006.

Benedict to visit Park East Synagogue in New York

(Via New York Times' CityRoom) - Breaking news:

Pope Benedict XVI has added a new stop to his New York itinerary: the first papal visit to a synagogue in the United States and only the third such visit by a pope to any synagogue. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced today that the pope will visit Park East Synagogue at 164 East 68th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues on the afternoon of April 18, the day he arrives in the city.

Pope Benedict was invited by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the leader of Park East Synagogue. This would be only the third papal visit to a synagogue anywhere. The pope visited the Cologne Synagogue in his native Germany in April 2005, and Pope John Paul II visited the Rome Synagogue in Italy in April 1986.

Rabbi Schneier said in a statement released with the announcement:

For the last 46 years I have preached from this pulpit advocating Torah values of freedom, human rights, and mutual respect. It is my unique privilege to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to Park East Synagogue on his first visit to a Jewish House of Worship in the United States. This historic first is a reaffirmation of Pope Benedict XVI commitment to inter-religious dialogue and outreach to the Jewish community.

Rabbi Schneier's bio (from the Synagogue's website):

Rabbi Arthur Schneier has since 1962 been the spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue, a historic landmark in New York City. As Senior Rabbi he has brought local, national and international recognition to Park East Synagogue through his more than four decades of dedication to nurturing and cultivating Jewish life in New York, in Israel and around the globe. More than 25 years ago he founded the Park East Day School, a unique Early Childhood through Grade 8 Jewish Day School based on a combined general academic and Jewish studies curriculum, with a decidedly global focus. His driving commitment to renew Jewish life globally has stretched from his pioneering campaign for Soviet Jewry in the 1960s to the recent revitalization of Jewish cantorial music in New York by bringing, in September 2005, Cantor Yitzhak Meir Helfgot of Jerusalem to Park East Synagogue as its Chief Cantor.

Rabbi Schneier has also worked for religious freedom and tolerance throughout the world as founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation (1965). A recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, 2001, he was cited as "a Holocaust survivor who has devoted a lifetime to overcoming forces of hatred and intolerance and set an inspiring example of spiritual leadership by encouraging interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and promoting the cause of religious freedom around the world." He was also a U.S. Alternate Representative to the U.N. General Assembly and was recently appointed to the High-Level Group, Alliance of Civilizations, by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

* * *

In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Jewish community of Cologne, becoming the first Pope to visit a synagogue in Germany.

On April 13, 1986, Pope John Paul II visited the Great Synagogue in Rome, the first recorded papal visit on record, where he gave a historic address reiterating Nostra Aetate's condemnation of "the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone" and reaffirmed the Church's desire for dialogue and friendship with her "elder brothers."

Related

• Pope Benedict XVI and the Jews The Benedict Blog April 26, 2005 - a brief survey of Cardinal Ratzinger-Benedict's views of Judaism and the Jewish people.
• Pope Benedict XVI, Auschwitz, and the Nature of Anti-Semitism The Benedict Blog May 30, 2006 - covering Benedict's famous visit to the Nazi death camp in 2006.

Cinematic Screed against Catholic Church timed with Benedict's Visit

Gary Stern reports that Pope Benedict XVI's visit to New York (and the eve of Passover) will be accompanied by a film based on James Carroll's controversial polemic Constantine's Sword:

Carroll is a former Catholic priest and sharp critic of the Catholic Church. His book is largely about the history of anti-Semitism in the church.

A release says that in the film “Carroll raises difficult questions about Pope Benedict’s leadership.”

The timing of the premiere will, one has to believe, strike some people as inappropriate.

Here is a synopsis of the film from its website:

Constantine’s Sword is the story of James Carroll; a former Catholic priest on a journey to confront his past and uncover the roots of religiously inspired violence and war. His search also reveals a growing scandal involving religious infiltration of the U.S. military and the terrible consequences of religion’s influence on America’s foreign policy.

Carroll focuses on Christian antisemitism as the model for all religious hatred, exposing the cross as a symbol of a long history of violence against Jews (and, most recently, Moslems). The film brings the history of religious intolerance to life, tracing it as a source of the fanaticism that threatens the world today. At its core, Constantine’s Sword is a compelling personal narrative — a kind of detective story — as one man uncovers the dark areas of his own past, searching for a better future.

Unlike other histories of anti-semitism (I would personally recommend Fr. Edward Flannery's The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism), Carroll in one who has, in his laudable zeal to "purify" the Church of latent anti-semitism, "thrown out the baby with the bathwater" -- identifying anti-semitism so closely with Christianity that the only real solution would culminate in the end of Christianity itself. His scholarly efforts are impeded by the fact that he brings to the table his own personal agenda and a desire to refashion the Church according to his whims.

