CNS STORY: Rabbis, cantors meet pope, thank him for efforts with Jews

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POPE-RABBIS (UPDATED) Jan-18-2005 (950 words) With photos. xxxi

Rabbis, cantors meet pope, thank him for efforts with Jews

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II, meeting an international group of rabbis and cantors, urged continuing efforts to promote Jewish-Catholic dialogue and respect for every person.

"This year we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's declaration 'Nostra Aetate,' which has significantly contributed to the strengthening of Jewish-Catholic dialogue," the pope told the group, which came to Rome under the auspices of the U.S.-based Pave the Way Foundation.

The group of 130 rabbis and cantors, accompanied by about 30 Catholic friends, was the largest group of Jewish leaders ever to travel to the Vatican to meet the pope, said Salesian Father Norbert Hofmann, secretary of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews.

Before greeting each member of the group individually Jan. 18, the pope expressed his hope for a "renewed commitment to increased understanding and cooperation in the service of building a world ever more firmly based on respect for the divine image in every human being."

Gary Krupp, founder and president of the Pave the Way Foundation, thanked the pope for his efforts to promote Catholic-Jewish dialogue, for his condemnations of anti-Semitism, for his asking forgiveness for wrongs committed by Catholics against Jews and for his 2000 visit to Israel.

"It is impossible to describe the emotional impact these milestones have had on Jews worldwide," Krupp told the pope.

Most of the rabbis and cantors were from the United States, but the group also included members from Canada, Israel, France, Croatia and India.

During the audience, Rabbi Jack Bemporad, director of the New Jersey-based Center for Interreligious Understanding, and two other rabbis formally asked God to bless Pope John Paul, using a blessing drawn from the Book of Numbers.

"May the Lord bless you and keep you, Pope John Paul II, in good health and in uplifted spirits," they prayed. "May the Lord let his countenance shine upon you and be gracious unto you and all your loved ones and dear ones. May the Lord bestow upon you and upon all his creation the gift of love, the gift of understanding and the greatest gift of all, the gift of peace, shalom."

In a Jan. 17 speech in Rome, Rabbi Bemporad said the group came to Rome to thank Pope John Paul for all he has done to promote Catholic-Jewish understanding and, especially, for all he has done to extend the Second Vatican Council's positive teachings about Jews and Judaism.

The audience took place at the beginning of a year filled with events to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the council's declaration on non-Christian religions, which included a section on the special ties that bind Christianity and Judaism.

"I think the only way to properly characterize what that anniversary signifies is 'revolution, a spiritual revolution,'" the rabbi told his audience at the "Centro Pro Unione," a center for dialogue run by the Atonement Fathers.

"Never before in history -- as far as I can tell -- has any really great, significant religion decided to investigate itself and what it has taught about a religion that for many years it had held in contempt," Rabbi Bemporad said.

"The Enlightenment, with its ideals of the rights of man, liberated the Jews politically," he said. "Vatican II with its 're-cognition' of the Jewish people began to liberate the Jews religiously."

The civil rights won by European Jews following the Enlightenment, he said, were threatened as long as the European Christian majority felt the Jews were inferior and were being punished by God for not believing in Christ.

The Catholic Church not only has reviewed its teaching about the Jews and apologized for the ways individual Catholics used the teaching to despise and even justify violence against the Jews, the rabbi said, but the church also has made a commitment to teaching about Judaism in a way that Jews would recognize as reflecting their faith.

Rabbi Bemporad said the biggest challenge facing Catholic-Jewish relations today is to follow up the council's teaching with "a theology of a living Judaism," which explains how God's covenant with the Jews endures and can be a means of salvation and which recognizes the theological importance of the land of Israel for the Jews.

"Because of the Shoah (Holocaust) and the destruction of European Jewry, the significance of the land of Israel, not only as a land of refuge but as a place for the rebirth of Jewish life, has taken on a central significance in Jewish consciousness," he said.

Father Hofmann told Rabbi Bemporad and his audience that Catholic theologians and scholars are engaged in study and debate on a "Catholic theology of Judaism" and that pushing for an authoritative statement too soon could freeze the discussion prematurely.

In response to a question, Rabbi Bemporad said that for him the ongoing discussion about whether or not to beatify Pope Pius XII is not "a theological challenge" to Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

His beatification and eventual canonization are "not a Jewish issue. That is a strictly internal Catholic matter," he said.

When discussing Pope Pius, he said, people must realize that "since Vatican II the Catholic Church is not the same church, and to dredge up what happened" before the council would not be fair.

"The real issue is: Should Pius XII have spoken out?" the rabbi said.

"The sad thing is that he thought he did speak out" when he condemned race-based discrimination in Europe in his 1942 Christmas message, Rabbi Bemporad said.

"There is no question that Pius XII was afraid" of the German's reaction if he spoke too explicitly, the rabbi said. "I think he did what he thought he could do to hold it together."

END

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