Eugene J. Fisher, former associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (and by virtue of his office, typically sympathetic to Jewish concerns over anti-semitism), reviewed the book and found it wanting ("Two Millennia of Catholic-Jewish Relations" America March 5, 2001):

The chief flaw [of Constantine's Sword] is that the book uses the tragedies of the Jews over the centuries in order to make the quite unrelated and entirely internal Christian point that the author thinks the church should be structured differently than it is—i.e. as a democracy—and that its Christology is too high—i.e. that the church really believes that Jesus was and is God as well as a man. For Carroll, this leads to “exclusivism” at the heart of Christian theology, which means that all human beings in some way known only to God are saved in and through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ, even those who are not baptized. [...]

Whether one agrees with Carroll’s theology, however, the point remains that he has absolutely no right to use Jewish suffering over the centuries to push it forward. Ironically, Carroll’s failure here can best be paralleled by, and is a logical inversion of, that of the early church fathers, whom he rightly criticizes for having used the historical incident of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a “proof” of the divinity of Christ. Why else, they argued, would God have been so righteously angered at his own people, unless they had killed his Son? See how the Jews suffer and are dispersed? That is God’s punishment for deicide. So, too, I believe, does Carroll fall into the classic Christian temptation to use Jewish suffering as a proof text. This, history has shown (and Carroll himself writes a lot of that history extremely well), is a very dangerous course to take. Self-projection may make for good narrative in a novel, but it is not very good history.

Two other reviews by "Dismantling the Cross", by Robert Louis Wilken (Commonweal January 26, 2001), Sins of the Fathers, by Daniel P. Moloney (National Review. March 5, 2001) arrive at similar disappointed assessments.

All the more reason, then, to treat with caution the book's cinematic adaptation.

Related

• As Catholic News' Diogenes observes, "what really irks Carroll is the Pope's "positing Christian superiority to other faiths" This leads to some pretty peculiar accusations, as when Carroll himself fans the flames of religious strife by accusing the notably anti-war Benedict of "supplying a religious underpinning" to George Bush's "crusade" in Iraq.

• More logorrhea from the Boston Globe & James Carroll - Fr. John Zuhlsdorf deconstructs Carroll's criticism of Benedict's institution of the "prayer for the Jews" in the Good Friday liturgy.

Limited Opportunity for Dialogue at JPII Cultural Center "Interfaith Service" with the Pope

According to the Washington Post's PopeWatch, the interreligious meeting during Benedict's US visit will be a strictly "one way" affair:

Benedict will hold a meeting with interfaith leaders at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. on April 17. And he will hold a prayer service with 300 leaders from other Christian denominations at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, in Manhattan the next day.

But in a briefing today at the U.S. Conference of Bishops' headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Rev. Ronald Roberson, associate director of ecumenical and interrreligious affairs and the Rev. Dennis McManus, the conference's liaison to the Jewish faith, made clear that it will be Benedict who will do the talking.

According to the Washington Times, the April 17 interfaith gathering at the John Paul II Cultural Center will consist of a 20-minute papal address "on the use of religion as an instrument of peace", a brief presentation of gifts and the exchange of a few words:

Ravi Gupta, 25, a Hindu professor at Centre College in Danville, Ky., hopes to do more than present the pope with a brass incense holder in the shape of the Sanskrit word "Om."

"I'd like to encourage him to open up a full dialogue with Hinduism and bring Hindus to the table," he said. "That is important considering India's growing presence in the world. Religious issues in India are taking on a lot more significance than they used to."

As is expected, the Jewish people have some concerns to express as well: the matter of the recent revival of the Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of the Jewish people:

"We as Jews would normally be the last ones to be weigh in on our [ecumenical] partner's internal theological beliefs and liturgical practices, but we were perplexed by the pope's steps to revive the use of a prayer that recommends the conversion of Jews," [said David J. Michaels, director of intercommunal affairs at B'nai B'rith International].

"I don't know if I will have the opportunity to say anything to him about it, but if I do, I'd ask the pope in a spirit of friendship and honesty to take into account the needs and feelings of his Jewish partners."

Jewish reactions to the re-institution of the prayer are mixed. The Times interviewed Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, who begs to differ:

"My position is each religion has to respect the other religion," he said. "It is not for a Jewish person to meddle in the texts of Catholic rituals nor is it right for Christians to meddle in Jewish texts. It'd be brazen for me to criticize what this pope and any other Catholic leader would say in their liturgy."

The pope's visit will overlap with Passover this year. According to , "Benedict wanted to extend — through him and several other Jewish leaders present — Passover greetings to American Jews."